The bond broke at 10:14 on a Tuesday night.
I know because I was watching the clock above the banquet hall doors when Cannon called my name. Three months of alliance negotiations had led to this moment—two hundred wolves assembled, the treaty signed, Ironclaw's territory expanding for the first time in a decade. I'd brokered every clause myself while Cannon held court and took credit.
I thought he was finally going to mark me.
"Chloe Elliott." His voice carried the Alpha tone even when he didn't need it. "Come forward."
I set down my glass and walked to the dais. My heart was doing something stupid and hopeful in my chest. Six years. Six years of being his mate in everything but name, and tonight—in front of everyone—he would make it official.
The room went quiet.
Cannon looked at me with an expression I couldn't read. Behind him, Arielle Reyes stood in a gown the color of fresh blood, smiling.
"I, Cannon West, Alpha of the Ironclaw Pack," he said, each word precise and formal, "reject you, Chloe Elliott, as my mate and Luna."
The bond didn't fade. It detonated.
It felt like a door slamming shut inside a room I didn't know I was standing in. My wolf—the presence that had been there since I was fourteen, steady and warm beneath my ribs—went silent. Not quiet. Silent. Like a candle snuffed in a vacuum-sealed jar.
My knees hit the stone floor before I understood I was falling.
The cold bit through my dress. Two hundred wolves stared. No one moved. I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wrist, an old grounding habit, but there was nothing left to ground. The space where my wolf had lived was just—empty.
I tried to breathe. My chest wouldn't expand right.
Somewhere across the hall, a warrior swayed and caught himself on the table. Another looked down at her hands like she didn't recognize them. The pack bond was weakening. They could feel it, the way my aura had been holding them together without any of us realizing, and now it was draining away like water through a sieve.
Cannon extended his hand. Arielle stepped forward and took it.
"I present your new Luna," he said.
The applause was scattered. Uncertain. But it came.
I stayed on the floor for a full minute. Maybe longer. My legs wouldn't obey. When they finally did, I forced myself upright without looking at anyone. Not Cannon. Not Arielle. Not the two hundred wolves who had watched and said nothing.
I memorized the silence instead.
Then I walked out of the banquet hall on my own feet, spine straight, without a single word.
The corridor outside was empty and too bright. I made it to the east wing before my knees gave out again. I caught myself on the wall, fingers scraping stone, and tried to find the mind-link. It was still there—barely. A ghost-thread of the bond that had shattered, thin and fraying but not gone.
I didn't use it. Not yet.
I needed to get to my father.
Patrick had been in the healer's den since this morning. Silver poisoning from the rogue skirmish at the border. He'd shielded a younger Delta and taken a blade meant for the kid's throat. The wound wasn't deep, but silver didn't care about depth. It cared about time.
I pushed off the wall and ran.
The healer's den was in the north wing, past the training halls and the armory. My dress caught on my boots. I didn't care. The bond-thread pulled tighter in my chest with every step, like something was trying to drag me backward, but I ignored it.
When I shoved through the den doors, the smell hit me first. Antiseptic and wolfsbane and something sour underneath—infection spreading faster than it should.
Patrick was on the far cot, convulsing.
"Dad!" I crossed the room in three strides and grabbed his hands. They were burning. His eyes rolled back, unfocused, and his breath came in shallow gasps that didn't pull in enough air.
"Where's the healer?" I shouted.
No one answered.
I looked around. The den was empty except for us. No healer. No assistants. No one.
The antidote was in the Alpha's private stores—wolfsbane extract, the concentrated kind that cost a fortune and took months to prepare. We had plenty. I'd inventoried it myself last week.
I reached for the mind-link. The thread was so thin now it hurt to touch.
*Cannon. I need the healer. My father is dying.*
Silence.
Then, flat and immediate: *The healer is attending Arielle. She has a sparring injury.*
*My father has silver poisoning. He needs the antidote now.*
*The wolfsbane stores have been gifted to Arielle. For her complexion.*
I stopped breathing.
*What?*
*The lock code has been changed. Don't bother.*
The thread went dead.
I stared at the empty air where his presence had been, my father's hands burning in mine, and something inside me that had nothing to do with the wolf went very, very cold.
I ran to the storage room anyway. Threw myself against the door twice before my shoulder screamed and I accepted it wouldn't move. New lock. New code. Sealed.
When I got back to the cot, Patrick's convulsions had stopped.
He looked at me. His eyes were clear for just a moment.
"Chloe," he whispered. "You're a good girl."
Then he died.
I held his hands until they went cold. The healer never came. Two rooms away, I could hear laughter—Arielle's voice, bright and pleased, thanking someone for the lovely salve.
I wrapped my father in his Delta's cloak. Placed the wild blue asters from his windowsill on his chest. Then I walked to the Alpha's storage building.
I knew the layout better than anyone. I'd negotiated its construction.
The external ventilation panel was on the east side, hidden behind decorative stonework. I pried it open with my fingers, reached through the gap, and extracted three vials of wolfsbane extract. Not enough to have saved him. But enough to be worth something.
I pocketed them.
Then I crossed Ironclaw's border at dawn, wolfless and packless, carrying my father's death in my chest and three stolen vials in my coat.
I didn't look back.
