"You look like an animal," she replied, her voice quiet but not so much so that he would mistake it for fear. "You're acting like an animal, Sterling. I look at you lately, and I feel like I don't even know you anymore."
He held her confused stare. "You've never known me, Elise."
"We were family once," she reminded him gently. "I thought we were friends."
"It wasn't friendship I wanted from you," he answered flatly, letting her absorb the frank admission he'd only had the balls to dance around politely until now. When she took a wary step back toward the open aisle, he chuckled, self-satisfied. "Feel free to run away now, Elise."
She didn't run.
That single backward step was all she allowed. Tegan's mate was no longer the sheltered waif who had pledged herself to Quentin Chase. She was a strong woman, had been through her own brand of hell and back, and she hadn't broken. She wasn't about to break for Chase now, no matter how forcibly he tried to push her out of his life.
As if to prove it to himself, he closed the distance between them.
He was filthy with blood and grime; even he could hardly stand the stench of himself. But despite the scant inch or two that separated him from Elise's pristine beauty, she didn't turn away. Her expression was one of sadness and expectation, even before he opened his mouth to say the words that would free him of this last fragile tether on his past.
"The only thing I ever wanted from you, Elise, was to spread your legs and - "
She slapped him hard across the face, a solid crack that echoed in the quiet of the chapel. Her pale purple eyes glittered in the candlelight, swimming with unshed tears. Not a single one fell, not for him.
Probably never again, by the stricken look she held on him.
Chase withdrew, a staggered step backward, the ringing bite of her hand still hot on his skin. He brought his fingers up to touch his stinging cheek.
Then, without another word or thought for what might lay ahead of him, he vanished from Elise's condemning stare - and fled up the chapel stairwell, into the wintry night outside - using all the speed his Breed genetics could offer him.
Corinne stood at the edge of a wide marble terrace patio that overlooked the snow-filled rear courtyard of the Order's estate on ground level. Alone for a moment while Gabrielle fetched coats for them inside the mansion, she tipped her head back on her shoulders to draw in a long breath of cold December air. The winter sky was dark and cloudless above her, a fathomless sea of midnight blue speckled with bright, glittering stars.
How long had it been since she'd smelled the crisp, faintly smoky scent of winter on the breeze?
How long since she'd felt fresh air against her cheeks?
The decades of her imprisonment had crept by slowly at first, in the days when she'd been determined to mark the time, fighting every second as though it may have been her last. After a while, she'd realized it wasn't her death her captor wanted. For his purposes, he'd needed her alive, even if barely. It was then that she'd stopped counting, ceased fighting, and her concept of time had blurred into a single, never-ending night.
And now she was free.
Tomorrow, she would be home with her family.
Tomorrow, her life would start over and she would be a new person. She had survived, but in her heart she wondered if she could ever be whole again. So much had been taken from her. Some things that could never be won back. And others ...
She would have time later to mourn all the things she'd lost to Dragos's evil. Closing her eyes, she breathed in another deep, cleansing draft of the bracing night air. As she released it, the sound of a child's laughter startled her into a jolt. At first she thought it was only a trick of her mind, one of the many cruel games that darkness had liked to play on her during her time in captivity. But then the delighted little giggle came again, carrying on the breeze from somewhere in the vast garden courtyard beyond. It was the laughter of a young girl - a child of perhaps eight or nine years, Corinne guessed, watching as the girl raced happily through the calf-deep snow, bundled up like a pink snowman in a thick parka and matching pants.
Behind her just a few paces came a pair of grossly mismatched, unleashed dogs, tongues lolling joyfully out of the sides of their mouths as they pursued her. Corinne couldn't help but smile at the stubby brown terrier that tried so desperately to get ahead of the larger, more elegant dog. For every unhurried gait of the beautiful, wolfish gray-and-white animal, the scrappy little mutt barked and jockeyed in its wake, finally dashing right through its companion's long legs in order to be the first to reach the girl.
She squealed as the small dog raced up on her ankles and tackled her, barking merrily as the second dog loped up to them with its thick tail wagging and began to lick the child's face.
"Okay, okay!" the little girl giggled. "Luna, Harvard - okay, you win! I surrender!"
As the pair of dogs let up on her to wrestle and growl with each other instead, two women now strode across the snowy lawn from another section of the garden courtyard. One of them was clearly pregnant beneath her oversize down coat, walking at a careful pace alongside a tall, athletic-looking female who held the pair of leashes in her mittened hand.
"Play nice, Luna," she called to the larger of the two dogs. It responded at once, abandoning its canine playmate to lope over and run a happy circle around its obvious owner.
"That's Alex," Gabrielle said, strolling out to the edge of the terrace where Corinne stood. She was wearing a dark wool coat, and held another out to Corinne. It carried the faintest fragrance of cedar, and felt as comfortable as a warm blanket as Corinne slipped into it. "Alex is Kade's mate," Gabrielle continued. "She was out with him when you arrived earlier tonight, so you didn't get the chance to meet her."