Eliana POV:
The doctor at the urgent care clinic was a human. He didn't understand why I refused the painkillers that would dull my senses. He didn't know that for a wolf, pain is sometimes the only thing that keeps the beast inside from going insane.
"You need surgery, Miss Carter," he said, looking at the X-rays of my knee. "And weeks of bed rest. Flying is out of the question. The pressure changes..."
"Wrap it," I interrupted, my voice flat. "I have a flight to catch in three hours."
He argued, but I signed the waiver. I limped out of the clinic with a heavy brace strapped to my leg and a pair of crutches.
I had one last stop.
The Pack House loomed in the distance, a fortress of stone and timber that had been my prison. I didn't go to the main entrance. I went to the side garden, where I knew the current Luna, Jax's mother, would be tending to her night-blooming jasmine.
Luna Maria was a kind woman, but weak. She had spent her life bowing to her husband, the Alpha, and she had taught her son that women were meant to be decorative.
She gasped when she saw me hobbling toward her.
"Eliana? Oh, child, what happened to you? Jax said you fell..."
"Jax lied," I said. I didn't have the energy to soften the blow.
I reached into my pocket. The velvet box felt heavy, like it contained a dying star. I pulled out the Moonstone ring—the heirloom that was supposed to be mine when I officially became the Luna.
I held it out to her.
"Take it," I said.
Maria's eyes widened. She dropped her gardening shears. "Eliana, you can't be serious. This is the promise ring. Returning it means..."
"It means I am done," I said. "I am done being a punching bag for your son. I am done being a placeholder until he decides I'm 'tame' enough."
"But the bond..." she whispered, her hands trembling as she took the box. "You are Fated. You cannot run from the Moon Goddess."
"Watch me."
I turned around. My knee throbbed with every step, a rhythmic reminder of my resolve.
"Eliana! Wait! Let me call Jax!" she cried out.
"Don't bother," I said without looking back. "He's busy protecting his mistress from imaginary Rogues."
I tossed the keys to the pack-issued sedan onto the gravel driveway. It was a final severance of material ties.
My father was waiting for me at O'Hare Airport. He looked older, his shoulders slumped under the weight of his own decision. He had requested a transfer to the New York branch years ago, but the Alpha had denied it. Now, with Elder Sal's intervention, we were fleeing like refugees.
"Are you sure, Ellie?" he asked as he handed me my boarding pass. "Once we leave the territory, the pack link... it will hurt."
"I'm sure, Dad."
We boarded the plane. I took the window seat. As the engines roared to life, I pressed my forehead against the cool plastic.
The plane taxied and then surged forward. Gravity pushed me back into the seat.
As we lifted off, climbing through the clouds, I felt it.
The Pack Link is like a hum in the back of your mind, a constant sense of belonging, of thousands of voices murmuring in the distance. It ties you to the land, to the Alpha.
As we crossed the boundary line of the Iron Claw territory, the hum snapped.
It felt like a rubber band breaking against raw skin.
I gasped, clutching my chest. The silence that followed was sudden and terrifying. I was no longer a pack member. I was a Rogue in the eyes of the law, until I reached New York.
I looked down at the shrinking city of Chicago. Somewhere down there, Jax was probably sleeping, wrapped in silk sheets, thinking he had won.
He thought I was just a girl who would come crawling back.
I closed my eyes, and for the first time in years, the wolf inside me didn't whimper. She curled up, waiting.
Sleep well, Jax, I thought. Because when I come back, I won't be the girl you broke. I will be the nightmare you created.
