Selene believed I was simply lashing out—like one of those bonded mates who discovers their partner's scent-treason and crumbles into howls and empty threats, only to be soothed with a moon-silver timepiece and an elaborate moonfeast.
She seemed to have forgotten who I was.
I didn't have a pack dynasty to shelter me the way she did. But I'd forged my own path through blood and cunning. Accepted into an elite training ground across the border at sixteen. Fought my way through the cutthroat territory wars of the eastern packs by twenty-two. Returned to my homeland at twenty-five to challenge her as an equal in the struggle for dominance and resources.
We bonded not because I couldn't survive without her, but because she'd sworn herself to me. One life. One mate. Just the two of us beneath every moon.
The cruelty of it still burned in my chest.
Five years. That's all it took for her to forget every vow.
The next day, I received a pack-link request from Ronan. The message attached read: "Kael, I'd like to explain about your patrol relic's maintenance issue."
Pack duties consumed me that day—councils and territory disputes from dawn until the stars emerged, then a swift run across the border for my uncle Eamon's seventieth lunar-turn celebration. He was my only remaining blood kin.
I didn't accept the request until I reached his den.
Ronan immediately sent a voice-stone message. Something about the den-smith being a temporary hire who'd vanished without a trace. Couldn't be tracked.
I didn't respond. But my claw slipped across the message surface, and I accidentally opened his pack-feed.
The latest posting was from thirty minutes ago.
Selene sat on the carved stone settee in our private den, drinking broth. Behind her hung the ancestral tapestry I'd paid a fortune for at the elder auctions. The hand-woven pelts I'd commissioned from the mountain craftswolves.
And there was Ronan. Wearing my favorite sleeping furs. My den slippers.
Grinning beside her, one arm raised to capture their image in a reflection-stone, the other flashing a gesture of victory.
The caption: "Finally able to care for you while you're healing. I know I've been misunderstood, but the truth speaks for itself. Homemade bone broth—hope your strength returns soon."
I captured the image and sent it through our mate-bond channel to Selene.
"Living in my den. Wearing my furs. Getting cozy with my bonded mate. This is your idea of 'innocent'?!"
Her reply came instantly.
"Kael, Ronan spilled broth on his clothes while preparing it. He's just borrowing yours temporarily. He meant well. Don't let your wolf read too much into it."
I laughed—a cold, sharp sound that echoed off the stone walls.
"Meant well?"
"More like the spilled broth was an excuse and sneaking into my territory was the real goal. Wearing my furs to play at being the alpha of my den? What—does he think if he marks enough of my belongings with his scent, he'll get elevated to bonded mate?"
"Do you have to be so vicious?"
Her tone shifted, growing wounded.
"You're never here. He came to tend to me. Can't you show a little grace?"
"Kael, you weren't like this before. When did you become so domineering? So heartless?"
I stared at the message and laughed in disbelief.
Domineering? Heartless?
When the Ashvale Pack's resource lines collapsed, I was the one who led my wolves through a moon-cycle of sleepless nights to secure the alliance pact that saved her family's standing.
When her father fell ill with the silver-fever, I was the one who abandoned a massive territory expansion to sit vigil at his bedside for two weeks.
She used to say she admired my decisiveness. My killer instinct in pack politics.
Now that she had a sweet, attentive little wolf by her side, suddenly I was domineering and cruel?
My uncle insisted I stay for the full celebration. It wasn't until the third night that I caught the earliest dawn run back to our territory.
The scent-lock on our den hadn't been changed.
But my scent had been stripped from the recognition wards.
I stood at my own threshold and scratched at the entrance marker.
Ronan opened it.
This time, he wasn't wearing a tunic. Just loose training leathers slung low on his hips. His hair was damp, dripping—like he'd just emerged from the bathing pool.
"Kael?" His voice pitched high with false surprise. "What are you doing here? Selene's still resting—"
I cut him off with a low growl that made his wolf flinch.
"Last I checked, I don't need permission to enter my own den."
