Chapter 5 #2
“Poison,” Rowan said quietly. “On Axel’s claws. Slows supernatural healing, clouds judgment.”
Summer’s hands stilled on a particularly deep gash. “So he did poison you? During a formal challenge? What a coward!”
“Apparently, it’s allowed under pack law. A way to… level the playing field.”
The bitter tone in his voice told her all she needed to know about what he thought of such tactics. She worked in silence for several minutes, cleaning the wounds with antiseptic. He hissed through clenched teeth.
“I should have been there,” she said finally, her voice thick with guilt. “If I hadn’t fallen for that trap?—”
“You couldn’t have changed the outcome.” Rowan’s hand covered hers, stilling her movements. “And seeing you hurt would have destroyed me faster than any poison.”
Summer met his eyes, seeing the love there but also something else. Distance. Like he was looking at her from across a vast chasm she couldn’t bridge.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“Now we’re exiled, or at least I am. Excommunicated from the pack.” He said it with flat finality, simply stating an irrevocable fact. “I have until sunset to leave pack territory.”
Everything they’d built, everyone they’d come to love—gone in a single morning.
“Lena said I could choose,” Summer said slowly. “Go with you or stay with the pack.”
Rowan’s entire body went rigid. “And?”
“Did you really think I’d choose anyone else?” She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against his. “Whatever happens, wherever we go, we go together.”
Some of the tension left his shoulders, but the strange distance remained as if he was present in body but absent in spirit.
Summer finished tending his wounds in silence, applying fresh bandages with the gentle efficiency of someone who’d patched up countless injuries.
But when she was done, when there was nothing left to distract from the weight of their new reality, the awkwardness between them became impossible to ignore.
“Come here,” Rowan said quietly, his hands settling on her hips as he pulled her closer.
Summer went willingly, settling into his lap despite the careful way he positioned her to avoid aggravating his injuries.
When he kissed her, she tasted blood and a hint of the poison still contaminating his system, the metallic edge of defeat mixing with the familiar heat that always sparked between them.
But something was wrong.
His mouth moved against hers. It was achingly familiar; his hands traced patterns on her skin. It should have driven her wild with need. Every touch was technically perfect, every caress designed to maximize her pleasure. But it felt… mechanical. Is he just going through the motions?
“Rowan,” she whispered against his lips, pulling back to study his face.
“I need you,” he said roughly, his hands already working at the buttons of her shirt. “Need to feel you, to know you’re real.”
Summer let him undress her, let him lay her back on their bed with reverent care. When he covered her body with his own and slid inside her, he moved with the steady rhythm that usually made her come apart in his arms. She tried to lose herself in the familiar pleasure.
But even as her body responded, even as he brought her to climax with the methodical precision of someone who knew exactly how to touch her, part of her remained disconnected. As if she were watching from afar.
This was Rowan’s body, Rowan’s scent, Rowan’s voice whispering her name as he found his own release. But the man behind the actions felt like a stranger wearing her lover’s face.
Afterward, as they lay tangled together in the aftermath, Summer traced idle patterns on his chest and tried to convince herself she was imagining things. Trauma could affect people in strange ways. Defeat and exile would change anyone.
But when she looked up at his face, expecting to see the soft contentment that usually followed their lovemaking, she found him staring at the ceiling with distant eyes.
“Get some rest,” he said quietly, his arm tightening around her. The hug should have been comforting but felt more like an obligation. “We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Summer curled against his side, listening to the steady beat of his heart and trying to shake the feeling that something fundamental had changed between them. The mate bond hummed with life, confirming his presence, his emotions, his love for her.
So why do I feel like I’m sleeping next to a ghost?
Exhaustion eventually claimed her, dragging her down into dreams filled with poison and exile and the hollow echo of mechanical passion. When she woke hours later, golden afternoon light was streaming through their bedroom windows.
The bed beside her was empty.
Summer sat up, panic fluttering in her chest as she looked around their cabin. No sign of Rowan. No sound of movement from the other rooms. Just silence and the lingering scent of his presence.
On the pillow where his head should have been, she found a folded piece of paper with her name written in his familiar handwriting.
Summer,
By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I won’t bring more danger to your door, and I won’t watch you throw away your life for a man who can’t protect you.
The pack will take care of you if you let them. Lena will explain your options. You deserve better than exile with a failure.
Trust no one. Something is coming, and I can’t be here to shield you from it.
Always yours,
Rowan.
Summer read the note three times before the words fully penetrated the fog of sleep and confusion. Then she was moving, throwing on clothes and racing outside to scan the empty yard for any sign of which direction he’d gone.
But there were no tire tracks, no footprints, no trail to follow. It was as if Rowan had simply vanished into the Louisiana wilderness, taking her heart with him.
The mate bond pulsed weakly in her chest, confirming he was alive but distant. Too distant for her to track, too far away for her to follow.
Summer sank to her knees in the dirt outside their cabin, clutching the note against her chest as the full weight of abandonment crashed over her. First defeat, now desertion. In the space of twenty-four hours, she’d lost everything—pack, home, and the man she’d chosen over immortality itself.
The golden afternoon light, seemingly so warm moments before now felt harsh and unforgiving, highlighting her solitude with pitiless clarity.
Her mate had abandoned her, and now, despite all his promises, she was alone. She rose to her feet and started packing.