“It is good that you arrived when you did,” the pack healer said, her fingers working gently over the burned flesh on my arm. “This is a second-rank degree wound and truthfully, Luna Liora, you also require binding stitches.”
I did not reply. I only nodded, my eyes fixed on the pale stone ceiling of the Healer Sanctum, wide and endless. I remained within the healing chambers for two full days.
Not a single mindlink reached me. Not even sending a word.
No “Are you healed, Luna?”
No, “Forgive us for the fire.”
Nothing. Not even false concern from those who once swore loyalty.
By the second night, I found myself holding my crystal communicator without purpose. Some part of my wolf still believed the Alpha or the Beta would reach out. Instead, what appeared were images.
Selene. She stood smiling in a new crimson gown, glowing beneath lantern light, pressed between Alden and Draven. Moonwine cups were lifted high. Her smile carried that same satisfied curve she always wore when she knew she had won.
“Grateful to Alden and Draven for the greatest nameday under the moon! I will treasure this always! Look at our new bond cords!!!”
I stared at the three identical woven cords that circled their wrists. And then I noticed that they no longer wore the old bond cords we once shared.
I turned the crystal communicator down and placed it beside the stone bed. Silence returned to the healing chamber. My heart beat slowly, but there was no pain now. Only a hollow space where it used to live.
Two days later, I returned to the manor, the same stone dwelling we had all entered after leaving the Lunar Academy. It was meant to be a den for a bonded pack. Instead, it became proof of betrayal.
I crossed the empty main hall and went straight to my private chamber. I opened the closet and began to pack my belongings.
When I bent to collect my boots, I stopped. Beneath the shelf rested the memory coffer. That foolish little box I once called my moon-treasure.
I lowered myself to the floor and drew it closer, dust clinging to my fingers. Inside lay parchments, old, worn letters written by Alden and Draven when we were pups. Simple drawings. Awkward poems. Healing notes they sent when I was ill.
And a single image crystal. The three of us, me, Alden and Draven, kneeling beside a half-built tree platform, dirt smeared on our clothes, smiling widely.
The memory rose clearly. The summer when I was nearly mauled by a Moon Beast. I had always feared them and one had broken free near the outer dens. I froze in terror. Alden and Draven stepped in front of me without thought. Alden was bitten protecting me, his arm bleeding, so I could escape.
After that, everything changed. They became my shadows. My guards.
And over time, I fell for Alden, while Draven treated me as his she-wolf sister.
Until Selene entered the pack and shattered it all.
I sat there, clutching a bond cord with my name etched into its metal clasp. I had been blind.
My Alpha parents had warned me when I begged them to adopt Selene. “Are you certain, Liora? Not every she-wolf desires sisterhood. And what if she harms you? Trust is not given freely.”
I refused to listen. I believed pack love would be enough.
But now? Now I understand. She never wanted to be my sister. She wanted my place as Luna.
I packed the last of my belongings, then carried the memory coffer into the rear courtyard of the manor. I struck a flint.
The fire took hold quickly. Parchments curled and darkened. Bond cords twisted as their shine faded. Image crystals cracked and turned to ash.
“Liora!”
I looked up to see Alden running toward me from the hall, panic clear on his face.
“What are you doing?!” he yelled. “Those are our records! The bond cords!”
“Yes,” I answered calmly. “I am severing our shared past, ending our bond.”
He stepped closer, but I moved before the flames, blocking him. “It is finished. All of it.”
Moments later, Draven arrived, his face stiff with disbelief.
“Is this another outburst, Luna?” he asked, folding his arms. “We know you are upset, but this is too much, even for you.”
“This is not an outburst,” I said evenly. “This is to end the bond.”
“You would let one terrible night erase our bond for years?” Alden pleaded. “Liora, please… we can speak….”
I met both their gazes, then looked only at Alden. “I, Luna Liora, no longer wish to share any bond with either of you.”
I turned away and walked back into the manor, leaving the smoke behind me like the final trace of a life I would never reclaim.
