Chapter 4

The words left me and the weight went with them.

Kael's hands turned to stone on my shoulders.

I lifted them off, stood, and carried my bowl to the sink.

The wolfsbane whiskey had burned through whatever goodwill he'd walked in with. His wolf surged behind his eyes—not the warm amber I'd once loved, but something cold and flat, like a predator reassessing prey.

"I spend one evening calming Serena down and you want to end things? Or is this still about the funds? Your sister's perfectly fine—it's not like she was going to die without that money. What exactly is your problem?"

Rowan's name hit me like a fist below the sternum.

My eyes stung. But every tear I owned had already been spent—wrung out of me in a healing ward three days ago, holding an urn that weighed less than a newborn pup.

"Yes," I said. "It's about the money."

"Kael, you gave Serena sovereign claim over twelve million dollars' worth of pack territory without flinching. Was releasing thirty thousand from the emergency fund really that impossible?"

The mention of resources twisted his mouth into something ugly. He kicked the trash bin across the kitchen tile, and the crash echoed through the bond like a snarl.

"So that's what this is. No wonder you kept pushing to end the scheme early. Serena had you pegged—you're just another wolf trying to bleed the pack dry."

I knew Kael's story. Orphaned at nine when a rival pack slaughtered his parents during a territory raid. Raised by the Blackthorn's lowest-ranked wolves—passed between dens like surplus cargo, never staying long enough to learn what home meant. Every resource he'd ever claimed was stitched to a scar. Pack wealth wasn't currency to him—it was proof he'd survived. Proof he deserved the Alpha seat no one had wanted to give him.

I didn't defend myself. Just looked at him, steady and blank.

"You stripped me of Luna rank, but I never stopped doing the work. Running patrols. Managing alliances. Balancing the treasury you couldn't be bothered to check. You owe me back compensation at Luna level. Seventy thousand. Not a dollar more."

Seventy thousand. The price tag on seven years.

Enough to buy Rowan a proper resting place in the Silverpeak territory, where the hills were green and the air was clean and no pack would ever let a pup die over paperwork again.

Kael's stare could have frosted the bond solid.

"Everything I endured this year was for you. Without me, you'd never have been Luna in the first place. Once the mating ceremony's done, everything I have becomes yours. Why can't you just be patient?"

"Seventy thousand? I'll give you seventy. Seven hundred. Seven million—what difference does it make?"

He grabbed his phone off the counter and hurled it at my face.

I didn't move. It caught my cheekbone—the same spot Serena's pin had split earlier. The cut tore wide open. Blood slid warm and thin down my jaw, and the scent of it flooded the room—iron and wolf and something deeper, something that said mate in a language older than words.

Kael's pupils shrank to pinpoints. His wolf flinched behind his eyes. He took a step forward—

I bent, picked up the phone, opened the pack's financial portal, and transferred myself seventy thousand dollars.

"Thank you."

Kael bit down until his jaw trembled. He swayed to the couch, collapsed into it, and curled in on himself—arms wrapped tight, brow knotted, his wolf retreating deep inside him like an animal crawling into a cave. The portrait of a man daring me to come make it right.

I didn't.

I went to the kitchen. Washed the bowl. Dried it. Wiped every droplet off the counter.

Eyes still closed, voice small and automatic, he murmured:

"Not too much ginger."

He thought I was brewing his recovery tea—the bone broth with ginger root I used to make when the wolfsbane whiskey left him shaking.

I let myself smile—silent, bitter, final.

Then I picked up my suitcase and walked out the front door.

It turns out, when you're truly leaving, there is no slamming. No howling. The sound of departure isn't even loud enough to wake a wolf dozing on a couch.

My wolf pressed her nose against the inside of my ribs. Don't look back.

I didn't.

I checked into a human hotel on the edge of pack territory—somewhere his wolves wouldn't think to track me.

Within the hour, Serena sent me a video through the pack's messaging network. Gloating.

Security footage from one of the underground wolf lounges downtown. Serena drowning herself in wolfsbane bourbon. Kael appearing from nowhere, seizing the glass from her hand, his wolf blazing behind his eyes with an urgency I hadn't seen from him in months.

Then the Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack—the wolf whose howl had brought entire rival territories to their knees—sinking to the floor at a twenty-four-year-old omega's feet. Pressing the ceremonial wristband back into her palm.

"Serena, I'm sorry. It started as a game—all for Naia. But you refused every gift, every rank, every territory claim. You were too proud. And the day you finally accepted something from me, I wasn't angry. I was relieved. Maybe my wolf had already chosen you and I didn't know it…"

Every delay. Every just two more days. Every promise.

Nothing but a second bond forming, poorly disguised.

Serena filled my screen, triumphant.

"Naia, don't forget to tuck your Alpha in tonight. And if he howls my name in his sleep—try not to take it too hard."

A year ago, this would have broken me.

Now I typed: Your Alpha, your responsibility. I've left the den. Don't contact me again.

I killed the phone and slept like the dead.

The next morning I was at the airport before dawn, waiting by the gate with my new colleagues from Silverpeak.

Kael called.

"Why aren't you at the packhouse?"

I nearly laughed. Did he truly not know I'd withdrawn?

Before I could speak, he went on, half-grumbling: "I was drunk last night. Why would you send Serena to look after me? Your little jealous masochism routine isn't endearing, Naia."

Then his tone shifted—generous, lordly. The Alpha dispensing mercy.

"It's the Blood Moon tonight, but I won't let her overshadow you. I've decided to reinstate you as Luna, effective immediately."

"Come back to the packhouse. I've sent Maren to the healing ward to bring Rowan—she can spend the day with you. Sound good? The mating ceremony we'll push back a bit, but I promise it'll be everything you wanted."

This was his version of an apology—a door held open, a rank restored. By Kael Ashford's standards, this was the furthest he'd ever bent.

"Kael, we were never mated. Not officially."

A low laugh. I could hear him drumming his fingers on his desk.

"I know you want the ceremony before the bond is sealed. That's not unreasonable. The chapel in the old quarter—tonight?"

My voice was colorless.

"There won't be a ceremony. We're done. It's already over."

Dead air on the line.

Then Maren's voice, urgent, crashing through the background:

"Alpha—Naia's sister—"

Kael's patience snapped. "Forget about bringing Rowan. Cancel the Luna announcement too. She wants to throw a fit? Let her. I'm not chasing anymore."

Maren's voice climbed higher, almost breaking:

"Alpha, listen to me—the healers say Naia's sister died days ago. And she's booked a one-way passage out of the territory."