Chapter 17
Elowyn
Istared at the door of the coven home, willing it to open. My heartbeat thudded in my throat as I watched the wooden frame like I could drag Abram through it with sheer desperation.
Please. Gods, please. Where are you?
The whispers of the women grew louder with every passing second, their voices weaving together into one suffocating hum. Abram was an hour late. He had never been late for me. Not once. Something must be wrong. Something terrible. He must be injured. Or worse.
“Something is wrong.” My voice cracked as I stepped toward the door, ready to run barefoot if I had to. “He wouldn’t stand me up. He must be hurt. I will go check on him and bring him here as soon as I find him.”
Lizzie stepped into my path, blocking me with her body. Her hand reached out to lightly touch my arm, but the smile on her face cut sharper than a blade.
“A deadline is a deadline, Elowyn.” Her tone was falsely sweet. “We gave you an extra hour. Just admit that you never married anyone.”
“What?” The word left my mouth as a breath of disbelief. My gaze darted around the room, landing on face after face that refused to meet my eyes. Faces that looked away as if ashamed for me. Faces that believed the worst.
“That is what you think? That I didn’t get married?”
I didn’t need their answers. The silence was full of it. My chest tightened so painfully it felt like something inside me tore.
“He never came to any functions with you,” Lizzie said, her smile widening as tears welled in my eyes. “And now he doesn’t show up on the day of crowning?”
She looked directly at my shaking hands, at the tremble in my jaw.
I had asked him to come, but he was busy. He was a god. I tried to believe it. But another thought slipped in like a knife beneath my ribs, soft and poisonous.
Maybe he didn’t want to be seen with me.
It came from nowhere, yet the moment it landed in my mind, it rooted itself deep. Heavy. Suffocating. I couldn’t shake it loose.
The room tilted, the whispers pressing in around me.
“Move,” I demanded. “Abram would never leave me here unless something was wrong. I swear on the moon.”
A gasp rippled through the coven, sharp enough to sting. Swearing on the moon was forbidden. Sacred. Lizzie sighed as if I had inconvenienced her with my fear.
“Fine, you have one hour. Not a second more.”
“I’ll be back.”
I bolted for the door, skirts brushing through the cold air of the hall. My pulse thundered in my ears as I clutched the small amulet of magic Abram had given me. It pulsed, responding to my frantic plea, and pulled me toward him.
When I landed in our home, the silence greeted me like a slap.
“Abe?” My voice cracked. “Where are you?”
Nothing. No footsteps. No breath. No magic humming in the walls. Just stillness. Empty and echoing.
Panic rose up my throat, clawing at me, refusing to let go. Something was wrong. Something terrible. My chest tightened until breathing felt impossible. Maybe Della knew where he was.
I grabbed the amulet again. Star mist swirled up around me, cocooning me in bright, shimmering light.
When it vanished, I was standing outside Della’s house in the woods.
Not her house.
The woods.
Why? Why would it drop me here?
I stepped forward, but froze. Laughter drifted through the trees. Warm. Familiar. His laughter.
Abram.
My heart punched against my ribs as I moved quietly toward the sound. I slipped beside the small shed, pressing my back against the wood, and peered around the corner.
A long table stretched out beneath strings of lanterns, white linens glowing under their soft light. Fancy dishes. Fresh bread. Steaming platters. A beautiful spread of comfort and celebration.
Family dinner.
Ezra, Della, Haden, Cassius, Thea—they were all there, laughing, talking, relaxed. A picture of belonging. But all of that collapsed from my mind the second I saw Abram.
He was sitting there. Eating. Laughing. Perfectly at ease.
And beside him… her.
A beautiful woman with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Skin like snow. A dress that made her eyes even brighter.
My stomach dropped. Hurt and betrayal flooded through every vein as he sat there carefree, laughing while I had been terrified he was injured or dead.
She tossed her head back in a laugh and wrapped her hand around his arm.
He didn’t push her hand away. A sharp ache lodged itself in my chest. Why did she get to do this with him? Every laugh, every touch, every casual smile twisted like a knife.
“Elowyn?” Della’s voice broke Abram’s focus on the woman.
I hadn’t looked away from him, even as he stood and turned toward me. His gaze lingered on me, as if he had never seen me before. His brows pinched together in confusion before his eyes darted toward the dark sky. Why did he look so lost? Did he truly not remember… me?
Gods, I hadn’t even realized I had walked closer to the table, my feet moving without thought, drawn to him even as my chest ached.
Abram’s eyes softened, and then filled with guilt. “What are you doing here, Elowyn?” he asked.
I swallowed hard, the lump of emotions threatening to choke me. The hum of the gathering faded into nothing, and all I could hear was the pounding of my heart.
“You didn’t show up,” I said, forcing as much calm into my voice as I could.
No one said a word. The space between us felt unbearably charged. Every eye at the table lingered on us, but I only saw Abram. His brows pinched again, tighter this time, and his gaze flitted around the dark sky like he was grasping for something he had lost.
“Wait… what time is it?” he asked, voice slightly panicked.
He rubbed his forehead, teeth grinding together, like he was trying to pull back the memory of me from some hidden corner of his mind.
“Shit, sorry, time slipped away from me. I swear I was planning on coming.”
I nodded, forcing myself to meet his gaze while my heart twisted. My eyes flickered to the woman watching him closely. Her presence burned in my chest, but his attention shifted briefly to her, and then back to me, as if the universe had pulled us into this impossible orbit together.
“You promised me.”
The words scraped out of me, raw and shaking.
“I know. We can go now.” He started toward me, relief flickering over his features, until the woman came up behind him and wrapped her hand around his arm.
“Abe, you can’t leave me here,” she muttered. “I don’t know anyone.”
My focus snapped to her fingers curled around him. A white-hot bolt of jealousy tore through me so violently my breath caught. She held him like she had a right to. Like she belonged at his side.
“Get your hands off of him,” I snapped, the words edged with something feral and uncontrollable.
She tensed, eyes darting from me to Abram. Instead of letting go, her grip tightened. The insult of it struck me deeper than any blade. I took a step toward her, ready to rip her hand away myself, but Abram’s arm came up between us.
“Don’t,” he warned, firm and almost desperate. “I will go with you to the coven.”
He turned and leaned in to whisper something to the woman, too soft for me to hear, yet whatever he said made her nod and step back, finally giving us space. It didn’t matter; my blood was still boiling.
“I begged the coven to give you more time to show up. I told them that you would never stand me up. I was sick with worry, Abram. I thought you had been hurt or wounded!”
My anger surged outward, rattling the dishes on the long table. Several of his family members stiffened, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t breathe. Guilt flickered in Abram’s eyes, but it only fueled the ache inside me.
“Do you know what that was like? To be accused that I had made up this man completely. You were supposed to show up for me tonight. It was the most important day in my life, and you forgot!”
Abram didn’t speak. He didn’t do anything. He just stood there, staring at me with a lost, devastated expression as I completely unraveled in front of everyone he loved.
“Then I get here, and you’re eating food with some fucking woman?” I sneered, the betrayal sharp enough to taste.
His eyes widened, darting rapidly between me and the others, panic rising like he was trapped in a nightmare he didn’t understand.
“I… Elowyn, I don’t even remember today. I swear… gods, I don’t remember what I was supposed to do.”
The floor dropped out from under me.
“Are you that embarrassed of me?” I asked, voice breaking as the question, my worst fear, escaped before I could stop it.
“No, Elowyn, please; it’s not like that.” He stepped toward me, desperation in every line of his body, but I moved back before he could touch me. “I swear I was going to come, but I got caught up, and time slipped away. I swear it was unintentional.”
She made him forget me in the span of hours. Gods, how easily I was replaced.
“You let me down. Like everyone else in my life,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks, hot and relentless.
His jaw clenched, the muscle ticking as guilt, frustration, maybe confusion warred in his eyes.
Everyone around us had gone silent, staring like we were a tragedy unfolding in slow motion.
And maybe we were. My heart felt like it was being torn apart piece by piece.
He didn’t care enough to remember. I was nothing more than an afterthought—forgotten, just like my father had forgotten me.
“She’s my mate,” he blurted out.
There it was. The final, merciless stab to my heart.
I looked at the beautiful woman beside him. The woman who was acting like he was already hers. The woman who had touched him without hesitation. She smirked at me, dark, triumphant, cruel. Like she wanted me to see exactly what she’d taken.
No, this wasn’t right.
But when I stared at her dark hair, something cold and familiar slid through me. Was this the woman I saw with Abram in his fate?
“No,” I whispered, barely able to breathe. “You belong to me.”