But Ivy suddenly lurched forward and dropped to her knees on the cobblestones with a heavy thud, her eyes rimmed red, her voice cracking with sobs. "Please, my lady, I would never dare harbor any delusions about Alpha Ashcroft. I only beg you to let me remain near him. Even if I must serve as the lowest omega in his household, scrubbing floors and tending fires, I am willing!"
Fenris's expression darkened like a storm rolling over the mountains. "Seraphina, is that really how petty you are? You can't tolerate a single other soul near me?"
"A jealous she-wolf like you, who would ever want to claim you as a mate?"
I stood rooted to the ground, watching him leave with his arm curled protectively around Ivy's shoulders. Her scent, that cloying sweetness of moss and river lilies, clung to him like a second skin.
It happened to be the main market trail through the Capital Territory that day, the kind of path every wolf in the district used. Every word of our exchange had carried on the wind to the gathered crowd, and the whispers started at once, sharp as thorns.
"Isn't Alpha Ashcroft already promised to Seraphina Nighthollow through a mating arrangement? How could he humiliate her in the open like that?"
"An Alpha taking more than one mate is nothing unusual. It's obviously the Nighthollow girl who's the jealous one. Bond yourself to a she-wolf like that and you're inviting a viper into your den!"
"If you ask me, Seraphina's nearly past the Blood Moon Deadline. If Alpha Ashcroft doesn't want her, with a reputation like that, she'll be fortunate to find a packless rogue willing to claim her!"
Each whisper landed like a claw dragged across bare skin. My wolf whimpered deep inside me, pressing herself flat against the floor of my mind, ears pinned back, trembling. I pressed my hands over my ears and ran for home.
The same Fenris Ashcroft who once swore before the Moon Goddess that he would protect me forever had become the very person tearing me apart.
I ran blindly, barely conscious of where my feet carried me, until the familiar scents of cedar oil and dried lavender and candied honey told me where I was. The West Market.
This part of the Capital Territory sold the kinds of things she-wolves loved: moonstone jewelry, hand-woven silks, perfumed oils infused with night-blooming jasmine. Alphas rarely wandered here without purpose, but Fenris had never cared about the curious glances. He would walk these narrow lanes beside me without a second thought, his large frame brushing mine in the crowd, his scent of pine and winter steel wrapping around me like a shield.
Every corner held a memory of us. My feet drifted along the familiar path out of habit, but in the next instant I stopped dead.
Two figures stood on the bridge not far ahead.
Ivy and Fenris, pressed close together on Moonseal Bridge, fastening a bonding charm to the iron chain along the railing. The charm was a small silver crescent etched with intertwined wolves, the kind lovers hung as a vow to the Moon Goddess that their souls were bound as one. Fenris and I had hung one just like it, once upon a time.
"Ivy... if only I'd met you sooner. If I hadn't been so reckless, rushing into that mating arrangement..."
Before he could finish, Ivy leaned in and kissed him. I watched, numb, as Fenris kissed her back with a ferocity that bordered on desperation, his hands gripping her waist as though he meant to pull her into his very bones. His wolf must have been surging beneath his skin because his eyes flashed amber for a heartbeat, bright as forge-fire, and a low growl of possession rumbled from his chest.
"As long as I can be with you, I don't care if I never receive a claiming mark. I'm willing."
"I am going to mate you properly! A full procession, every rite observed under the full moon down to the last howl. From this day forward, you are my mate in all but name!"
"And Seraphina Nighthollow will never lay a finger on you again."
Ice-cold tears slid down my cheeks. My heart felt like a fist had closed around it and squeezed until the blood stopped flowing. The pain was so sharp my knees nearly buckled, and deep inside me my wolf let out a long, broken keen, the sound of something dying that could never be brought back. I stared at them through blurred vision, and in the watery haze, I caught the look Ivy sent my way.
Triumphant. Deliberate.
Her lips curved into the faintest smile, and her eyes, moss-green and cold as river stones, held mine for exactly long enough to make sure I understood. Every word, every touch, every public display had been staged for me. She had known I would be here. She had always known.
Then they left, Fenris's arm still wrapped around her, his broad back disappearing down the bridge like a door closing forever.
I climbed the bridge one slow step at a time, making my way to the spot where Fenris's and my bonding charm still hung from the iron chain. It had been there for years. Rust and rain had eaten through most of the silver until the etched wolves were barely recognizable. I gripped the charm with both hands and wrenched it free.
A dull snap echoed across the water. The corroded metal broke loose easily. It had been falling apart for a long time. I stood there staring at it in my palms, the tarnished crescent no bigger than a coin, and then a drop of water landed on the back of my hand. I reached up to touch my face and realized I had been crying without knowing when I started.
I thought of the five years Fenris and I had been together. He had always been the picture of a proper Alpha: courteous, controlled, never once letting his wolf slip its leash around me. He had never so much as taken my hand without gloves between us. Back then, I believed it was respect. I told myself it was the conduct of an honorable mate-to-be, the kind of restraint that spoke of deep reverence.
But watching him lose all control today, watching his eyes blaze gold for another she-wolf, watching his wolf claw to the surface just to be closer to her, I finally understood. Love was supposed to be uncontrollable. Love was supposed to make you reckless, to make the wolf inside you howl and surge and refuse to be caged. All that propriety, all that careful distance he had kept between us, it had never been respect.
It was proof he had never loved me enough. His wolf had never truly reached for mine. Not once.
I closed my fist around the ruined charm and held it over the railing. For a long moment I just stood there, the wind off the water pulling at my hair, carrying the faint distant scent of pine and winter steel that still clung to the metal.
Then I opened my hand.
The charm hit the water and vanished without a trace, swallowed by the dark current as though it had never existed. Just like everything we had once been.
I will never love you again, Fenris Ashcroft.
I wiped away the last tear and slowly turned around.
