Julius came back four hours after dawn.
I heard his truck in the driveway. Heard his boots on the porch. Heard him stop when he saw the blood on the stairs.
I was in the healer's room. They had moved me there after the bleeding stopped. After Healer Marsh had done everything she could. After she had sat beside me in silence because there were no words left that mattered.
The door opened. Julius stood there. His face was pale. His eyes moved from me to the healer to the empty bassinet in the corner that someone had brought down from storage too soon.
"Mariana." His voice cracked. He crossed the room. Dropped to his knees beside the bed. Reached for my hand.
I pulled it away.
He flinched. "Baby, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. You didn't tell me you were pregnant. I didn't—"
"I called you," I said quietly. My voice sounded strange. Flat. Like it belonged to someone else. "Through the mind-link. I screamed for you."
He shook his head. "I never heard it. I swear to the goddess, Mariana, I never heard anything. The link must have—there must have been interference. A malfunction. Something."
"Camryn's calls always reach you perfectly."
His jaw tightened. "That's not fair."
"Fair." I turned my head to look at him. Really look at him. At this man I had built from nothing. "I lost our pup, Julius. I bled alone on the floor for twenty minutes before anyone found me. Where were you."
"There was a security breach on the eastern border. Camryn flagged it. I had to assess—"
"Was there a breach."
He hesitated. Just for a second. But I saw it.
"We found evidence of rogue activity," he said carefully. "Tracks. Old ones. It turned out to be nothing immediate, but at the time—"
"At the time, you chose her call over mine."
"I never heard your call!" His voice rose. Desperate now. Angry. "You're acting like I ignored you. Like I knew you were hurt and chose not to come. That's not what happened. That's not who I am."
I closed my eyes. "Get out."
"Mariana—"
"Get out, Julius."
He stood there for a long moment. I could feel him looking at me. Waiting for me to take it back. To soften. To be the woman who had always forgiven him before.
I didn't open my eyes.
Finally, he left.
Healer Marsh stayed. She sat in the chair beside the bed and said nothing. After a while, she squeezed my hand once and left too.
I lay in the dark and felt for my wolf.
Nothing.
Not a whisper. Not a flicker. Not even the faintest sense of her presence.
She was gone. Completely gone. And I was alone inside my own skin in a way I had never been before.
***
The weeks blurred together.
I moved through the pack house like something not quite alive. I ate when someone put food in front of me. I slept when my body shut down from exhaustion. I took the pills Healer Marsh prescribed—heavy antidepressants in orange bottles that I hid in the back of my closet behind the winter coats.
I didn't shift. Couldn't shift. My wolf was silent and without her I was just a human woman living in a werewolf's world.
Julius tried.
He brought me flowers. He canceled a summit to stay home for three days. He sat beside me on the couch and tried to hold my hand. He told me we could try again. That we had time. That the healer said my body would heal.
He didn't know. Healer Marsh had told me privately. The damage was permanent. The fall had done something irreversible. I would never carry another pup.
I didn't tell him. What was the point. He had already lost interest in the mate he had. Why burden him with the knowledge that she was now also broken.
I stopped going to pack events. Stopped cooking. Stopped pretending.
The copper wire ring sat in its cedar box on my nightstand. I looked at it sometimes. Remembered the parking lot. The promise. The girl I had been who believed that love was enough.
She felt like someone I had known a long time ago. Someone young and stupid and impossibly naive.
***
Camryn got bolder.
I saw her in Julius's office one afternoon. I had gone to bring him lunch—an old habit I couldn't quite break—and found her sitting in his Alpha chair. Legs crossed. His flannel draped over her shoulders. She smiled when she saw me.
"Luna," she said warmly. "Julius just stepped out. He'll be right back."
I set the plate on the desk. Turned to leave.
"Mariana," she called after me. Her voice was softer now. Almost kind. "I'm really sorry about the pup. That must have been so hard."
I stopped. Looked back at her.
She was still smiling. But her eyes were flat. Cold. Calculating.
I didn't say anything. I just left.
Later that week, she wore one of his flannels to a pack meeting. The red one. The one I had thrown in the trash months ago. Someone must have retrieved it. Washed it. Given it back to him.
Or maybe he had given it to her himself.
The pack noticed. I saw the glances. The whispers. But no one said anything to me. No one asked if I was okay. No one challenged her.
The silence was its own kind of violence.
***
I contacted the attorney on a Tuesday.
His name was Marcus Hale. He specialized in werewolf family law. Mate dissolutions. Bond severances. He had an office in Boston and a reputation for discretion.
I met him in a human coffee shop two towns over. I wore sunglasses and a baseball cap. I paid in cash.
He listened while I told him everything. He didn't interrupt. Didn't judge. Just took notes in neat handwriting on a yellow legal pad.
When I finished, he looked at me across the table.
"You understand what you're asking for," he said quietly. "A formal rejection. A bond severance. It's not reversible. And it will hurt. Both of you. Physically. The pain is—" He paused. "Significant."
"I understand."
"You'll need to speak the words. The formal declaration. And he'll need to countersign the dissolution paperwork. If he refuses—"
"He won't refuse," I said. "Not once he realizes I'm serious."
Marcus studied me for a long moment. Then he nodded.
"I'll draft the documents. It'll take about two weeks. When you're ready, we'll proceed."
I left the coffee shop with a folder of paperwork and a timeline. Three weeks. Maybe four.
I could survive four more weeks.
I went home. Hid the folder in the back of my closet beside the pill bottles and the ultrasound photos Julius never saw. I sat on the edge of the bed and ran my thumb across the inside of my left wrist.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
I just had to wait for him to leave Ironveil. For a summit. A meeting. Anything that would take him far enough away that I could speak the words and be gone before he made it back.
I could do this.
I could survive this.
And then I would be free.
