In his communication stone, my name was always a cold, distant Aurora.
So this was the difference between love and indifference. It really was that clear.
Henry clearly thought that the call was more important than I was. He accepted it immediately, lowering his voice, though I heard everything with perfect clarity.
“Demi, I will come right now.”
I watched him pick up the bouquet of moonlit lilies, the flowers that made me allergic yet were so precious to him.
He never asked if I was well enough to be left alone.
“I am not coming back for dinner.”
Then he tossed out a careless command. “Handle it yourself.”
He finished speaking and moved to leave.
I inhaled deeply, stepped forward, blocked his path, flipped the scroll to the last page, and placed the sharpened pen in his hand.
“Sign this first.”
Henry paused, as if he had not expected me to interrupt him.
His brows drew together as he prepared to open the scroll from the beginning and read it thoroughly. He had always been cautious. Even a leave request for a hunt had to be examined in full.
But at that moment, the communication stone vibrated again.
The glowing sigil displayed the name he could never let go of.
From the other side came a voice soft as honey. “Henry, why are you not here yet? I have been waiting so long.”
A chill spread through my entire body.
Henry hesitated for three seconds.
Three seconds later, he abandoned the idea of reading anything.
All that carefulness he always carried vanished completely.
He signed his name on the last page.
It was like he was signing a clan duty slip.
Once done, he flicked his wrist and set the pen down without care.
“Is this enough? Can I go?”
He did not even ask why I wanted to dissolve the mate bond.
I stared at that cold signature and nodded slowly. “It is enough.”
I gave him the freedom he wanted.
Before turning away, he still reminded me, “Since you will not be around, no one will be cleaning the camp house. Remember to tidy up.”
The sound of the door closing fell heavily, locking away both me and the marriage of the past five years.
I had always known that the one living in Henry’s heart was not me, but his first love, Demi.
All those years in the training camp, I had loved him quietly through an entire youth.
His gaze had always followed her. I could only watch his back.
That year, Demi was suddenly chosen by an allied clan to study abroad. It left Henry completely unprepared.
That night, he drank himself senseless and called me through the mind-link on the stormy ridge.
“Aurora... can you come here? I feel terrible.”
His voice was wet and trembling like rain.
When I arrived, he looked like he had been abandoned by the world, crouching in the cold wind with his head buried in his arms.
A moment later, he reached out and pulled me into his arms, pressing all his exhaustion and loneliness onto my shoulders.
I knew he was too drunk to recognize who I was. I knew the person he wanted to hold was never me.
But I still held him tightly.
That night was the only time I ever approached him as someone he needed.
The moments I mistook for affection now felt like illusions I created to deceive myself.
I came back to my senses, went upstairs, and walked into the wardrobe room to pack my things.
When I opened the wooden closet, I froze.
It was almost empty.
Hanging inside were only a few ceremonial outfits his mother had gifted me when I first married into Henry’s clan house.
Five years of being mates, and Henry had never bought me anything.
No nightwear. No scarves. No fur slippers.
I had prepared countless festival gifts for him over the years, chosen with care, yet he never truly looked at any of them. They were tossed into corners and left to gather dust.
As I gathered those gifts into a hide bag, intending to discard them, I saw the steward hauling away all the things I had written, sewn, and crafted with my own hands. He treated them as waste.
I watched the wagon carrying them away until it disappeared. A strange kind of desolation washed over me.
So my five years of love were not even worth scraps in another person’s eyes.
I drew a long breath, picked up my communication stone, and opened the mind-link to my father.
“Dad. You were right. I was the one who was wrong. I am willing to attend the arranged union one week from now.”
