Ava POV:
Darkness swallowed me before I could hear their footsteps fade.
When I finally clawed my way back to consciousness, the sharp sting of antiseptic assaulted my nose. I wasn't in the Pack Hospital's pristine main ward. I was in the overflow clinic—a drafty, corrugated shed near the border, reserved for treating rogues and prisoners.
Maya was sitting beside my cot, her face pale and streaked with dried tears.
"You're awake," she whispered, her fingers trembling as she squeezed my hand.
I tried to sit up, but agony flared in my arms. I looked down. My hands and forearms were heavily bandaged, swathed in gauze that was already spotting with yellow. The burn of the silver still hummed under my skin, a constant, low-voltage torture that felt like acid eating through bone.
"Who brought me here?" I croaked, my throat dry as sandpaper.
"I did," Maya said. Her voice vibrated with suppressed rage. "A patrol found you by the tree. Ethan... he left you there, Ava. He just left you to bleed out."
I closed my eyes, letting the darkness hovering at the edges of my vision comfort me. "I know."
The door creaked open, and a Beta healer walked in. He didn't look me in the eye. He checked my chart with quick, nervous movements, like a rabbit sensing a predator.
"How are her burns?" Maya asked, her tone cutting through the silence.
"Severe," the healer muttered, still staring at his clipboard. "Silver poisoning takes time to clear." He hesitated, glancing at the door, then lowered his voice. "I'm sorry, Maya. I can't give her the Wolfsbane salve. Alpha Ethan's orders. He said... he said basic supplies only. No premium medicine for non-pack members."
The air left the room as if it had been sucked out by a vacuum.
"He said what?" Maya stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the concrete floor. "She is his Fated Mate! She served this pack for ten years! With burns this deep, that is a death sentence!"
"I'm just following orders," the healer whispered, looking terrified. He dropped a bottle of generic disinfectant on the side table and hurried out of the room before Maya could lunge at him.
I lay back on the thin, lumpy pillow. The last ember of hope—the tiny, foolish part of me that thought he might still care, that thought there was still a human man beneath the Alpha title—finally turned to ash. He didn't just reject me. He wanted me to suffer.
"Maya," I said. My voice was calm. Dead calm.
She turned to me, her eyes blazing gold with her wolf's fury. "I'm going to kill him. I swear to the Goddess, Ava, I will challenge him."
"No," I said. "You won't. You have a family here. You have a life."
I sat up, ignoring the screaming pain that shot up my arms with every movement. "Help me finish the paperwork. I need to formalize the rejection with the Council. I need to be gone."
"Where will you go?" Maya asked, her anger melting into desperate fear. "You can't survive alone like this."
"I won't be alone."
The door opened again, and an older woman stepped in. It was Elder Martha, my mother’s second cousin. She leaned heavily on a cane, but her eyes were sharp as flint. She had always been kind to me, though in the distant, reserved way of the pack elders.
"I heard what happened," Martha said, her voice sounding like cracking parchment. "Disgraceful. The boy has lost his way."
She walked over and placed a hand on my forehead. Her skin was cool and dry, grounding me.
"I have contacts in the north," Martha said quietly. "The Silver Lake Pack. They owe me a favor from the Great War. They will take you in."
Tears pricked my eyes, hot and fast. "Why would you do that?"
"Because you are blood," Martha said firmly. "And because I know a true Luna when I see one. Even if he is too blind to see it."
I spent the next two days in Martha’s guest room, hidden away from the pack's prying eyes. I slept fitfully, waking up screaming from dreams where Ethan’s eyes were cold as ice and Chloe laughed while I burned.
I packed the last of my things into a single duffel bag. I burned the photos. I buried the dried flowers he had given me years ago in the garden soil.
"We should hold a ceremony," Martha suggested gently on the last night. "A parting ritual. To say goodbye properly."
"No," I said, zipping up my bag with a finality that echoed in the quiet room. "I don't need a ceremony. We are strangers now."
"What will you do, child?"
"I'm going to be Olivia," I said, looking out the window at the moon hanging low and heavy in the sky. "Ava died on that altar. Olivia is going north."
The next morning, I had to go to the Pack House one last time to sign the exile papers.
The courtyard was crowded. Ethan and Chloe were standing on the balcony, looking down at the pack like royalty. Chloe was wearing a white dress that looked suspiciously like a Luna’s ceremonial gown. She was beaming, waving at people who looked too afraid not to wave back.
Ethan looked... tired. There were dark circles under his eyes. But the moment he saw me, his face hardened into stone.
I walked through the crowd. Wolves parted for me, their eyes filled with pity and shame. I hated it.
I signed the papers at the clerk's desk, the pen shaking slightly in my bandaged hand.
"Done," I whispered.
As I turned to leave, a deafening boom shook the ground.
*BOOM!*
Screams erupted. Smoke billowed from the eastern wall, thick and black against the morning sky.
"Rogues!" someone shouted. "They breached the wall again!"
Chaos unleashed. Wolves shifted mid-stride, mothers grabbed their children, and warriors scrambled for formation. But this time, I didn't run. I stood still, frozen amidst the panic, watching the balcony.
Ethan grabbed Chloe. He didn't issue commands to his warriors. He didn't check on the pups playing in the yard. He threw his body over Chloe, shielding her from the falling debris, his eyes squeezed shut in fear only for her.
He was an Alpha who protected his mistress before his pack.
And that was all the answer I needed.
