A wolf who kept the ledgers of his outer trading-post.
A secret.
My wounds weren't deep, so the pack healer kept me under watch for three days before letting me go. Everything was routine. Quiet. Uneventful. The private Healing Hall smelled of crushed herbs and old bloodline money, and the attendants moved with the careful hush of those who knew better than to ask whose name truly sat on the bill.
The cost passed through the Pack's holdings, and whatever remained was returned straight to Salveth's account.
Three days.
Not a single visit.
Not even a sending through the stone.
And then, on the day they released me, my crystal communicator rang.
"You're out already?" Salveth's voice came through, casual, almost mildly annoyed. "You could've at least given me word."
I held the communicator in silence.
"I've a council to sit today," he went on. "Can't come for you."
"…All right."
That was all I said.
I swallowed everything else. The questions that rose to my throat. The ones that used to matter.
I didn't ask where he was.
I didn't ask who he was with.
Instead, I opened the communicator and traced his location.
A den on the edge of Bloodmoor hunting grounds. One of those with discreet attendants and no eyes in the corridors.
I didn't need him to explain anything. I didn't need it confirmed.
Then, faintly, through the receiver, I caught a woman's voice.
"Come dry my hair, won't you?"
The line went dead almost instantly.
He cut it.
I stared at the stone for a moment, unmoving. Somewhere beneath my ribs, my wolf went very still, the way an animal goes still when it senses a thing it cannot name.
Not long after, two transfer marks surfaced.
1,314 moon-credits.
1,520 moon-credits.
The numbers hit me harder than anything else.
They weren't random.
They meant something. They always had.
1314 meant forever.
1520 meant I love you.
For years, I had wished for this. For him to send me those numbers, for something so simple and bound with meaning. I had imagined catching it on a screen, sharing it on the spirit network, just once, like everyone else. Just once, to show that I had something real.
But every time I raised it, he refused.
He didn't like attention.
He didn't want anyone asking questions.
He didn't want it known. An Alpha's private life was a liability, he said. Something rival packs could use.
And now… now that I had already decided to let him go, he sent them?
I didn't know if it was guilt. Or habit. Or something else entirely.
I opened his profile without thinking.
The moment it loaded, I froze.
His image had changed.
It was a couple portrait.
But not with me.
I didn't hesitate.
I returned both transfers at once.
A few seconds later, the stone buzzed again.
A string of question marks.
I didn't answer.
When I returned to the den-rooms, nothing had changed.
Everything was exactly as it had been the night of the gathering. The same boots by the door. The same coat thrown over the chair. The same faint trace lingering in the air, obsidian and cold ash, dried clove, old leather gone faintly bitter, the ghost of a world where rulings were made in back chambers and sealed with oaths that could never be unspoken.
Which meant one thing.
He hadn't been back.
Not once.
I stood there a moment, letting the silence settle around me. Then I drew a deep breath, pushed down the tight ache rising in my chest, and began to pack.
It didn't take long.
Piece by piece, the space began to empty.
Five years.
Five years of a life I had carefully built around him, taken apart in a few short hours.
Most of what I packed were things I had chosen myself.
Couple things.
Matching mugs. Clothes that paired. Small ornaments that hinted at something shared.
Salveth had never cared for any of it.
He never wore anything that might mark him as taken. Never used anything too plain to read. He said a wolf in his place couldn't afford to look soft. Couldn't give anyone a grip to hold.
I used to tease him about it.
Saying he carried himself like some deep-buried tracker, hiding his scent from the whole world.
Now I understood.
It was never a jest.
He simply never saw me as someone he needed to claim. No mark at the curve of my neck. No glow under the moon. Nothing.
I was halfway through packing when I heard the door open.
He came back.
"Selene, what's this about?" he snapped the moment he saw me. "I've been calling you. I told you to come out and eat. You didn't pick up, didn't reply."
I didn't look up at once.
The scent reached me first.
A woman's perfume.
Not mine.
Not even close. My wolf flattened low inside me, a quiet, wounded thing that did not howl, only turned its face away.
Without thinking, I lifted my hand slightly, holding him from coming any closer.
When I finally raised my eyes, they drifted to his neck.
Faint red marks.
Bite-bruises.
"Sorry," I said calmly, my voice steady. I smoothed a blouse flat against the lining of the case, pressing the crease until it was sharp enough to cut. "I've been busy. Didn't check the stone."
He frowned, his gaze sweeping the room.
Only then did he notice the cases. The bare shelves. The missing pieces.
"Don't tell me you've spent it tearing the rooms apart," he said, irritation creeping into his tone. "You just left the Healing Hall. You should be resting."
His eyes settled on a few unopened boxes I hadn't reached yet.
Inside were the couple things I'd bought not long ago. Still new. Still untouched.
"You don't want any of this?" he asked.
