The bond broke at 10:14 on a Tuesday night.
I knew the exact moment because I was staring at the clock on the pack house wall when Callahan's hand closed around Skylar's wrist and dragged her onto the dais. The torches lining the stone hall threw shadows across his face. Every ranked wolf in Ironridge stood in formation. I stood slightly apart, near the back corner where I'd learned to make myself invisible.
Skylar's belly curved under her dress. Six months along. Maybe seven. The pack had been whispering about it for weeks.
Callahan didn't look at me. He faced the assembled wolves, his Alpha aura pressing down on the room like a weight. Skylar settled beside him, her hand resting on her stomach. Protective. Possessive.
"I call this gathering under Moon Law," Callahan said. His voice carried to every corner. "To formalize what the Goddess should have granted from the beginning."
My wolf stirred inside me—a thin, fractured flicker that had never fully formed. Three years of trying to awaken her completely, and all I'd ever gotten was this dim half-presence that Callahan used as proof I was defective.
She pressed against my ribs now. Uneasy.
"I, Callahan, Alpha of Ironridge—" He paused. His hand moved to Skylar's shoulder. "—reject you, Alyssa, as my mate and Luna."
The mark on my neck went cold first.
Not painful. Just cold. Like someone had pressed ice directly against the scar where his teeth had broken skin three years ago during the marking ceremony.
Then it went empty.
The bond didn't snap. It dissolved. Like a door closing in a room that had already been abandoned.
My wolf howled inside my skull—a sound only I could hear, thin and desperate and wrong. Then she collapsed. I felt her fold in on herself, a presence that had barely existed suddenly gone entirely.
My knees gave out.
I hit the stone floor hard enough that the impact jarred up through my spine. My hands caught me, palms flat against cold rock. I couldn't get air into my lungs. The emptiness where the bond had been was so complete it felt like a wound.
No one moved.
I looked up. Callahan was leading Skylar to the Luna's chair—the seat I'd never been allowed to sit in, not once in three years. She lowered herself into it with a small, satisfied smile. Her eyes found mine across the hall.
She smirked.
Callahan stepped over me on his way back to the center of the dais. His boot passed six inches from my hand. He didn't look down.
"The bond is severed," he announced. "Skylar will be recognized as Luna of Ironridge. The ceremony will take place at the next full moon."
I pressed my fingers against the mark on my neck. It was still there—the scar, the shape of his teeth—but it felt dead. Like touching a part of my body that had gone numb.
The pack began to disperse. Conversations started up in low murmurs. I stayed on the floor, my palms still flat against the stone, and waited for someone to help me up.
No one did.
After a while, I stood on my own. My legs shook. The hall was nearly empty. Two Omegas were extinguishing the torches along the walls. They glanced at me, then looked away quickly.
I walked out through the side door and made it to the storage room they'd moved me to after Skylar started spending nights in the Alpha's quarters. It was barely larger than a closet. A cot. A single shelf. No window.
I sat on the edge of the cot and pressed my fingers to the mark again. Cold. Empty. Dead.
My wolf was gone. Not dormant. Gone.
I'd spent three years waiting for her to fully awaken. Three years of Callahan's fists when I failed to shift on command. Three years of his Alpha tone locking my muscles into obedience while he reminded me I was defective, broken, not worth the bond the Goddess had wasted on me.
And now she was just… gone.
I lay down on the cot, curled on my side, and stared at the wall.
Somewhere in the pack house, Callahan was probably celebrating. Skylar was probably already redecorating the Luna's quarters.
I closed my eyes.
The bond was gone. My wolf was gone. I had nothing left that tied me to this place except the fact that I had nowhere else to go.
I didn't sleep that night. I lay on the cot and felt the emptiness where the bond had been, and I waited.
I didn't know what I was waiting for.
But I waited anyway.
