The alpha rejected me as his mate in front of two hundred wolves so he could marry the beta’s daughter. He doesn’t know I came from forty years in the future, where he died drinking from his own wedding cup, and I know who poured it.
“I, Callum Reyes, Alpha of Silver Hollow, reject you, Wren Ashby, as my mate.”
He said it under the Harvest Moon, in front of two hundred wolves, with Delia Marsh’s hand already on his arm.
The mark on my wrist went white-hot. I didn’t scream. Every wolf in the clearing heard the bond tear anyway.
“Pack law,” Garrett Marsh announced. He was Callum’s beta, and Delia’s father, and he was smiling. “A rejected bond burns until the next full moon. At moonset, it dies. Clean.”
“Clean,” Delia said. “Pack your things, river girl. Strangers don’t stay here.”
Callum still wouldn’t look at me. “Garrett says nobody knows where you came from.”
“Garrett’s right,” I said. “Nobody does.”
Because I came from 2066.
In my time, Silver Hollow is a parking lot. The pack is scattered across four states. And Callum Reyes has been dead for forty years.
He dies on his wedding night, drinking from the silver joining cup. Delia inherits as his widow and signs the land over to her father. The pack is gone within a year.
The moon-well at the edge of the Hollow sends a wolf back to her fated mate. Once. One way. I jumped knowing I could never go home.
I had one month. And one folded page in my jacket that nobody had seen.
Delia found me in the healer’s cabin the next morning. I was testing yarrow with a silver spoon.
“What’s that for?”
“Silver turns black in wolfsbane,” I said. “Every healer knows that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Dad moved the wedding up. Next full moon.”
“I know. He’ll pour the cup himself. From the red-handled pitcher.”
Her smile slipped. “How do you know about the pitcher? It’s still in his truck.”
“Leave Callum alone, Delia.”
“Leave by Friday,” she hissed, “or I tell the council you’re a hunters’ spy.”
My mark flared gold, just for a second.
She saw it. She backed out the door.
Callum came that night. He stood on my porch like he hated himself for it.
“You’re still here.”
“So are you,” I said. “For now.”
“Is that a threat?”
