Slowly, I had been pushed to the edge of collapse.
I started fighting back the same way he had.
I took a young Alpha-born from the Royal Academy under my wing. Sylvia Stormcrest.
At first, it was nothing more than spite.
But he would call me "sister" in that gentle voice, would coax me with patience, would appear at my side the moment I was most helpless.
The night of the carriage wreck, I lay in the Healers' Lodge, and he stayed beside me, his eyes red-rimmed, accompanying me through every examination the moon-healers ordered.
He was clean, untainted. Like a shaft of light carrying no impurity at all.
Over time, my heart, torn open and riddled with wounds, was somehow mended by him, piece by careful piece.
I had thought about giving him a den, giving him gold moons.
But he wanted none of it.
He wanted only a name. A place beside me that the packs would recognize.
"Sister, leave him. Reject the bond. Try me."
He looked at me, his gaze clear and steady, as if those eyes had room for no one else in the world.
In those eyes, the version of me reflected back was not the broken, pitiful creature I felt myself to be. She was glowing.
In that moment, something finally clicked into place.
When a thing is broken, you replace it. Even pups understand that. Yet I had wasted so many years bleeding inside this moon-oath union.
My entanglement with Kael Blackthorne had been nothing more than slow self-destruction.
So I agreed.
Agreed to be with Sylvia Stormcrest.
And decided to end this wreckage of a mating once and for all.
Kael had barely left the den when my communicator chimed with a crystal-screen call from Sylvia.
On the screen, he wore a clean white shirt, moving through a kitchen with quiet ease. Soft hair fell across his forehead, his lashes impossibly long. He looked clean and gentle, and the faint scent of rain cedar seemed to drift through the connection even though I knew that was only my imagination.
"Sister, is the bond rejected?"
I was older than him. I had been through more than he could guess. And still, every time I saw that face, my pulse quickened without my permission.
I cleared my throat, forcing my voice to sound casual.
"The agreement is signed. One more moon cycle, and he and I will have no connection left."
He listened, and his lips curved slowly upward. His voice came low, carrying a thread of pleasure he couldn't quite suppress.
"Since there's no connection left, then during this time, sister is not allowed to let him touch her."
His tone was light when he said it, but underneath ran a thread of possessiveness that left no room for argument.
"When the time comes, I'll be checking."
I hadn't expected those words from him. Heat crept across my cheeks, but I kept my expression flat, scolding him with a straight face. "What nonsense is a pup like you saying?"
He watched me through the crystal screen, his gaze carrying open, undisguised possessiveness, yet in the next breath he pressed it down, his voice turning wounded and clinging. "Sister, I'm only young in years. In other ways... I'm not small at all."
My chest tightened. Afraid the conversation would spiral somewhere I couldn't control, I cut him off, coaxing him with a few soft words until he finally settled down and ended the call.
This young wolf was perfect in every way. Except that he clung too tightly.
The moment the call ended, I went out and bought a calendar.
For the next moon cycle, I lived by tearing off pages, counting the days on my fingers.
Every day that passed, I ripped away one more sheet.
From the first of October to the tenth, Kael did not come back to the den once.
But where he went, who he saw, what he did, I knew with perfect clarity.
His new fascination, Vesper Duskmere, was an intern within his pack's territory house. Every day, she posted traces of them together on the pack channel, casual and deliberate at the same time, as if making sure everyone would notice.
Afternoon tea at high-end dens. Leisurely rounds at the hunting grounds.
Standing on the terrace of a mountain estate, looking out over the lights of the city below. Sharing the hot springs at some private lodge, playing in the steam.
Strange, really. With Kael's usual restless nature, he never lingered on any one she-wolf for long. The women who had come and gone before, the longest had lasted maybe a moon cycle before he grew bored.
