I didn’t chase after Alpha Thorne Darkhowl.
He left still laughing, his voice pitched too loud, too careless, murmuring about champagne and bikinis into Camille Hartclaw’s ear as if I were already erased—as if I were nothing more than the mat beneath his boots. He walked like a man reborn, posture straight, steps confident, while I stayed collapsed on the floor, knees screaming, pride splintered, spirit cracked open. It felt as though the ground itself had claimed me, swallowed me whole, while he strode away untouched.
Eventually, I pushed myself upright, slowly, with intention. My joints protested, creaking like rusted hinges. I dragged my palm across the tile, smearing dust and grit and whatever scraps of dignity still clung to me. I made my way to the bathroom and closed the door quietly, careful not to disturb the sleeping house.
The mirror offered no mercy.
Bloodshot eyes. Puffy skin. Hair loose and feral. I looked like someone who had tried to scream underwater—someone who had already drowned but kept breathing out of habit alone.
There was no coffin waiting for me. No candles burning low. No whispered prayers or mourning veils. And yet I was grieving. Not for him. Not even for the ruin of our marriage. I mourned myself—the girl I used to be. The reckless flame who laughed too loudly and loved too fiercely, before I dimmed her light for his comfort. Before I clipped my wings, blunted my claws, and bent myself smaller so I could fit inside his expectations.
I mourned every piece of myself I buried in quiet compromises. Every version of me that faded when I chose him over my own blood and fire. Until all that was left was a hollow thing—a shadow drifting through the remains of the wolf I once was.
His footsteps passed the door. His laugh followed, low and cruel. He was still on the phone, but he paused just long enough to bark, “Pack my bags. It’s business mixed with pleasure. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
No glance.
No courtesy.
Only command.
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. When his voice disappeared down the hall, I dried my hands on the crooked towel and walked into his room like a servant answering her master’s call.
His closet was a disaster—suits tangled with shirts, shoes buried beneath dirty socks. A grown man with the habits of a spoiled pup who believed himself a ruler.
I began folding his clothes anyway, smoothing fabric with hands that felt numb. Then my elbow brushed the side table, and a folder slid free, scattering its contents across the floor.
Cruise tickets.
I read the names once.
Then again.
Each letter cut sharper than the last.
Thorne Darkhowl.
Camillerette Hartclaw.
Julian.
Corinne.
Ken.
Nolan.
My name was nowhere to be found.
The journey I had carried in my chest for three decades—the promise whispered into my hair when I was eighteen—had been handed to Camille as casually as tossing a bone to a favored hound.
It was for her birthday.
He remembered hers.
He never remembered mine.
I folded the tickets slowly, carefully, as though paper could bleed if mishandled. Then I packed his suitcase anyway. Shoes buffed. Shirts pressed. Cufflinks gleaming like silver fangs. Julian barged in without knocking, beer in hand, and ordered me to pack for him too. And the twins. Corinne’s perfume. Snacks with neat labels. They dropped their needs at my feet and left without a word of thanks.
I complied.
Obedience had been driven into me over decades—the way one breaks a wolf until it forgets the taste of its own blood.
Later, alone in my room, shaking, my thoughts drifted backward.
To eighteen.
To Thorne, when his touch had been a vow instead of a weapon. When his eyes had not yet hardened into cold steel. He had promised to protect me always. To build a future untouched by pack politics or prophecy. His words had burned brighter than a blood moon, and like a fool caught in its glow, I believed him.
I believed him even when it meant defying my father—the Alpha of the Mira—whose fury was ancient, whose wolf carried the weight of centuries.
“You are no daughter of mine,” my father had roared, his voice shaking stone, his beast raging beneath his skin. The earth itself seemed to bow beneath his dominance. “Take that boy if you choose. But know this—our bond is severed. If you return to my gates, I will tear out your throat before I ever call you kin again.”
I had stood before him, trembling but unbroken, and whispered through his storm, “I love him.”
“You love a shadow,” he spat, eyes blazing silver. “And shadows always consume their own.”
Thirty winters later, his curse had come true.
The boy I loved, the mate I bled for, had withered into a man who could snarl me down, shove me aside, and walk away without a backward glance. A man who booked moonlit voyages with another woman while leaving me behind to scrub his boots like discarded prey.
And at last, I understood.
My father hadn’t cast me out in cruelty.
He had seen the rot long before I ever did.
My gaze fell on the landline—old, forgotten, ignored. But it still worked. My hand moved before fear could stop it. I dialed the number I had carried like an open scar for thirty years.
It rang.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
Then—
“Hello?”
His voice. Older. Rougher. Worn by time. But unmistakable. Still the Alpha of the Mira. Still my father.
My throat closed. I clutched the receiver like a lifeline, tears falling in silent, unstoppable streams.
“…Father,” I whispered, the word breaking free like shattered bone. “…It’s me. Nyx.”
