Chapter 3

Kael chased after Serena without looking back.

Maren stepped forward, professional as ever.

"Luna Solano, the Alpha spoke in the heat of the moment. Please—let me take you to the healers for that cut."

I shook my head and unzipped the mating gown. Let it pool on the stone floor like a shed skin.

Nothing that wasn't mine deserved to be on my body.

My phone chimed.

Pack withdrawal: Approved.

So Kael truly wanted me gone.

Fine. That made things easier.

I left the ceremonial wing and crossed the grounds to the packhouse's records hall to collect my file—rank history, bonding documents, seven years of service distilled into a manila folder.

The whispers started before I'd made it ten steps past the main corridor.

"Did you hear? She tried to drain the treasury and Serena caught her red-handed. Now she's slinking off with her tail tucked."

"She used to be his whole world, remember? Guess the bond doesn't mean much when a real connection comes along."

I'd heard variations of this for months. The words no longer landed. After Serena had been installed in the Luna's seat, the torment became systematic—my proposals overruled in pack council, my patrol routes quietly doubled. The senior wolves read the new hierarchy and piled on without shame.

There was a time I'd fantasized about the day Kael's grand scheme would finally come together. I'd pictured their faces when the truth came out—the stammered apologies, the throats bared in submission.

Looking back, that fantasy was pathetic.

The records keeper couldn't hand over my file fast enough, practically shoving it across the counter with two fingers, as though my disgrace were contagious.

I walked out into the fading light and checked my phone.

Serena had posted on the pack's social network. A photo bathed in golden hour: two hands intertwined on a table, the ceremonial wristband she'd hurled at Kael that afternoon back on her wrist, gleaming against her skin.

The caption: She said the bond strikes without warning and cuts without mercy. I said: let my wolf mirror yours, and I will never betray this.

My thumb slipped. I double-tapped. Liked it. Unliked it a heartbeat later.

Kael gave no sign he'd noticed through the bond. No pulse of warmth. No flicker of concern. Nothing.

By the time I got back to our quarters, it was late. I'd eaten nothing all day, so I boiled water and dropped in a packet of instant ramen.

Halfway through the bowl, the front door opened.

Kael walked in trailing the sharp, herbal sting of wolfsbane whiskey—the kind brewed strong enough to hit even a shifter's metabolism.

His body couldn't process it. Never could. Two drinks and his wolf destabilized—fever, tremors, a rash crawling up his throat like something trying to escape from under the skin. I used to intercept every glass at pack gatherings before it reached his lips. Used to brew him bone broth with ginger root when he overdid it anyway.

Tonight I kept my head down and ate.

He kicked off his boots. His nostrils flared at the steam rising from my bowl.

"You started without me?" He scanned the kitchen with open distaste. "I've told you—don't eat that in the house. The whole den reeks of it."

He hated the smell of cheap noodles. Beneath an Alpha. Beneath a Luna.

Funny. What he really found revolting, I realized, was the memory of who we used to be—two rankless wolves splitting a single cup of broth in a basement apartment while we rebuilt his pack from ruins.

He passed behind me and clipped the bag I'd left on top of my suitcase. The contents spilled across the floor—passport, boarding pass, transit papers for the Silverpeak territory, all of it.

He picked up the passport. His expression shifted—barely—before settling into an amused half-smile.

"Naia. You're so upset you're running off to Europe? That's the play?"

He dropped the passport back into the bag like it was junk mail.

Having patched things up with Serena, he was in a generous mood. He set both hands on my shoulders, and I felt his wolf press against the bond—warm, deliberate, the way an Alpha soothes a distressed packmate. The gesture used to unravel me completely. Now it felt like a stranger's hands.

"I lost my temper at the fitting today. I said things I shouldn't have. I apologize."

"But we've spent a year building this strategy. We can't let it collapse over one bad afternoon."

"I've already brought Serena back around. She'll be guarded for a while, though, so the timeline has to shift. Give me a month—one month—and I'll find the perfect moment to strip her bare."

"I know you're hurting, so in the meantime I could—"

Two days had become a month.

The truth required no decoding. He simply couldn't let Serena go. Every new deadline was just devotion dressed as strategy. Every trust me was a leash he kept slipping around my throat, and I'd spent seven years calling it a necklace.

"Don't bother," I said.

I tilted the bowl back, drained the last of the broth, pulled a paper towel from the roll, and wiped my mouth.

"We're done, Kael."