Marcus found me in the pack garden the next afternoon.
I was kneeling in the herb beds, pulling weeds with my bare hands. The soil was cold and damp under my fingernails. I didn't look up when his shadow fell across the row of mint I was working on. I just kept pulling.
"Josie."
His voice was softer than it had been in months. I paused. My fingers tightened around a clump of crabgrass.
"I want to do a mate-bond renewal ceremony," he said. "For our ninth anniversary. Just the two of us. At the sacred clearing. Moonrise."
I looked up slowly. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, shoulders squared but not aggressive. The afternoon sun lit his face from the side, and for a second—just a second—I saw the man who had walked me home in the rain nine years ago. The one who had smiled when I told him my favorite flower was honeysuckle.
"Why?" I asked.
He frowned. "Because we're mates. Because it's our anniversary."
I waited.
He shifted his weight. "Because I want to start fresh."
The words hung in the air between us. I searched his face. I looked for sincerity and found something buried under layers of guilt he probably didn't even recognize. It wasn't love. But it was something.
I wiped my hands on my jeans and stood. "Okay."
His shoulders relaxed. "Moonrise. Don't be late."
He turned and walked back toward the pack house. I watched him go. My wolf stirred faintly, a questioning hum in the back of my mind. I pressed my palm to my chest and felt the mate bond—cold and distant, but still there.
Maybe this could work. Maybe we could fix this.
I went back to pulling weeds.
---
I spent hours preparing.
The white dress had been folded in cedar in the back of my closet for three years. I had bought it the summer after our sixth anniversary, thinking I might wear it to renew our vows someday. The fabric was soft and simple, falling just below my knees. I pulled it on and smoothed the wrinkles with my hands.
I braided wildflowers into my hair. Honeysuckle and white clover, the same ones that grew along the forest path where Marcus and I had first recognized each other as mates. My fingers moved slowly, weaving the stems together. The flowers smelled sweet and faint.
When I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized myself. I looked like the girl I had been nine years ago. Before the suppression. Before the silence. Before I learned how to disappear.
I left the pack house at sunset.
The walk to the sacred clearing took twenty minutes. The forest was quiet except for the sound of my footsteps on the dirt path. The sky turned from gold to violet to deep blue. By the time I reached the clearing, the moon was rising—a pale silver disc just above the treeline.
I stood in the center of the clearing and waited.
The moon climbed higher. The air grew cold. I wrapped my arms around myself and reached through the mate bond, searching for Marcus's presence. I felt only static. Distant. Distracted.
One hour passed.
Then two.
The wildflowers in my hair started to wilt. The honeysuckle petals turned brown at the edges. I kept standing. My feet ached. My dress felt too thin against the night air. I reached through the bond again and again, and every time I found nothing but empty noise.
He wasn't coming.
The realization settled over me slowly, like frost creeping across glass. He had promised. He had looked me in the eye and told me to meet him here. And he wasn't coming.
I stayed until dawn.
When the first light broke through the trees, I turned and walked back to the pack house. My white dress was damp with dew. The flowers hung limp in my hair. I didn't bother pulling them out.
Mira was in the hallway when I entered. The young Omega saw me and froze. Her eyes went wide. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she stepped closer, her voice barely a whisper.
"Luna... Hadlee mind-linked the Alpha last night. She said there was a rogue near her den. He went to check on her."
I stared at her.
"The patrols didn't find anything," Mira continued, her words coming faster now. "No rogue. No tracks. Nothing. But he... he stayed with her. All night."
I nodded slowly. "Thank you, Mira."
She looked like she wanted to say something else. Instead, she bowed her head and hurried past me down the hall.
I walked to the hidden nursery.
The room was exactly as I had left it. Pup blankets folded neatly in the cedar chest. Wooden toys stacked in the corner. The name-plaque above the window: *our little wolf*.
I sat on the floor with my back against the chest. My fingers found the edge of my dress and twisted the fabric. The wildflowers finally fell from my hair, scattering across the floor in a sad little pile.
I reached up and took the name-plaque down from the wall. I held it in my lap. The wood was smooth and warm under my palms. I had carved it myself, letter by letter, imagining the moment I would show it to Marcus. Imagining his face when he realized what it meant.
I sat there for a long time.
Then I stood. I hung the plaque back on the wall, exactly where it had been.
I wasn't done yet.
