- 3 minutes ago
They Stole My Crown, I Became Their Queen
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Short filmTranscript
00:00My wolf faded away, leaving me to curl up and die alone in the freezing snow.
00:03Only then did the goddess descend, waking me with a kiss to reveal the venomous conspiracy.
00:06My alpha and my sister used dark magic and poison to steal the life that was mine!
00:10Reborn seven days before the ceremony. This time, I am your worst nightmare.
00:13I watched the man standing before me. The concern in his eyes looked genuine,
00:16burning with that particular heat unique to werewolves.
00:18His rough hand reached for my forehead, faking a warmth to chase away my fears.
00:22I'm fine, just a nightmare.
00:23Draven paused. Those sharp eyes, the eyes of a future alpha flickered with brief surprise
00:28before settling back into their familiar warmth.
00:29Silly girl. It was just a bad dream. We're fated mates under the moon goddess's blessing.
00:33There's nothing to be afraid of.
00:34He set a glass of wine on the wooden table and slid it toward me.
00:37The scent rising from it was sweet, in a way that felt wrong.
00:40Drink up. When you're done, I'll walk you to the sacred grove at the heart of our territory.
00:43Word is, the first moon-blessed flower of the season has already bloomed.
00:46I'll help you pick it, at the coming-of-age ceremony in a few days.
00:49I'll pin it in your hair myself.
00:51You'll stand before the entire pack as its most honored luna.
00:53In my past life, he had said those exact words.
00:55I had drunk without hesitation. The poison had sent my wolf into a two-day sleep.
00:59I missed the first resonance of the moon goddess's mark.
01:01The pack called me a deceiver.
01:03And everything, my crown, my birthright, my life, was taken from me.
01:06Until I died alone on the open plains.
01:07I stared at the glass.
01:08Behind the folds of my sleeve, my nails pressed into my palm.
01:11Then I looked up and met his eyes.
01:12Dervin, the territorial inheritance covenant my parents left behind, and the blood relic
01:17of my maternal bloodline.
01:18They're still with you for safe-caping, aren't you?
01:20With the easy certainty of someone who had never been questioned.
01:23Your parents were gone so young, and you and Ellie were so small, I was afraid you might
01:26lose them.
01:26Why do you ask?
01:29I'd like them back.
01:30I'm an adult now.
01:31I can't keep relying on my future alpha for everything.
01:33The ceremony is almost here.
01:35As the older sister, I should be the one managing the territory our parents left to Ellie and
01:38me.
01:38Those sharp werewolf eyes narrowed, moving over me slowly, reading.
01:41In my past life, after my parents died, I had made this man my entire world.
01:44I had handed him everything.
01:45My trust, my heart, every decision about the pack, the bloodline, the future without a
01:48second thought.
01:49I sold it.
01:49His voice dropped, roughened with something that performed hurt.
01:52You don't trust me anymore?
01:53Are you questioning the loyalty of your future alpha, or do you think I'd steal from the
01:56White Wolf Bloodline's legacy?
01:58I trust you.
01:58But because I'm going to be your Luna, I need to learn to stand on my own.
02:01I can't be someone who leans on her alpha for everything.
02:04Someone who can't even protect what her parents left her.
02:07Fine.
02:08Drink first, and I'll get your things.
02:10Don't wait too long.
02:11The moon goddess's blessing fades.
02:12Beneath the deep, heady cement of wine, I caught it.
02:14Faint and carefully buried.
02:15The unmistakable trace of wolf pine.
02:17Then I let my hand turn.
02:19Crimson wine spread across my skirt.
02:20Oh, arranging my face into alarm.
02:22I spilled it.
02:23The smile on Draven's face died.
02:24His eyes bled red.
02:25It's nothing.
02:26The words came out controlled.
02:27He drew a slow breath, forcing the darkness back down.
02:30I'll call for a servant to bring clean clothes.
02:31Don't bother.
02:32I'll change in my room.
02:33I turned and walked to the inner chamber, pulling the heavy wooden door shut behind me
02:36and throwing the bolt.
02:36When I came back out, he was waiting in the front room.
02:39A leather sackle in his hands, its surface carved with old wolf runes.
02:42He held it out, his voice flat.
02:43Everything you asked for.
02:44I kept those things safe for years.
02:45I didn't expect you'd be in such a rush to take them back.
02:47I popped the clasp.
02:48Inside, the covenant sat atop the White Wolf relic, its silver glow pulsing like a faint heartbeat.
02:52In my past life, he locked them away to gather dust until I died.
02:55People grow up.
02:56Luna or not, I am the White Wolf heir.
02:58The goddess blessing is mine.
02:59And this time, no one takes it.
03:02When I arrived the next morning, they were already there.
03:05Ellie, all in white, served him shyly.
03:08He watched her with a sickening softness and tapped her nose.
03:11They froze when they saw me.
03:13Ellie snatched her hand back, whimpering quietly.
03:16Darren recovered first, pulling out the chair beside him.
03:19I didn't acknowledge it.
03:22Before he could speak, a servant set the sacred elixir before me.
03:26Brewed under a blood moon, this rare potion purifies a wolf's power for the covenant ceremony.
03:30As the dense smell filled the hall, the goddess's ultimate blessing was finally within reach.
03:34Ellie's eyes moved to the cup.
03:35Something passed through them, quick and hungry, before she looked away.
03:38Isoleth, let Ellie have it.
03:40I had just lifted my cup, only to set it down again as I fixed my eyes on him.
03:44Ellie was born without a wolf.
03:45Her body has always been fragile.
03:48You're her sister.
03:49You wouldn't want her to suffer.
03:51You'll be fine without it.
03:53He reached across the table, fingers closing around the cup.
03:57Ellie's face lit with a flash of triumph.
03:59She couldn't quite suppress.
04:00Darren, this isn't right.
04:02The council prepared this for my sister's ceremony.
04:04What's wrong with it?
04:05Isoleth has always given you everything.
04:07I brought my hand down.
04:10The sound cut through the dining hall like a blade.
04:12In the silence that followed, something shifted in Draen's face.
04:15The warmth drained out of it entirely.
04:17The air in the room changed.
04:18That particular suffocating pressure that belonged only to an alpha rolling outward from him in a slow wave.
04:23The servants dropped to their knees.
04:25Ellie slumped forward onto the table, trembling uncontrollably.
04:27I looked at him and didn't move.
04:28The pressure pressed down on my shoulders like a physical weight.
04:30I let it.
04:31I held his gaze and kept my voice level.
04:32That bowl was sent by the High Council for the Future Luna's Covenant Ceremony.
04:35I let the word settle.
04:36Unless you're planning to change lunas.
04:38Something flickered in his eyes.
04:40Of course not.
04:41The pressure eased fractionally unwillingly.
04:43He opened his mouth to say something more.
04:45It's my fault.
04:47Sister, please don't be angry with Draven because of me.
04:50This is all my fault.
04:53She pushed back her chair and ran from the room.
04:55Ellie!
04:56Draven was already on his feet.
04:57He paused at the doorway just long enough to look back at me.
05:00One long, cutting look.
05:02And then he was gone.
05:03I sat alone at the long table.
05:05The dining hall was quiet.
05:08Darren didn't come back all day.
05:09When he finally walked through the door at dusk, he looked exhausted.
05:12Where were you?
05:13Ellie was crying so hard.
05:14She had chest pains.
05:15I took her to see the healer.
05:17I see.
05:18Are you still angry about this morning?
05:19No.
05:20Ellie's health has never been good.
05:22You're her sister.
05:22You should be more patient with her.
05:24Darren.
05:25I looked at him.
05:26Do you have feelings for Ellie?
05:28Isoleth, what are you talking about?
05:29Then why do you treat her better than you treat me?
05:31That's not...
05:32You can't lie to me.
05:35Silence.
05:36It's not what you think.
05:37Ellie saved my life.
05:39I owe her a debt.
05:40She saved your life.
05:42When I was seven, a pack of planes beasts cornered me.
05:44She drew them away.
05:45At great cost to herself.
05:47Her health has never recovered.
05:49I watched his face.
05:50There was no trace of deception in it.
05:52So, I said, how do you plan to repay her?
05:55I'll find a way.
05:56I laughed.
05:57Somewhere deep inside where he couldn't see it.
05:58Your way.
05:59You're going to steal my life and hand it to her.
06:01Darvin.
06:02You cannot repay a life debt with someone else's life.
06:04What are you trying to say?
06:06Nothing.
06:06I'm tired.
06:07A life debt.
06:07What a convenient reason.
06:08You think you're being noble.
06:10You're just a thief who's too much of a coward to admit what he's doing.
06:13The next morning, I went to the council archives.
06:15In a yellowed incident file, I found a single report.
06:17Planes be sighted, drawn away by a white wolf.
06:19The date, the location, the names, everything matched.
06:21Using my own wolf.
06:22I had been unconscious for over a month afterward.
06:25When I woke up, Draven and Ellie were already insepepperable.
06:27I folded the report and put it away.
06:29I would use it when the moment was right.
06:31On my way home, I saw them together.
06:32Ellie's eyes red, crying, Draken murmuring something close to her ear.
06:35Isolat.
06:36I walked past without expression.
06:37Where did you go?
06:38The archives.
06:39Ellie saw me and immediately wiped her face.
06:42Isolat, don't misunderstand.
06:45Misunderstand what?
06:47Isolat.
06:48Ellie is suffering.
06:49She has no wolf.
06:50Do you have any idea what that feels like?
06:51Does that have to do with me?
06:52She's suffering.
06:53So the whole world is supposed to post a comfort her?
06:55Isolat!
06:55His voice sharpened.
06:56It was the first time he had used my full name like that.
06:59You used to care about Ellie more than anyone.
07:01What happened to you?
07:02I used to be a fool who believed everything I was told.
07:05Now I'm not.
07:06Does that bother you?
07:07His mouth opened.
07:08Nothing came out.
07:08It's all my fault!
07:09Ellie whispered.
07:10Her tears spilled over.
07:11She turned and ran.
07:12She was back the next day.
07:13She came through the door without knocking and threw herself in front of Draken.
07:16Sobbing.
07:17The elders had decided.
07:18Because she still hadn't awakened a wolf.
07:20She was to be relocated to the outer ring of the pack territory.
07:22Many like her lived there.
07:23Wolves born without a wolf.
07:25At the edges where the plane's beasts roamed closest.
07:27What if the beasts come?
07:28I'm scared.
07:29Her voice broke.
07:30Her hands found Darren's and held on.
07:32Darren's expression cracked with something that looked almost like pain.
07:34And his eyes moved to my neck.
07:35To the necklace my parents had left me.
07:37The last vessel of the white wolf bloodline's power.
07:39The only remaining hope of restoring what our family had once been.
07:42I knew exactly what Ellie wanted the moment her eyes followed his.
07:44She had always been jealous of me.
07:46From the time we were children.
07:47Jealous of my gifts.
07:48Jealous of the moon goddess Mark.
07:49Jealous that our parents had placed their hopes to her the bloodline's future me.
07:52Isileth.
07:53The pressure hit me like a wall.
07:55My body locked in place.
07:56Every muscle refusing to obey.
07:57He reached out and pulled the necklace from my throat.
07:59The chain snapped.
08:00A line of heat bloomed across my skin where it had caught.
08:03I had been going to tell him.
08:04I had been going to show him the report.
08:05Explain what Ellie had actually done that day.
08:07What I had done.
08:08Let him see the truth for himself.
08:09I didn't want to any my eyes.
08:10Every moment of suffering I endured in my path.
08:12The slow world dying.
08:13The cold.
08:13I was going to make sure he understood what that felt like.
08:15Every last moment of it.
08:17Three days until the ceremony.
08:19I locked myself in room and went over my plans again and again.
08:21Turning each piece.
08:22Testing each move.
08:23At the same time Ellie's condition was getting worse.
08:25Darren knocked several times.
08:26I didn't answer.
08:28My door came off its hinges.
08:29Drain came through it like a storm.
08:31Ellie collapsed.
08:32Isolate.
08:32Give me the territorial covenant and the blood relic.
08:35Have you lost your mind?
08:36No.
08:37The necklace is too powerful for her.
08:38If she doesn't awaken her wolf it's going to kill her.
08:40And what does that have to do with me?
08:42Isolate.
08:43He crossed the room in two steads and grabbed my wrist.
08:45I can't let her die.
08:46I owe her.
08:47I owe her.
08:47Then pay her back with something that's yours.
08:49I looked at his hand on my wrist.
08:51Don't touch what belongs to me.
08:52There's no time.
08:53The only way to save her is to use your covenant and your relic to mask the necklace's power.
08:56It's the only thing strong enough.
08:57And what happens to me?
08:58I met his eyes.
08:59Without the relic my wolf will start to fade.
09:01What am I supposed to do?
09:02You're stronger than she is.
09:04You'll survive.
09:04He let go of my wrist and started tearing the room apart.
09:06Drawers pulled open.
09:07Contents hitting the floor.
09:08He moved through the space like he owned it.
09:10Like everything in it was already his to take.
09:11I threw myself in front of him.
09:12He shoved me aside without breaking stride.
09:14The corner of the table caught my tim on the way down and the blood came on fast.
09:17Dripping onto the floorboards before I'd even run crossing his face.
09:20Then he kept moving.
09:21He found the leather sackle beneath the chest.
09:23He pulled out the covenant and the relic.
09:24Turned for the door.
09:25I got to my feet.
09:26Darren, if you walk out that door there is no coming back.
09:29Not for you.
09:29Not for Ellie.
09:30Do you understand me?
09:32Ellie needs me.
09:33I'll spend the rest of my life making this up to you.
09:35The door closed.
09:36I sank to the floor.
09:37Blood moved down the side of my face and found the corner of my eye and the world went red
09:40at the edges.
09:41I didn't cry.
09:42I had been waiting for this for a long time.
09:44A crime has to be completed before the council will act.
09:47He needed to put those things into her hands himself.
09:49Now he had.
09:50The howl that tore through the room came from somewhere that wasn't quite my throat.
09:53Not a sound, but a broadcast.
09:55The white wolf bloodline's mind link carrying outward in a wave that didn't stop at walls
09:57or distance.
09:58Every member of the pack received it at once.
10:00The image of Draven ransacking my room.
10:02His hands pulling the covenant and the relic from their hiding place.
10:05The blood on my face.
10:05The door closing.
10:06Everything exactly as it had happened.
10:08Delivered in the space of a single breath to every mind in the territory.
10:11By the time Draven pressed the relic into Ellie's hands, the council elders were already
10:14at the door.
10:16The three of us were brought before the council.
10:18Draven, Ellie, and me.
10:19Isileth.
10:19Draven saw my face and went still.
10:21Take out what you took from me.
10:22I looked at him.
10:23Every eye in the room moved to him.
10:25His hand pressed instinctively against his pocket.
10:27I don't know what you're talking about.
10:28Draven, think carefully.
10:30Stealing and concealing another pack member's personal property is a violation of pack law.
10:33Do you still want to be alpha?
10:35Stop pressuring him!
10:36Ellie's voice broke on a sob.
10:38He only did it to save me!
10:39I smiled.
10:41Ellie, I thought you were unconscious.
10:43I tilted my head.
10:44You've recovered quickly.
10:45Is it because you're afraid Draven won't finish job time before the ceremony?
10:48Before he can use the black magic to steal the moon goddess's blessing?
10:50Sister, I don't know what you're talking about.
10:52I held her gaze.
10:53My covenant and my relic can't awaken your wolf.
10:55You know that.
10:56You were never planning to use them for that.
10:57You wanted to use them to impersonate me.
10:59To take the moon goddess's blessing for yourself.
11:01Ellie's lips were trembling.
11:03How could you possibly know?
11:04The words escaped before she could stop them.
11:06Steal the moon goddess's blessing?
11:08That would bring catastrophe on the entire pack.
11:13Draven, Ellie, you will explain yourselves.
11:16Now.
11:18Draven looked at Ellie.
11:20Then at me.
11:20Then at the faces of the elders.
11:22One by one.
11:23A sound came out of him.
11:24Low and furious.
11:25The growl of a man who had decided that anger was easier than shame.
11:28I was trying to help her.
11:29His voice cracked.
11:30Ellie gave up her wolf trying to save my life.
11:32She suffered for years because of me.
11:34She deserves the moon goddess blessing.
11:35She's always deserved it more than-
11:36I laughed.
11:37It came out cold.
11:39What a debt.
11:40I looked at him.
11:41I have one question for you.
11:43Is my life yours to give away?
11:45Did anyone ask you?
11:46His mouth moved.
11:47Nothing came out.
11:48I stepped around him and stopped in front of Ellie.
11:50And you.
11:51You waited.
11:52You let him bring you stolen things and you held out your hands for them?
11:54So tell me, did you actually save him?
11:56Ellie stumbled back, her voice falling apart.
11:58I-
11:58I don't-
11:59I didn't-
12:00You don't know?
12:01I dropped the report on the ground in front of her feet.
12:03That's the patrol record from the incident.
12:05It says exactly what happened.
12:06The plane's beasts were drawn away by a white wolf.
12:09I let the silence hold for a moment.
12:11Ellie.
12:12There is only one white wolf in a hundred miles.
12:14She looked at the document.
12:15Her legs gave out.
12:17Darren picked up the report.
12:18Read it.
12:19The color left his face in stages.
12:21This is-
12:21A patrol report.
12:22From over a decade ago.
12:23He kept staring at the page as though the words might rearrange themselves into something he could bear.
12:27He finally understood what he had done.
12:29But it was already too late.
12:31The midnight bell rang out across the territory.
12:34The ceremony had begun.
12:35Moonlight fell over Draven and me in equal measure.
12:38Silver and cold and patient.
12:40Neither of us moved.
12:41The elders spoke from the edges of the circle.
12:43Their voices carefully measured.
12:44Isoled.
12:45The moon goddess's blessing has descended.
12:46You refuse the bond.
12:47If the entire pack will lose the moon goddess's protection, both you and Draen will suffer.
12:51Darren was on his knees before me.
12:53His eyes held the particular desperation of a man who had run out of options and knew it.
12:57Isoled.
12:57His voice came out broken.
12:58Please, I know I can't undo what happened, but I will spend every day that remains to me trying to
13:02make it right.
13:03Just say yes.
13:04We can still find our way back.
13:05I shook my head.
13:06Gently.
13:06For me, everything has already happened.
13:08Every moment of it.
13:09I lived it once.
13:10I died at the end of it.
13:12I looked at him.
13:13You say Ellie deceived you.
13:14He said nothing.
13:15Darren, Ellie has no wolf.
13:17She never had one.
13:18How could you have believed, truly believed, that she was the one who drew those beasts away?
13:21I let the question settle.
13:23You never looked at the patrol record.
13:24Not once in all those years.
13:26You didn't want to know.
13:26The blood was leaving his face.
13:28Admit it.
13:29You knew something was wrong.
13:30You chose not to look too closely because you liked being needed.
13:33You liked having someone to save.
13:34I held his gazing her.
13:35You were protecting the story you told yourself about who you are.
13:38And now the story is over.
13:39Whatever you had with her.
13:40Whatever you thought you had with me.
13:42He stared at me for a long time.
13:43Then his mouth pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile.
13:46Is that your answer?
13:46The moonlight against my skin was beginning to warm.
13:49A gentle, insistent pressure.
13:50The moon goddess waiting.
13:51I closed my eyes.
13:52Yes.
13:52I opened them again.
13:53I reject the bond.
13:55I reject the role of Luna of this pack.
13:58The moment the words left me, the moonlight around Draken went out.
14:01The sound that came from him wasn't human.
14:03It was wolf.
14:04Crying out as the bond severed.
14:05A sound like something tearing at the root.
14:07He collapsed forward.
14:08Both hands hitting the ground.
14:10And coughed up a mouthful of blood that darkened the earth beneath him.
14:13The pack erupted.
14:14Voices everywhere.
14:16Bodies moving.
14:17The particular panic of people who have never seen the ground shift beneath them.
14:20And suddenly find that it can.
14:22Then someone screamed.
14:23She's glowing.
14:24I raised my hand and looked at it.
14:27The crescent mark on my brow.
14:28The one they had stripped from me.
14:30The one I had been born with.
14:31The one that was mine before anyone tried to take it.
14:34Was blazing.
14:35Silver light poured from it in waves.
14:37Bright enough to swallow the moonlight above us.
14:39Bright enough to cast shadows in every direction.
14:42A sacred awakening.
14:43I've read of it.
14:44In texts that are centuries old.
14:46I never thought.
14:47I never believed I would actually see.
14:48Alpha Queen.
14:49The light settled into me like something coming home.
14:51Not someone's mate.
14:51Not the second half of another person's story.
14:53My wolf was whole.
14:54From this moment I is the lead of the White Wolf of Wolf bloodline.
14:57Lived only for myself.
14:59The elders asked me to stay.
15:00More than once.
15:02I left anyway.
15:03My parents had left me a territory.
15:04A snow field a hundred miles out.
15:06The edge of the known world.
15:07I had a bloodline to restore.
15:08And a people to rebuild.
15:09It was time to go and do it.
15:10I was almost ready to leave when the letter arrived.
15:12I stood there for a moment.
15:14Dralin.
15:14Turning it over in my hands.
15:15Then I opened it.
15:16He didn't apologize.
15:17He didn't mention what had happened.
15:19The whole letter was about when when we were children.
15:21The two of us running through the sacred grove.
15:23And climbing trees to pick fruit for me.
15:24The particular quality of the light in that place in summer.
15:27That was a beautiful time.
15:29Nothing more.
15:30Then he wrote about the pack.
15:31Without me.
15:32Without the moon goddess's protection.
15:33The wolves were weakening.
15:34Their strength fading in ways that were becoming impossible to ignore.
15:37The others blamed him.
15:38Some of the younger wolves were already talking about how to remove him.
15:41His health was getting worse.
15:42But he wrote that he was glad.
15:44Glad that I didn't have to go through what he was going through.
15:46He said he hoped I was well.
15:47He said he thought about me every day.
15:48I finished reading.
15:49Then I tore the letter into pieces and dropped them in a bin by the road.
15:52Those years of happiness had been real.
15:53But he destroyed them himself.
15:55Reading about them now only made me feel sick.
15:56I thought that would be the end of it.
15:58It wasn't.
15:59After that, a letter arrived every week.
16:01Without fail.
16:02He seemed to have decided that writing to me was an outlet.
16:04He put everything into those letters.
16:06All of it.
16:06Whatever was in his head.
16:07But I had no patience left for his confession.
16:09I stopped opening them.
16:11The moment I recognized his handwriting, the envelopes and pack went straight in the bin.
16:14Who's that persistent?
16:15Someone's determined.
16:16No one.
16:17No one that concerns me.
16:19By the third year on the snowfield, conditions were still harsh.
16:22But the packs were finding their way to us.
16:24Wolves without territory.
16:25Without a one-by-one they stayed.
16:26I ran everything.
16:26Disputes.
16:27Patrols.
16:27Policy.
16:28Most nights I was still working past midnight.
16:30I was leading a patrol when I saw the familiar figure.
16:31Darren.
16:32He had lost a great deal of weight.
16:33The restless energy I remembered was gone.
16:35He moved quietly now and he kept his distance.
16:37When he saw me, something lit briefly in his eyes.
16:39Isolette.
16:40What are you doing here?
16:41I left the pack.
16:43Why?
16:43He looked at me.
16:44I wanted to see you.
16:45I wanted to be closer to you.
16:46You've seen me.
16:47You can go somewhere else now.
16:49He went still.
16:49His hands didn't seem to know where to be.
16:51I'm no not here to ask for forgiveness.
16:52I just, I wanted to know if you were all right.
16:54I'm fine.
16:55I glanced down at the alpha insignia on my chest.
16:57My life didn't really begin.
16:58The light in his eyes went out.
16:59I know.
17:00He looked at the ground.
17:01I've heard.
17:02You've built something remarkable here.
17:04This is the life you were always meant to have.
17:06Is that why you came?
17:07To remind me that this was always mine.
17:09And you nearly took it?
17:10His head came up sharply.
17:12His eyes were red at the edges.
17:14That's not...
17:15I didn't mean it like that.
17:17Then what did you mean?
17:17Did you think that if you stood here looking like this,
17:19I would soften that I would forget what you did?
17:21You didn't wrong me.
17:22You wronged the girl who used to follow you everywhere
17:23and thought you were her whole world.
17:25But that girl died the moment you decided to take her future.
17:27You killed her yourself.
17:28What you're looking at now is Alpha Isolette.
17:31A stranger who has nothing to do with you.
17:33I stepped around him and walked back to the pack.
17:36Behind me, I heard him try to hold it in and fail.
17:38I didn't turn around.
17:39After that day, the letters stopped.
17:41But he didn't leave.
17:41He stayed somewhere nearby.
17:43Close to our territory.
17:43Not inside it.
17:44He didn't talk about the past.
17:45He just worked.
17:46Quietly.
17:46In whatever way he could find to be useful.
17:48When I stayed late, there would be a hot meal on my desk when I looked up.
17:51When I caught a cold,
17:52a box of medicine appeared outside my door.
17:55I knew it was him.
17:57So did everyone else in my pack.
17:58Darren's courting you.
17:59He's not doing it for me.
18:00He's doing it to feel better about himself.
18:02A package arrived for him one afternoon.
18:04Ellie's name was on the return address.
18:06I called him in and handed it over without a word.
18:08Isolette, Sheena.
18:08I don't need to know.
18:09Just talk to me.
18:10Five minutes.
18:10I waited.
18:12I was a fool.
18:13His voice had gone rough.
18:14I believed that lie for over a decade.
18:16I thought I owed her my life.
18:17I thought I was doing the right thing.
18:19So you decided that gave you the right to pay that debt with mine.
18:21He had no answer for that.
18:23You never thought about me.
18:24Not once.
18:25Everything you called loyalty.
18:26Everything you called honor.
18:28It was just a way to make yourself feel like a good person.
18:30You were a coward.
18:31His face had gone the color of ash.
18:33He swayed slightly.
18:34Yes, I was.
18:36The bitterness in his smile didn't reach his eyes.
18:38I destroyed you.
18:38And I destroyed myself.
18:40My wolf is gone.
18:41I can't lead a pack.
18:41I can't do anything.
18:42I have nothing.
18:42And Ellie?
18:43He was quiet for a moment.
18:45She was being mistreated back in the pack.
18:46There were a few times I thought she might not survive it.
18:48I brought her with me when I left.
18:49But you're alone now.
18:50The journey was hard.
18:52She couldn't take it.
18:52We fought.
18:53And she left.
18:54I don't know which pack she went to.
18:55That's the consequence of what you both chose.
18:57It has nothing to do with me.
18:59I know.
18:59He looked at me.
19:00His eyes were full of broken blood vessels.
19:01The evidence of too many sleepless nights.
19:03Isilith.
19:04I'm not here to ask you to take me back.
19:06I just want to see you.
19:07I want to know you're alright.
19:09That's enough for me.
19:10I don't need you watching over me.
19:11I pulled my arm free.
19:12Stop performing your guilt, Darren.
19:14It doesn't change anything and it doesn't impress me.
19:17I walked out.
19:18My pack takes in every wolf who has nowhere else to go.
19:22But not him.
19:23It will never be him.
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