The Alpha Heir’s Candle Game Chapter 08
The Sanctuary Gate
I heard him.
Of course I heard him.
I heard Ethan calling my name at the north gate, both times, clear as a bell over the wind.
I didn’t want anything more to do with him. So I let him think I hadn’t.
…
The sanctuary on the northern ridge was harder than I’d pictured.
I didn’t have the rank to serve the Grand Luna up close. I waited outside her hall most days.
The wind on that ridge cut through my cloak and left my cheeks stinging red for hours after.
At night, my quarters had no fire, no warm water, nothing but a cot and a wool blanket and my own breath fogging the air.
But it was quiet.
Up there, I didn’t have to think about anything.
The old rites carried through the walls every morning, low and steady, and after a while, even when I did think of Ethan, my chest didn’t feel hollowed out anymore.
If anything, I felt something I hadn’t felt in months.
Calm.
On the tenth day, Ethan came to the sanctuary gate.
It hadn’t been that long. But he looked different.
The polish was gone. He looked less like the Alpha heir of the Blackwell pack and more like any tired male at the end of a hard road.
The wind roughed up his voice.
“You came all the way out here with my grandmother and you couldn’t tell me? Why couldn’t you ask me first?”
Interesting question.
I hadn’t mated him. I wasn’t in his wing anymore. I wasn’t under his hand at all. Where I chose to go was mine.
I told him exactly that.
He didn’t have an answer.
“Please go back, Alpha heir.” I kept my voice even. “These grounds are for quiet. Not for this.”
He put his hand on the door before I could close it.
He let out a long breath. The set of his shoulders softened.
“Enough, Jade. Pack your things. Come home with me. I’ve come to you. I’ve said it. Stop making me chase you. Your five years are up. Once we’re back, I’ll ask my father to bless the mating.”
“Alpha heir.” I kept my voice low. “You didn’t understand what I said. I’m not going to mate you. Not now. Not ever.”
Ethan froze.
“But… You once wanted this more than anything.”
Once, I had.
Once, I’d talked about mating him in my sleep.
He used to tease me for it in the mornings, laughing into my hair.
But…
“That was then. This is now. Wolves change.”
His brows drew together on instinct, the same way they always did. “Because of Clara.”
There it was.
He still believed the two of us had come apart because a she-wolf had stepped between us. Not his rigging. Not his lies. Not the fact that I had knelt on his floor and begged for a pass to see my mother seven times.
Just Clara.
I didn’t have anything left to spend on him.
I moved his hand off the door and shut it in his face.
I turned to go.
The Grand Luna was standing under the covered walk.
I bowed low.
She didn’t tell me to rise. “My grandson is a fool in love, girl. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen him beg. Are you sure. No regrets?”
I shook my head.
“He and I were never going to fit, Grand Luna. Better a short pain now than a lifetime of tangling with him.”
I had already tried. Seven times. Seven candles. Seven losses.
There was nothing left in me that wanted to try again.
The Grand Luna’s mouth curved.
“You love hard and you cut clean. I was the same at your age.”
“From today, you serve at my side.”