Perhaps disappointment had already piled into a frigid mountain, so when I uttered the words "sever the mate bond," I was unnervingly, deathly calm.
I waited silently for Edwin's verdict.
He had no reason to refuse because Carmen was back. Severing the mate bond with me would free him to pursue his true Fated Mate without a second thought for the alliance between our packs or the gossip within and beyond.
Just then, he got a call, that was from Carmen. Panic flashed in Edwin's deep, abyssal wolf eyes.
He accepted it without hesitation, right in front of me.
Then Carmen's voice came through.
"Edwin… I… I feel so cold. Could you take me to the Pack Healer? I called Shawn… but he… he didn't even respond…"
Carmen's voice dripped with a vulnerable, wounded tone.
The moment Carmen called, I saw it — that Alpha's instinctive tenderness flare in Edwin’s eyes.
She had merely caught a chill, and he was beside himself.
But when I had burned with fever, barely able to stand, begging him to take me to the Healer…
All I got was a hollow back and a single, heartless command:
“Call the patrol for a healer.”
That was all I was worth.
Even now, at this moment when I proposed severing the mate bond, his first choice was still Carmen.
Edwin stumbled slightly in his haste to leave, yet still managed to send the soothing words back.
"Hold on, Carmen. I'm coming."
He burst from the den like a gale. The powerful aura of the Alpha vanished with him. The final, chilling clarity settled over me, as long as Carmen existed, I was nothing to Edwin.
That was totally three years, and finally, I understood that it was hard to touch his heart.
I was busy searching for a while in Joanne's private den.
But in the end, I found nothing.
The only thing left was a diary filled with "Shawn."
From the initial girlish adoration, pure as new moonlight, through the bitter tang of being demeaned and ignored, down to the final, frozen depths of despair.
On the last page, written in a pigment as deep and red as wolf's blood, was a single vow.
"From this moment, my wolf spirit will never leap for Shawn again."
My chest heaved as if rent by invisible claws. A sharp, stabbing pain, like being pierced by wolfsbane thorns, lanced through my heart.
I remembered three years ago, under a full moon, Joanne texted me a flurry of elated news.
"Jose! Guess what blessing the Moon Goddess has granted me! Who am I to be mated to?"
"Shawn! It's Shawn!"
"Remember how I described him? The Beta who ran like the wind under the moon, utterly free!"
"He says he wants to mate to me!"
"My pack… is saved!"
Every psychic tremor in those words sang with Joanne's desperate joy.
I knew her elation wasn't just for the pack's survival, but also for mating to the Beta whom she had secretly adored for three years.
That night, we texted until the moon set and the stars faded.
Yet that moonlight joy had frozen over the following six months until it crystallized into that single, bloody vow of despair in her diary.
Unconsciously, I drifted off to sleep—too exhausted, too broken from mourning Joanne’s death.
But a sharp noise jolted me awake.
My wolf startled violently, ears flat, tail bristling.
When I fully opened my eyes, I saw him.
Edwin.
Stumbling in, drunk—again.
I lay silent, watching as he tore off his coat and carelessly tossed it to the floor.
The scent clinging to it was unmistakable.
Carmen.
I had no idea how many nights he’d returned like this since she came back.
But ever since that day, everything had started to fall apart.
Joanne’s life.
My life.
All of it—reduced to ash beneath Carmen’s shadow.
I let out a bitter laugh that never reached my eyes.
This will end soon, I told myself. It has to.
He staggered toward me, his breath soaked in alcohol, his eyes clouded.
“You’re still angry, aren’t you?” he slurred. “Still jealous of Carmen? She’s just—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I said coldly, cutting him off.
My voice was calm—too calm.
“I want to sever our bond.”
That sobered him.
Instantly.
He froze, staring at me as if I’d just shattered his world.
“What… what did you just say?”
He stumbled backward, suddenly desperate.
“You’ve lost your mind again, haven’t you? You don’t mean that, Jose. You’re insane!”
