The Matriarch had also given me her word—when the time came, she would prove my innocence to all. What they thought of me no longer mattered.
I watched him with an expressionless face, let out a long breath, and turned to burrow into the furs of my sleeping nest.
"Do as you please. Whatever you want."
He thought I would lash out at Lyra Ashvale the way I used to—claws bared, fangs showing. His whole body went tense, and he planted himself firmly in front of her like a shield.
But when he saw me simply turn my back and lie down, every emotion on his face ground to a halt.
After a long silence, he spoke in a voice thick with disbelief.
"You... you're not angry?"
My tone stayed flat. "Haven't you always wanted me to get along with her peacefully?"
He exhaled and actually laughed with relief.
"You've finally learned. I knew you weren't truly cold-hearted. I'll make it up to you—I swear I will."
I didn't respond. I didn't look at him once, not even when they finally left.
A long time later, I pressed my palm against my chest where no flutter stirred.
So this was what letting go felt like.
Over the following days, guilt seemed to drive him. He visited me every few suns—met with cold silence, turned away at the door—yet he never lost patience. He just kept painting pictures of the beautiful life we'd share someday.
It wasn't until he brought up the pup's First Moon Celebration that his words turned hesitant.
"Lyra will never be able to claim her own blood-born pup in front of the pack. So I thought... while the pup is still too young to understand... I could let her attend the ceremony openly. As the mother."
"It would ease her sorrow, at least a little. Don't you think?"
My fingers never stopped working the bone needle through the memorial shroud I was stitching for Rowan. I didn't even lift my eyes.
"I told you—do as you please. This pup was never mine. Whatever you decide has nothing to do with me."
His throat worked. Red crept into the rims of his eyes, and a flicker of anger sparked beneath it. He snatched the offering cloth from my hands—the one meant for Rowan's cairn.
"Why have you been like this lately? Do you even understand what it means if she attends? It means the pack will see her as the Hawthorne Alpha's true mate. You never would have allowed that before."
I paused. Let my gaze drift to him with something close to boredom.
"And that's a problem? Two moons ago, when you were tangled in her bed, didn't you tell her it was such a pity you could never give her a proper place at your side?"
He went pale as carved stone, frozen where he stood.
I took the cloth back from his slack grip. My emotions stayed steady, as though nothing had happened at all.
He hovered at my ear after that, spilling excuse after excuse—he didn't love her, she'd slipped a heat-draught into his drink, he'd only taken her body because of the drug and felt obligated to take responsibility. The words made my stomach turn, but my silence defeated them all.
After that day, he stopped coming to see me.
But I often saw Lyra's posts on the pack's Howl-Channel—photo after photo of them together. They'd taken the pup to every portrait artist in the territory, posing as a perfect little family in every style imaginable.
The day I finally left my recovery den, the entire Hawthorne Pack was celebrating that bastard pup's First Moon.
The Matriarch sent word: the Bond Rejection would be sealed by tomorrow.
When I returned to the den to gather my things, I found that the chambers Fenris and I had once shared—our mating quarters—had been completely transformed into everything Lyra preferred.
Even the portrait that used to hang beside the hearth—Fenris cradling my swollen belly, his hands gentle over the life growing inside me—had been replaced. Now it showed him with Lyra and the pup. A perfect family portrait.
In the image, Fenris Hawthorne was smiling.
Smiling more brightly than he had the day I'd accepted his courtship claim.
I went to the sleeping chamber, meaning to take only the clothes I'd brought before our mating.
But no matter how I searched through the carved wooden wardrobes, I couldn't find it—the hand-embroidered ceremonial gown my mother had stitched for me with her own hands before she passed.
I was reaching for my communication crystal to ask when I saw it: a new post on the Howl-Channel. Lyra, wearing my mother's gown, standing at the First Moon Celebration.
Rage boiled up from somewhere deep.
I called for a runner and rushed to the great hall. There she was—arm linked through Fenris's, laughing prettily, accepting the pack's fawning congratulations like she'd earned every word.
When Fenris spotted me, guilt flickered across his face—but beneath it, I caught a gleam of smug satisfaction, as if he'd expected this all along.
He released Lyra and walked toward me.
