Chapter 332
Ellie’s POV
I ran until my lungs were on fire and my legs felt like they were about to give out.
The invisibility had worn off about halfway through my escape, leaving me exposed and more vulnerable than I would have liked. I tried eating some more petals of the Ghost’s Whisper, but they didn’t work anymore, too wilted from being picked so long ago and having lost their properties.
But I kept running anyway, crashing through the underbrush and ignoring the branches that tore at my skin and the dress that was barely hanging on by threads.
I didn’t know if the rogues were still following me. I didn’t hear howling anymore, not after the first half hour or so, but that didn’t mean I was safe. It just meant that I needed to keep moving. I needed to put as much space between them and myself as possible, just in case they had come after me, which they probably had.
After hours of nonstop moving, my knees barking with pain and my feet on the verge of turning into bloody stumps, the forest eventually gave way to familiar territory. I recognized the stone wall that marked the edge of the pack land, the village dotted with lights shining in the windows, and beyond that, the path that led toward the Alpha house.
Home.
Or what used to be home, anyway.
Once I was beyond the wall, I allowed myself to come to a stop and bent over, bracing my hands on my knees and gasping for air. My shoulder was bleeding again, the wound having reopened from all the running. My feet were torn to shreds. Every part of me hurt, and my wolf was even weaker now, having had no time to recover before the wounds returned.
But I was alive. That was all that mattered right now.
Now, I needed to focus on getting to a safer pack than this one.
Catching my breath, I straightened and looked toward the house in the distance. The lights were on. People were moving around inside, probably going about their morning routines like nothing had happened.
Like I hadn’t just spent the last two days being held captive by rogues.
My jaw clenched.
Dominic was probably in there right now, sitting with Vivian, comforting her after her “traumatic” ordeal. Or maybe they were laughing about how well their plan had worked. How easily they’d gotten rid of me.
The thought made me sick.
I’d been an idiot to think he’d changed. To think he actually cared about me. He’d chosen Vivian in that
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Chapter 332
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warehouse, and he would do it again. He had probably done it a hundred times already.
Well, I was done. Done with him. Done with this marriage. Done with all of it. I had made that decision during my escape, when all I had to think about was fear and the feeling of my feet pounding against the forest floor and how much I hated him.
I turned away from the house and started walking in the opposite direction. The Alpha house was probably full of enemies, no one there that I could trust not to try to kill me and get rid of me for good. My mother’s cottage, on the other hand, wasn’t far from here. Maybe half a mile. I could make it, even if my body felt like it was falling apart.
I decided that I was going to tell her about my rebirth. And then we were leaving. Both of us. I’d take her to Lucas’s pack if I had to. He’d offered me protection before. I was sure he’d do it again. We could stay there until the divorce was finalized and my mate bond with Dominic was broken. Once he couldn’t try to force me under his thumb again.
The sun had risen as I reached the cottage. The grass out front was steaming as the morning dew dissipated in the heat, and as I approached, I found that the door was open.
The smell of smoke reached my nostrils even at the end of the path.
I poked my head inside, expecting to hear the familiar sounds of my mother bustling around the kitchen, perhaps having burnt her breakfast. But the inside of the house was quiet, and the smell of smoke was
even more rancid.
“Mom?” I called out. There was no answer.
Curious, I stepped inside and approached the kitchen, where the smoke was the thickest. I gasped as I saw that her coffee pot was sitting on the stove, still running. Rushing over, I took an oven mitt and removed the pot from the stove, dropping it into the sink and turning on the water.
The water sizzled against the metal. Leaving it running, I turned off the burner, then opened the window, coughing and waving my hand in my face.
“Mom?” I turned slowly, looking around. “You home?”
Still nothing. Worried that she’d gotten hurt, I made my way through the house. The bathroom was empty. Her bedroom door was cracked open.
I walked up to the door and pushed it open wider… And gasped.
The inside of her room was a mess. The bed was unmade. The vase of flowers that sat on her bedside
table had fallen, leaving water, petals, and shards of pottery scattered across the floor.
And there, near the edge of the bed was a small puddle of blood.
My breath caught in my throat.
I walked over to the blood and crouched down, pressing my fingers into it. It was dry, crusted against the wood. But when I pinched it between my fingers, it burst with the smell of rust. Definitely blood.
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