Liam Goldstein POV:
The sound of the bond snapping was deafening, louder than thunder. It reverberated through the very marrow of my bones, a physical vibration that dropped me to my knees.
"I accept your rejection."
The words had been ripped from my throat by the ancient magic of the Wolf Council, not by my own will. I gasped, clutching my chest desperately. It felt as though a giant hand had reached inside my ribcage and squeezed my heart until it burst. The golden thread that had connected me to Maya for years was gone. In its place was a cold, gaping void.
"Maya!" I wheezed, forcing myself to stand on trembling legs. My Alpha blood was boiling, fighting the brutal magical backlash.
She was walking toward the heavy oak doors of the Council Chamber. Her back was straight, her head held high. She didn't look like the weeping, broken woman I had expected. She looked... dangerous.
"Stop her!" I roared. The command ripped through the air, laced with heavy Alpha authority.
The guards at the door hesitated. They looked at me, then at Maya, caught between duty and instinct. But Maya didn't even flinch. The Alpha Command, which should have frozen any wolf in their tracks, washed over her like water over a stone.
She pushed the doors open and stepped into the night.
"You cannot leave!" I shouted, stumbling after her. "Maya, you are being irrational! We need to talk!"
I caught up to her in the hallway. I reached out to grab her arm, desperate to re-establish physical contact, to prove that the bond wasn't truly gone.
She spun around before I could even graze her. Her eyes... they weren't just brown anymore. They were swirling with a liquid silver light.
"Do not touch me," she said. Her voice was ice.
I recoiled as if burned. "Maya, please. You're reacting out of jealousy. Ava is... Ava is complicated. But you are my wife. My Luna. You can't just throw away a Fated Mate bond because of a mistake."
"A mistake?" She laughed, a dry, humorless sound that grated against my nerves. "You call impregnating another woman and humiliating me in front of the entire pack a mistake?"
"I did it for the legacy!" I argued, trying to make her see reason. "Ava is carrying a strong heir. But you... you are my soul. We can make this work. I can handle Ava. She will know her place."
Maya looked at me with an expression I had never seen before. It wasn't anger. It was total, absolute disgust.
*You still don't get it, do you?*
I tried to push into her mind, to use the Mind-Link to soothe her, to flood her with my feelings of regret and love. But I hit a wall. A solid, impenetrable wall of silence. The link was dead.
"The link..." I whispered, panic rising in my throat. "It's gone."
"Everything is gone, Liam," she said. "I am leaving. Do not follow me."
"You can't leave!" I snarled, my wolf pacing aggressively in the back of my mind. "You are weak! You are an Omega at heart! You won't survive a day as a Rogue without my protection!"
Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket. A message from Ava.
*Let her go, Liam. She's just throwing a tantrum. She'll be back crawling on her knees when she gets hungry.*
I looked at the screen, then back at Maya.
"Go to her," Maya said, seeing the distraction. "Go to your 'legacy.' Because you have nothing else left."
She turned and walked into the darkness.
I stood there, paralyzed by the pain in my chest and the toxic whisper of Ava in my ear.
*She'll be back,* I told myself, clinging to the thought like a lifeline. *She has nowhere else to go.*
