Page 87 of Queen of Diamonds

But she had been larger than life, so close to us, so convincing and devastating that never once had I been able to consider anything else. Not when it would be dangerous—for Kyan, for the pack—to pine over what ifs, to chase the impossible dream that maybe, just maybe, Glade wasn’t the villain. When, even now, even after we’d met her again, she’d never convinced us of anything else.

Except in the brief cluster of seconds, looking at me with eyes so loving, desperate for something more, cocooned in a wound I could touch but not see, as if every instinct in my bones had been trying to tell me since the first moment we’d met her.

That maybe she never had been.

I stared at Knight.

Something was wrong. Really, really wrong…

It was like a fly at the edge of my vision, right there, yet every time I turned, it vanished. “Tell me…” I cleared my throat, staring at Knight. “Tell me you were about to go on a walk at four in the morning.” I worked to keep my voice steady.

“What?” Knight asked.

“Kyan just got in. You were about to go out.”

“No,” Knight said slowly. “I just got back. Already went on a walk.”

I shook my head, lips parting. “Then who…?”

And then I saw it, the fly just out of reach. The thing that didn’t fit.

My eyes fell on the TV, finally realising what was playing. Not a show I’d ever seen Knight pick in his life.

One I’d seen a thousand times, though. The World Series of Poker had been a staple in my house. Always running whenever it went on, something my father loved… My father, perhaps, but also—I backed toward Glade’s room, heart in my throat.

“She needs space,” Knight growled after me, but I ignored him, running to the door, fumbling with the lock and ripping it open.

I froze, terror spiking my blood with pure adrenaline.

The bathroom door was open, revealing the room beyond. The mattress was empty.

Glade was gone.

On the floor in the middle of the room were four face-down playing cards beside a single rose.

31

GLADE

My dreams were restless. Drugged sleep held me under like an anchor. Roses and redwood surrounded me, sending me into a panic each time I surfaced, but like a cruel trick, my sleep was clear of nightmares at last; I didn’t dream of Ace at all. Instead, I was drawn back to a much more distant memory.

I was reading on a bench in the garden of my father’s manor when an Alpha took a seat at my side.

I’d looked up, inhaling the entrancing scent of snow santal, and found myself tumbling head first into ice-blue eyes. He had fewer tattoos back then, but the spindle-thin crown along the edge of his jaw was an arrogant nod to his heritage.

“You’re…?” I blinked.

Zed Maverick.

A son of the head of the Brotherhood—a gang we were on the edge of an all-out war with.

And he was my scent match.

Dread seized me as I stared at him, walls closing in. My pulse was erratic, the obscene attraction I had to this Alpha making me want to run.

I was finally out of time.

My whole life had been a series of decisions others had made for me. Reared to be a perfect offering by a family that considered me nothing more than a tool.

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