POV: Lena Parker
Blackridge Sports Medicine was almost silent at five in the morning.
That was why I came before sunrise.
I had one cardboard box on the bench beside my locker and forty minutes before the Ravencrest transport reached the edge of pack territory. I moved quickly, packing textbooks, framed certifications, a coffee mug, two rolls of specialty tape, and the tiny desk fan I had bought during my first summer shift.
Every object carried a memory I didn't want.
The mug Damon used to steal.
The anatomy chart he had once held against the wall while kissing me after hours.
The private schedule I had built around his shoulder rehab.
I pulled the last photo from the inside of my locker. It showed my first field-medical certification. Damon had taken the picture, but he wasn't in it.
Good.
That one could come with me.
The training-room door opened.
Cedar and woodsmoke filled the sterile air.
I didn't turn.
"You're actually packing," Damon said.
The deadbolt clicked behind him.
I put the photo into my box. "I told you I was leaving."
"I thought you'd sleep on it."
"I did."
"And?"
I faced him. "I slept badly. I'm still leaving."
He looked as if he had not slept at all. He wore black trousers and a fitted thermal shirt. Shadows darkened the skin beneath his eyes, but his posture still carried the confidence of a man who had spent his life expecting people to negotiate around him.
"I came with a solution," he said.
"There is no solution."
"There is if you stop treating the Luna title like a love declaration."
My stomach turned.
He moved to the other side of the examination table and put both hands on the metal surface.
"Vanessa handles council meetings, ceremonies, alliance dinners, donor events. She gives the elders the political structure they demanded."
"Lucky her."
"Lena, listen." His voice softened. "She doesn't have my wolf. She doesn't have the bond. You do."
He walked around the table.
The mate connection tightened as he approached. My body remembered him before I could stop it: the heat of his chest, the way his scent used to settle my wolf, the exact distance at which my pulse always changed.
Damon noticed.
Relief flickered across his face.
"You stay," he said. "You finish your program here. You run the clinic when you're licensed. We keep what we have."
He stopped close enough that I could feel his warmth.
"Privately," he added.
One word destroyed the last of the temptation.
I stepped back.
His face changed.
"You want a Luna in public and a mate in private."
"Temporarily."
"You want Vanessa in the council chamber and me in your treatment room."
"That isn't fair."
"No, Damon. It is exactly fair. You want her for power and me for everything inconvenient to lose."
His jaw tightened. "I love you."
It was the first time he had said it since the ceremony.
I hated that it still hurt.
"Love that requires me to disappear isn't enough."
I turned to the scheduling computer.
He followed. "What are you doing?"
I opened the master calendar and searched his name.
Alpha Damon Blackwood—Private Rehabilitation, 8:00 a.m., recurring Monday through Friday.
Two years of my mornings.
I selected the series.
"Lena."
"You rely on me because I learned every limit of that shoulder," I said. "You know why I learned it? Because I loved taking care of you."
I clicked Delete All.
His appointments vanished.
The empty column looked beautiful.
"Stop," Damon said, Alpha pressure rolling through the room.
My hand paused over the keyboard.
Not because I wanted to obey.
Because something in his tone made my wolf flinch.
I turned slowly.
"Do that again," I said, "and whatever chance you think we have of speaking like two people ends right now."
The pressure disappeared.
Damon looked almost ashamed.
Almost wasn't enough.
I unclipped the silver clinic key from my lanyard and set it on the desk.
"Your next session is in three hours. Front desk will assign someone."
"No one here knows the injury like you do."
"Then they'll read my notes. That's what medical records are for."
I lifted the cardboard box.
Damon moved in front of the exit.
He didn't touch me, but his body filled the doorway.
"You belong to this pack."
"Move."
"Lena—"
"Move."
For several seconds, neither of us did.
Then I shifted my box against my hip and stepped directly toward him. If he stayed where he was, he would have to physically restrain me.
He knew it.
At the last second, he moved aside.
The hallway air felt cleaner.
I walked through the doorway, then stopped.
"One more thing."
Damon looked at me.
"If you ever come to Ravencrest, you come because the academy invited you. Not because you think being my mate gives you access to me."
His throat moved as he swallowed.
"You really think we can become strangers?"
"No," I said. "I think we can become people who used to know each other."
That landed harder.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
RAVENCREST TRANSPORT: ARRIVING AT NORTH BORDER IN 12 MINUTES.
I showed him the screen.
Outside, dawn had started turning the clinic windows gray. The shift change would begin soon, and I refused to let our final argument become a spectacle for the staff who had spent two years pretending not to notice us.
The transfer confirmation listed my new housing, orientation appointment, and independent student status. It was ordinary administrative text, but seeing it made the decision real in a way every argument had not. I was no longer threatening to leave. I had somewhere else to go.
"That's my ride."
Damon stared at the message, then at the box in my arms.
He could have ordered the border guards to stop the car.
He could have called my father.
He could have tried one more Alpha command.
He did none of those things.
He simply stood in the doorway while I walked away.
For the first time in two years, I left Blackridge without planning when I would return.
