He Scorned My Love, Now He Watches My Rise novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Two Suitcases

Luca's circle comes to watch her pack and bets on the hour she will unpack; Gianna goes into the bedroom alone, and at the airline desk the territory permit is gone from Lara's suitcase.

I had just zipped the second suitcase when the apartment door opened.

Three years of my life in Luca's home, and it all fit into two bags.

Luca walked in first. Gianna came right behind him, and behind her came the same people who had laughed at me in the mall.

None of them looked embarrassed.

They spread through the living room and stood around my suitcases.

"She actually packed," a man said, and nudged the front case with his shoe.

"Commitment to the act," a woman said. "Two whole suitcases for a bluff."

"I give her until tonight before she unpacks."

"Tonight is too generous," the man said. "Three hours."

Gianna held up one finger.

"One hour."

"If Luca hands her the apartment and a seat on the pack council, she'll be putting her shirts back in the drawers before he finishes talking."

A friend of hers grinned. "You always call it."

"I know her type," Gianna said.

They all laughed.

I crouched down by the front suitcase and slid my passport and my territory travel permit into the front pocket.

Cedar Pass had issued that permit. It was the only paper that let an unmarked partner leave Nightfall's land without the heir's signature.

I zipped the pocket shut with Luca watching me do it.

He stood in the bedroom doorway with his arms folded.

"What is this, Lara?"

"A posting. Red Sand territory, with the Crimson Sand pack. Three years."

"Red Sand." He laughed once. "It's a dust bowl with a pack hall in it. They'll send you home in a week."

"I fly tomorrow at nine."

"You're not going anywhere. You're my registered partner."

"Registered, not claimed," I said. "No mark, no bond. My own pack's permit covers me, and I have it."

His jaw moved.

Behind him, Gianna touched his sleeve.

"Let her go, Luca. She needs to feel like she chose it."

He didn't look at her. He looked at me.

I stood up and took the handle of the front case.

"I'll get that," Gianna said.

She stepped forward and lifted it from my hand before I could answer.

"You've had a horrible day," she said warmly. "Let me carry something for you."

She set it upright by the door with one hand resting on the front pocket.

Then she turned to Luca. "I need the bathroom. I'll be quick."

She went down the hall toward the bedroom.

I stayed where I was, with my second suitcase against my leg.

Luca crossed the room and stopped in front of me.

"You think this is going to make me beg."

"I think this is what it looks like when a person leaves," I said.

"Then take the card. At least take the card. Buy yourself something in that desert."

"No."

"Why? Why won't you take one thing from me?"

I thought of the dining room door, and the voices behind it, and his silence beside her.

"Because in front of everyone you asked what I was after," I said. "I was never after anything."

He opened his mouth and nothing came out.

Gianna came back down the hall, drying her hands on her jeans.

"All better," she said. "Luca, come on. Let's give her space to finish."

The man by the window looked at his phone.

"Forty minutes," he said. "I'm calling it."

I took both bags downstairs by myself.

The elevator doors closed on the apartment. I leaned on the wall and pressed my thumb against my cuff until the steel was warm.

I checked into a hotel near the airport that night and slept badly.

At six the next morning I wheeled my cases to the airline's desk.

The agent was a wolf, a tired young man with a Nightfall pin on his collar. He scanned my passport and looked up my booking.

"Territory travel permit, please."

"It's in the front pocket."

I unzipped it.

My passport sleeve was there. My boarding printout was there.

The permit was gone.

I turned the pocket inside out, then the whole case, then the second case.

The agent watched me with sympathy.

"Ma'am, an unmarked partner can't leave Nightfall land without her own pack's permit or the heir's signature."

He tapped his screen.

"And I don't have either one for you."

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