"Five years," I said to the bare walls of the guest room. "Five years of excuses."
I dropped my heavy leather travel pack onto the mattress and unzipped the main flap.
The silence in the room was suffocating. Across the hall, the master bedroom remained dark and quiet, but I could still smell the lingering scent of cedar and mating musk drifting under the doorframe.
I pulled my wool tunics from the wardrobe, folding them with steady hands.
Five years ago, there were no warm rooms or master suites. There was only freezing mud and the stench of iron.
"Stay awake, Oscar," I had ordered into the howling blizzard that night, pressing my bleeding wrist against his frozen lips. "Drink. Take my blood, or you won't survive until dawn."
"I smell you," he had rasped, his canines scraping my skin as he swallowed. "Mate. You're my mate."
"Save your breath for running," I told him, hauling his massive, wounded frame out of the ravine while enemy trackers circled Red Hill Pack's border.
I had dragged him three miles through knee-deep snow, fighting off two rogue scouts with nothing but a hunting knife and my bare claws. My blood kept his heart beating. My warmth kept the frost from rotting his lungs.
When his fever finally broke three days later in my hunting cabin, he had seized my hand, his gray eyes burning with fierce light.
"Quinn, I will only ever have one Luna in my life," he swore, pressing his lips to my bruised knuckles. "No one else will ever sit on that dais beside me. No one else will ever take your place."
I stared down at the half-filled pack, letting out a dry, cracked laugh.
"Liar," I said to the empty room.
Back then, the promise had felt unbreakable. We fought side by side to secure his title. We lived on stale rations and slept under a single fur pelt during the bitter northern skirmishes.
"Lower your guard, you're dead," he used to bark in the training yard, knocking my short sword aside.
"Then stop holding back, Alpha," I would snap right back, sweeping his legs out from under him until we both hit the dirt, breathing hard, laughing against each other's necks.
"Whatever Quinn decides, I decide," he had declared to the council elders the morning of his ascension. "She is the spine of this pack."
Then Ruby came back.
The promises didn't shatter all at once. They eroded, piece by piece, excuse by excuse.
I reached into the bottom drawer of the nightstand and pulled out a battered, black leather notebook. The spine was creased, the edges frayed from years of handling.
I turned the pages, reading the handwriting out loud.
"Year two. October fourteenth."
I remembered the cold wind on the ceremonial stage that afternoon.
"Oscar, where are you?" I had asked through the mind link, my voice echoing across the courtyard while three hundred pack members waited below. "The elders are lighting the pyre. The coronation cannot start without both of us."
"Ruby's fever spiked," his flat reply had come through the bond. "Her wolf is rejecting her medicine. Host it yourself, Quinn. You are strong enough. Ruby has no one."
So I had hosted it alone. I smiled for the crowd. I accepted the crown alone.
I flipped the page.
"Year three. May seventh."
A private dinner. Two silver plates. Candles that burned down to empty pools of wax.
"Where are you?" I had asked him over the phone at midnight.
"I'm at the medical wing," he said, the sound of Ruby's ragged crying audible in the background. "A thunderstorm rolled in. The thunder triggered Ruby's panic attacks from the rogue camps. I can't leave her until she sleeps. We'll celebrate your birthday tomorrow."
Tomorrow had come, and he had forgotten entirely.
I flipped another page.
"Year four. August twenty-second. Our third anniversary."
We had booked the pavilion overlooking the lake. The wine was poured. The musicians were tuning their strings. Then a young sentry ran up to our table, out of breath.
"Alpha, Miss Ruby twisted her ankle on the eastern ridge path!"
Oscar had dropped his fork before the sentry even stopped speaking.
"Wait here," he told me, already pushing his chair back. "I will be right back."
"Oscar, it is an ankle," I had said, catching his forearm. "The healers are on duty. Eat dinner with your wife."
"She is terrified of the dark woods, Quinn," he snapped, shaking off my grip. "Have some empathy. I will return in twenty minutes."
I sat at that table until the waitstaff blew out the lanterns and asked me to leave.
I turned to the next section. The ink was smeared with dried mud from the southern border.
"Year four. The southern ridge ambush."
Five rogue wolves had ambushed our patrol unit. A silver-tipped blade tore through my left shoulder, slicing deep into muscle. Blood soaked through my leather armor.
"Oscar! Flank left!" I had shouted through the chaos, driving my dagger into an attacker's throat. "I'm hit!"
He took down two rogues, then stopped dead, lifting his head to scent the wind.
"Ruby took a walk toward the lower valley," he said, his face pale. "She might be near the perimeter."
"I am bleeding right in front of you!" I yelled over the clash of steel.
"You have three warriors guarding your back!" he shouted, already sprinting toward the tree line. "Hold the line, Quinn! She might be in danger!"
He ran. He didn't look back once.
He left his bleeding Luna on an active battlefield to chase a woman who was taking an unannounced stroll in the flowers.
I turned to the very last written line in the notebook.
Entry ninety-nine: *Winter Solstice. Missed the ancestral blessing. Found in our bed.*
I took a pen from the desk and pressed the tip to the paper.
*Entry one hundred. Gave away the Luna necklace. Replaced me entirely.*
The ink dried in the dim lamplight.
One hundred times.
One hundred times he stood at a crossroads between my dignity and Ruby's comfort, and one hundred times he walked away from me without hesitation.
"One hundred," I whispered.
The anger in my chest didn't flare. It burned out, leaving behind a vast, hollow quiet.
"It turns out I didn't lose to Ruby," I said softly to the cold room.
I closed the notebook with a quiet slap and laid it squarely in the center of the suitcase.
"I just never won his choice."
I grabbed the heavy wool cloak from the chair, folded it, and placed it over the clothes. I pulled the leather straps tight, threading the brass buckles through the notches.
My fingers rested on the final latch. One snap, and I was done.
*BANG!*
The heavy oak door flew open, slamming against the plaster wall with violent force.
Oscar stood in the doorway, his chest bare, his dark trousers hastily buttoned. His gray eyes swept from my face down to the packed luggage resting on the mattress, and his jaw locked into a rigid line.
"You're not going anywhere," he commanded, his Alpha voice cutting through the room like frost.
