Three Wolfens Betrayed Me. One Siren Didn’t Chapter 15

Three Wolfens Betrayed Me. One Siren Didn’t Chapter 15

My assistant came in with a stack of files.

“Miss Winfeld, these need your signature.”

“Thanks. Also – those three wolfens. Don’t let them in again. If they show up, have security throw them out.”

“Understood.” She smiled. She was the same assistant who’d helped me escape the wedding. We were old friends now.

I texted Lorian a sticker – two bunnies hugging. *Pat pat.*

He rarely replied. But his tail would find my ankle within a minute.

*Got it. I’m here. Come back soon.*

I stood up, smoothed my sleeves. “No coffee. Water. Let’s go to the conference room.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The meeting lasted two hours.

When I got back to my office, my phone screen was blank.

No texts. No calls. Nothing.

That had never happened before.

I frowned.

Was he out? Asleep? Sirens were sleepy in winter. He’d curl up on the couch, eyes closed, tail tip

swaying.

But something felt wrong.

Lorian wasn’t the type to *forget* his phone. When his tail wasn’t around me, it was on my pillow, in my blankets – anywhere my scent was. He didn’t need his phone. He could smell me from across

the city.

If his tail wasn’t on me and his phone was silent – he wasn’t somewhere he could reach me.

The car pulled up to Winfeld Manor in the dark.

I pushed the door open.

The first floor was dark. Just the hallway light..

“Lorian?”

No answer.

I turned on the living room light. His gray blanket was folded on the couch. His tea was cold on the coffee table. Untouched.

I called his phone.

The ring came from the bedroom.

I walked in. His phone was on the nightstand. Screen lit up with my messages.

He hadn’t taken it.

Next to the phone – a small velvet box. Navy blue. Silver ribbon.

I opened it.

Inside – a ring. Silver band. No stones. Not. On the inside, tiny engraved letters:

“I remember who saved me.

My hands started shaking.

*That year.*

Not the year I’d taken him from Selina. Earlier. Much earlier.

Now I understood why Selina had called him *platonic*. Not because he wasn’t interested. But because he wasn’t interested in *her*. He’d known who I was all along.

Now he was gone. The ring was all that was left.

I closed my fist around it. The cold metal bit my palm.

I followed the scent to a boxing gym in the south part of the city.

Kane was punching a bag. Drake was on a bench, looking at his phone. Cole was on a treadmill..

They all had fresh injuries. Cole’s lip was split. Drake’s left arm was in a sling. Kane’s knuckles were

raw.

When they saw me, their expressions were complicated.

“You came,” Cole said first.

“Where’s Lorian?”

“Hope he’s dead,” Cole muttered.

I walked right up to him. “Where is he?”

“You think we did something to him?” Drake’s voice was lazy. His eyes weren’t.

“You stopped him once. At the airport.”

“He started it,” Kane said flatly. “He nearly tore Cole’s arm off. Broke Drake’s ribs. We defended

ourselves.”

I went quiet. That sounded like Lorian.

“What about this time?”

Kane met my eyes. “We didn’t do anything. He disappeared. Not our fault.”

His gaze was steady.

Drake added, “Ever think maybe he left on his own?”

The room went quiet.

“He’s a siren,” Drake said. “He can smell better than any of us. He found you before you ever remembered him. He stayed even when you didn’t. If he left – ”

Drake’s smile faded. “Maybe he just got tired of waiting.”

I touched the ring in my pocket.

I left without saying goodbye.

Lorian had said my scent was *faint*.

But he’d stayed near Selina for so long because the manor still smelled like me. Everywhere. All my childhood traces.

Before he left, he’d made tea. Folded his blanket. Left the ring where I’d find it.

He hadn’t thrown it away. He’d *left* it.

I followed the scent – from the manor to the streets we’d walked together, to the coffee shop where he’d bought me drinks, to the office building where he’d helped me close deals.

The scent got fainter.

Not because of time. Because he was *pulling it back. Shifters can control their pheromones. If he wanted me to find him – I would. If he didn’t – I could stand right next to him and smell nothing.

But Lorian didn’t know one thing.

I’d kept something.

When Selina gave him to me, he’d smelled like her, I didn’t like it. So I bought him a new coat. Nothing fancy. Just a black one from the mall. He kept the old one. But one button – he’d left it

under my pillow.

The scent on him now- part him, part *me*. My nose wasn’t as good as his. But on that, I had the

advantage.

I found him.

On the roof of an old building in the south part of the city. Sixth floor.

Lorian was sitting on the edge, legs dangling over. Wind blowing his hair. His lips were pale. Not from cold. From hunger. Sirens get like that when they don’t eat.

I sat down next to him.

He didn’t look at me.

“I looked for you for a long time,” I said.

“Mm.”

“Why didn’t you take your phone?”

Silence.

“What’s the ring for?”

Long silence. I thought he wouldn’t answer.

Then: “I was going to wait for you. Give it to you. Tell you – do you remember that siren you saved? But you didn’t come back. The tea got cold. It got dark. I thought – maybe you don’t need me anymore.”

His voice was calm. No anger. No sadness. Just… finished.

But every word felt like a needle.

I’d seen him in heat, shaking, barely holding it together. I’d seen him after fighting Kane and the others, covered in blood. I’d seen him hide his tail so I wouldn’t be scared.

I’d never seen him like this. Like a little siren who’d actually been abandoned.

“Look at me,” I said,

He didn’t move.

I turned his face toward me.

His eyes were red. Not crying-red. Holding back-tears-until-it-hurts red.

Sirens are cold-blooded. But right now, his eyes were burning-

“Listen to me. The stupidest thing I’ve ever done not running away, not fighting my family, not giving those three to Selina – was forgetting you.”

“I forgot you for a long time. So long that by the time you came to find me – I wasn’t that little girl who saved you anymore. I’ve changed. I’m selfish. Cold. I do whatever it takes. But you stayed. You’ve always stayed.”

I took the ring out of my pocket and put it on my finger.

It fit perfectly.

“See?” I said. “Perfect.”

Lorian looked at my hand for a long, long time.

Then he pulled me into his arms. Tight. Like he was afraid I’d run again. His tail wrapped around me. Loops and loops.

“When I left,” he said, “I thought – if you can’t find me…”

“But you only went south.”

He didn’t answer.

South was the closest direction to the manor.

He’d never really wanted to go far.