Chapter 3: Lies in the Lullaby

Estelle's boots sank into the damp earth with each deliberate step. The path to Lila's cabin wound through cedars that smelled exactly like the last place she wanted to be. Her head throbbed in time with the mate bond's pull, a steady reminder that distance was a lie. The leather pouch at her hip felt heavier than usual, its tokens clicking softly like accusations from five years of exile.

She had read Lila's note hours ago, the one slipped under her door with its cryptic warning about landmines. It had kept her up half the night, sharpening every record she had already skimmed into something more dangerous. One wrong tug, and the whole mountain might come down. Still, she told herself this visit was tactical—another calculated strike in her slow demolition of Sebastian's world.

The cabin came into view, smoke curling from the chimney in lazy spirals that didn't quite match the storm clouds gathering overhead. Estelle paused at the edge of the clearing, squared her shoulders against the echo of the girl who once hunched, and knocked once. Short. Sharp. Then she pushed the door open without waiting.

The interior hit her senses at once—herbs drying in bundles from the rafters, the sharp tang of mint layered over something earthier, and the faint burnt sugar of whatever Lila had burned in the kitchen. Her cousin looked up from a cluttered workbench, curly hair escaping a vivid orange scarf like it had opinions of its own.

"Well, if it isn't the walking lightning rod," Lila said, words tumbling out in that rapid-fire way that always left Estelle feeling two steps behind. "Come for my headache tonic, or are we pretending this is a social call? My calendar's booked with people who don't make the territory's magic spark like a faulty wire."

Estelle let the door click shut behind her. The cabin hadn't changed. Same mismatched mugs on the shelf. Same pile of half-read books teetering near the hearth. She crossed to the small table, dropped into a chair, and let her braid slip forward over one shoulder.

"Headaches," she confirmed, voice low and even. "The bond's getting creative. Feels like nails behind my eyes every time his pulse syncs with mine. Figured you'd have something that doesn't taste like regret and tree bark."

Lila bustled over, producing a vial from her apron with a magician's flair on a bad day. Her hazel eyes scanned Estelle's face, reading too much. "Black coffee and denial haven't cut it, huh? Sit still. This'll numb the worst without knocking you out. Though you could use the sleep."

The liquid went down bitter and cold. Estelle set the empty vial down with care, leaving one deliberate sip in the bottom. Old habit. Control in the small things when the rest kept slipping.

They sat in a silence that stretched. Estelle traced a knot in the wooden table, her fingers twitching once. Lila rolled a fresh vial between her palms until the glass warmed.

"You know," Lila started, too casually, "that night five years ago was a mess. The way Sebastian looked at you when he said those words—weak, unfit, all that garbage—his hands were shaking so bad I thought he'd drop the ceremonial knife."

Estelle's head snapped up. Brown eyes narrowed. The detail landed wrong, like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong spot. "He wasn't shaking. He was steady as the damn mountain. Stood there with that alpha mask on tight. I remember every second, Lila. The pack staring. You not meeting my eyes afterward."

Lila's cheeks flushed bronze. Her fingers stilled on the vial. For once her tongue seemed to catch. She looked toward the window as the first raindrops pattered the glass. "Memory's tricky when trauma's involved. The shift failing like that scrambles everything. Pass the honey? This tea's gone bitter."

Estelle didn't move. The bond gave a vicious tug, feeding her a flicker of Sebastian's distant guilt like static. She pushed it down and focused on the slip. Lila had been there that night—had handed her the ceremonial herbs meant to ease the change and whispered something about strength right before it all went wrong.

Outside, the storm finally broke. Rain lashed the cabin in sheets. Wind howled through the cedars like the territory itself was protesting. Lightning cracked across the sky, and Estelle's power stirred in answer, crackling along her nerves until she forced it quiet.

"Looks like we're stuck," she said, drier than the coffee she'd abandoned that morning. "Unless you want to risk washing down the mountain in one of your concoctions."

Lila muttered something that sounded like a curse wrapped in a pop-culture reference, then moved to the stove with brisk energy. The half-eaten blueberry pastry on the counter sat ignored, crumbs scattered like tiny betrayals. She set the kettle on, movements too precise, too careful.

They drank the bad tea in the dim light of oil lamps. The silence grew teeth. Estelle hummed the first notes of an old lullaby under her breath—the one her mother sang before the sickness took her—then caught herself and stopped. Cheeks burning.

Lila pretended not to notice, but her hazel eyes had gone soft. "I write sometimes," she blurted, words bursting out like they'd been corked too long. "Stupid stuff. Pack life with all the romance and none of the bloodshed. Helps me sleep. Or it did, before you came back swinging lightning and old grudges."

Estelle raised an eyebrow. Dry humor surfaced despite everything. "You? Romance novels? Please tell me there's a brooding alpha with sandy hair and a pocket watch fetish."

Lila's laugh came out sharp, almost brittle. She stood abruptly and crossed to a small desk piled with papers. Her hand brushed a stack of manuscripts. One slipped free, pages fluttering as it hit the floor.

Estelle moved without thinking. She caught her cousin's elbow to steady her, an old reflex that contradicted every ice-queen plan she'd made. The page that landed face-up was covered in Lila's looping handwriting. Estelle's eyes caught on a passage before Lila could snatch it away.

He watched her across the fire, the mate bond screaming in his blood even as he spoke the words that would break them both. 'The pack needs strength,' he said, but his hands trembled with the lie. The healer in the shadows had done what she was told—mixed the herbs that would ensure the shift failed. For the greater good, they called it. But good had never tasted so much like ash.

The words blurred. Estelle's throat tightened. She looked up slowly, meeting Lila's wide, guilty eyes. Her fingers curled around the page. Lightning danced faintly at her fingertips.

"What did you do?" The question came out measured, dangerously soft. "The herbs that night. You gave them to me. Told me they'd help."

Lila's face crumpled, but she tried for a deflection first. "Estelle, you don't—you can't just—look, it's like mixing a bad batch of tonic, sometimes it just—" She stopped, swallowed, then tried again with a nervous laugh that didn't land. "Herbal metaphors aren't helping, are they?"

Estelle waited. The wry narrator in her head noted how her own squared shoulders still carried the echo of that humiliated girl, even now.

Lila's rapid-fire energy drained away. She looked smaller, the colorful scarf too bright against ashen skin. "It wasn't supposed to go that far. Sebastian's father came to me the week before. Said the pack bonds were fracturing, that a weak mate would tear us apart. He had leverage—things about my mother I couldn't let come out. I mixed a suppressant. Just enough to... complicate the shift. Buy time for him to convince Sebastian. I swear I didn't know it would stop it completely."

Thunder boomed overhead, rattling the windows. Estelle stood so fast the chair scraped back. She had known pieces of this—had suspected Lila's involvement since the first careful conversation upon her return—but seeing it written in her cousin's own terrible romance manuscript cracked something open anyway. The one person she'd trusted to have her back. The cousin who'd smuggled extra blankets during those first brutal exile winters, or so the lie had gone.

"You sabotaged me." The words tasted like iron. Estelle's wrist scar burned hot. Sebastian's presence sharpened at the edges of her awareness, though he was still somewhere near the compound. "All this time, you've been playing both sides. Warning me about landmines while sitting on the biggest one yourself."

Lila reached for her, then thought better of it. Her hand dropped, fingers twisting in her apron. "I was scared. We all were. The old alpha was dying. Territory magic already cracking—storms that wouldn't quit, borders failing. I thought if Sebastian chose someone stronger it would stabilize things. But then you came back like this, with power that could level the mountain, and I... I don't know anymore."

The cabin felt too small. The herb smell turned cloying. Estelle wanted to let the lightning loose and watch it arc across the rafters. Instead her pulse hammered in her ears and her braid slipped fully loose, dark waves framing a face that felt suddenly too open.

A sharp knock cut through the tension. Both women froze. Lila moved first, wiping her eyes before cracking the door. Rain lashed in, carrying the scent of wet cedar and alpha authority.

Sebastian stood on the threshold, soaked to the bone, sandy hair plastered to his forehead. His icy blue-grey eyes found Estelle immediately. The bond flared so bright she felt it like a physical shove. He carried a young pack member over one shoulder—a boy no older than eighteen, face pale with fever and a nasty gash across his leg that wept dark blood.

"Lila," he said, voice rough with command and something rawer underneath. "Border patrol ran into trouble near the eastern ridge. This one's wound won't close. Something's interfering with the healing."

His gaze slid to Estelle again, lingering on the manuscript page still clutched in her hand. She saw the exact moment he registered the atmosphere—the guilt on Lila's face, the storm in hers. His broad shoulders tensed, but he didn't set the boy down. Instead he stepped inside, water pooling at his boots. The proximity made Estelle's skin prickle with unwanted heat.

"Perfect timing," Estelle murmured. The dry edge in her voice barely masked how her heart now raced to match his. "Nothing like family revelations with an audience."

Lila sprang into action, clearing the table with movements that didn't quite hide her trembling hands. "Put him here. I'll need my kit. Estelle, the blue vial on the top shelf—don't argue, just hand it over."

Sebastian eased the boy onto the table, his rangy frame moving with surprising gentleness. The alpha was all business, but Estelle caught the way his fingers brushed the spot where his father's silver pocket watch should have been—now replaced, she knew, by the rusted key she'd left in his office. Their eyes met over the injured wolf. The bond surged again, a rush of shared regret and that damnable longing that made her want to both push him away and pull him closer.

Thunder crashed directly overhead. The cabin lights flickered. In the sudden gloom Sebastian stumbled as a vicious bolt of lightning—hers or the storm's, she couldn't tell—crackled through the air. His boot caught on a loose floorboard and he pitched forward.

Estelle moved before she could stop herself. Her hand shot out, catching his arm in a grip that sent sparks dancing between their skin. The contact was electric in every sense. Heat flooded her veins, followed by a wave of his guilt so sharp it stole her breath. His icy eyes widened, darkening to storm clouds as the same sensations hit him.

For a suspended moment they were locked there—her fingers digging into the lean muscle of his arm, his free hand hovering near her waist as if he might steady her in return. The boy's pained groan broke the spell. But not before Estelle felt the full weight of what she'd done. She'd reached for him. Protected him.

She yanked her hand away as if burned. The real burn was deeper. Lightning crackled at her fingertips, uncontrolled this time, and she flicked it toward the hearth where it dissipated in a shower of harmless sparks.

Sebastian straightened slowly, one hand pressed to his chest where the bond still throbbed. His voice, when it came, was low enough for her ears alone. "You always did have terrible timing with those jolts. Or perfect, depending on how you look at it."

The dry sarcasm didn't hide the raw edge underneath. She could feel his heart racing, the possessive pull that made him want to crowd her against the cabin wall and demand answers about the manuscript, about what Lila had confessed. But the boy on the table whimpered, and duty won out. Sebastian turned away, jaw clenched so tight she saw the muscle jump.

Estelle stepped back. The cabin had grown too crowded with bodies and betrayals. Her pulse still hammered. The lightning in her veins hummed with barely contained fury.

"This isn't over," she told them all, echoing words Sebastian had thrown at her once before. Her gaze lingered on her cousin longest. "Any of it."

She pushed past him into the storm. Rain soaked her instantly. The downpour matched the chaos in her chest—cold, relentless. Behind her, as the door swung partially closed, she heard Lila's whisper meant for Sebastian, carried on the wind like a warning.

But Estelle kept walking, boots squelching in the mud. The mountain had more secrets. And every one of them, it seemed, was soaked in her blood.