It was my birthday, and Aldric had sworn on the moonstone that he would return early to mark the night with me, yet he called in the afternoon, voice steady as always, to claim some sudden engagement had detained him. I trusted him, the bond of our pack ringing clear in my mind, and still waited, heart lifting at the thought of sharing the night with him.
I should have known better. His “engagement” was not with business or duty—it was with Rowena, his childhood companion, and together they danced beneath the moonlight, setting off sparks that mimicked the stars.
How cruelly ironic it felt.
Through the mindlink, I glimpsed him as if watching from afar: his strong face, usually so unreadable, now alight with laughter, eyes warm and tender as they rested on her. That was a gaze I had never known, a smile I had never been given. Before this, I had assumed his aloofness was nature itself, a permanent shadow over his affection.
I laughed, bitter and hollow, then broke the seal on the cake before me. The sweet, heavy taste filled my mouth, yet it offered no comfort, no joy. It was merely sustenance, empty as the promises between us.
I sent my thoughts to him, reaching through the moonstone. His reply came instantly, calm and distant, as though nothing had stirred within him: “What is it?”
I heard it then—the crackle, the hissing fireworks in the background, and my stomach sank as my claws dug into the table. A pause, two heartbeats, and I swallowed the bitter taste of cake before speaking clearly, deliberately: “Where are you?”
“At the office. What matters?” His tone was still that same mask of serenity. The sounds of celebration were gone, yet the warmth and light he had shared with another clung in my mind, suffocatingly vivid.
I glanced at the lingering image in my thoughts, at the shared joy that had excluded me, and finally, I whispered into the bond we had shared: “We are done.”
“You make storms again,” he replied, voice like cold stone.
I allowed myself a thin, sharp smile. “Browse your memories with her more often, then, Moonlink Master.”
I severed the connection and stood, tasting the tang of finality on my tongue. I could not remain in the den of one who had chosen another, even when it had been my packmate, my mate. I gathered the untouched dishes, packed them carefully, and then collected my own belongings.
The journey back to my small apartment was quiet, the night wind tugging at my fur as if urging me to remember who I truly was outside the orbit of him. My parents had gifted me the dwelling after my rites of passage, after graduation. Yet for months I had abandoned it, swayed by his insistence that our dens were too distant, too cumbersome to bind together.
In truth, the distance was not measured in leagues or rivers—it was measured in hearts, and ours were separated by oceans unseen, even beneath the same moon.
Back in my quiet den, I arranged my few things, washed under the moon’s pale glow, and finally surrendered to sleep, alone.
The next dawn, the moonstone flickered with messages from him, weak tendrils of guilt: “What has come over you?” “Return when your anger fades. Do not be willful.”
I ignored them, letting the messages vanish into the ether of my den, as I had so many times before.
Rowena had always had a claim on him, a pull that summoned him when storms rattled her windows, when fear chased her into the night. I had argued, fought, demanded, yet he only ever said, “Those with corrupt hearts see corruption everywhere.”
Every abandonment had been mended with roses, gestures that lulled me back into the fold of a love that had never truly been mine. But tonight, beneath the gaze of the eternal moon, I understood—I was weary.
This time, I would not return.
