Chapter 3

Inside the car it was dim and spacious, the hum of the engine low beneath us.

The square-shouldered male wolf, as I could sniff, in the driver's seat didn't look back once.

I thanked him quietly—once, then again.

He said nothing.

Only when I reached for the door did his voice break the silence, deep and magnetic as ever, like the quiet pull of a tide beneath ice.

"Clara," he said, "besides Shawn, you have other options."

There was a pause.

"If you ever think it over, remember to look for me."

A gilded business card slipped into my hand. I accepted it with both hands, bowed my head, murmured another thank you—but my mind was already far away.

I didn't even glance at the name. I just slipped it into my bag and ran.

The hospital lights were harsh and too bright.

I stumbled into the emergency room, heart in my throat.

Before I could speak, a healer pushed a body past me, hidden beneath a white sheet.

"Has her family still not arrived?"

"She's already dead, and her daughter's nowhere in sight. What a good daughter."

Their words sliced through me like thin, cold blades.

I rushed to the gurney, tore back the sheet.

Scars crisscrossed the face I had once feared and hated. Her body was covered in jagged bruises, deep lacerations, and shattered silence.

My mother.

I had resented her every second of these seven years for what she did—for what she forced. I'd dreamed of walking away from her, from everything.

I had even once wished the entire pack would die with her.

But now, faced with her broken body… all I felt was grief.

Crushing, suffocating grief.

There was no funeral. No mourners. No eulogies.

The pack was down to two—an unconscious, defeated alpha and his only daughter.

I sat by my father's bedside until dawn, talking in broken whispers.

About her. About myself. About everything I'd buried.

I pressed my lips to his hand and choked out a whisper before I left:

"Dad… I'm tired."

My mother's body had been cremated the next morning and I brought home her ashes in a simple urn.

I also brought home the bond-severance agreement I'd had drawn up overnight.

When I opened the door, Shawn and the human girls were gathered at the hall, laughing. Shelly was nestled at his side, her hand in his.

I walked in barefoot, clutching the urn to my chest.

"Sign it."

I dropped the bond-severance papers on the table with a cold thud.

Shawn looked up slowly, an amused glint in his eye.

"So you ran off overnight just for this? Clara, you've really become rebellious."

I hugged the urn tighter.

"Shawn, I had severed our bond. Let's let each other go."

"I don't love you anymore."

I would've shouted, accused, and raged in the past.

I would've pointed at him, reminded him of all the promises he broke, the way he once claimed to love me.

I would've begged for understanding. For hope.

I learned to cook his favorite pasta. I decorated the room with all the stars and moonstones he loved, just to make him smile.

But girl after girl moved in. And with each one, my hope died a little more.

Everything I did became something he used to belittle me.

Love turned into a leash.

Then—

"Luna Clara, what's this?"

Shelly bent down and picked something up from the floor. A small business card. She read it aloud, slow and sweet like a pup discovering something forbidden.

"Lucius?"

The name hit the room like a dropped plate.

Shawn's head snapped around.

Lucius. The rival who had haunted his pride since they were pups.

The opponent he'd never met but couldn't stop hearing about from his parents.

Shawn's face darkened.

Then his hand was raised.

The slap to my face echoed through the room like thunder.

My ears rang. I stumbled, the urn slipping from my arms.

It shattered.

Ash burst across the marble floor like a cloud of smoke.

My mother's ashes.

I froze.

Then dropped to my knees, frantically trying to gather them with trembling hands.

But I couldn't. No matter how I tried, I couldn't hold her.

Then—coffee splashed across the floor.

Shelly laughed. "Oops!"

Others followed. Cups tilted. Brown liquid seeped into white dust, turning it into something sticky and foul.

Something unrecognizable.

"AHHH!"

Something inside me broke.

My wolf shattered the shackles of reason.

My hands morphed. Fangs tore through my gums.

With a snarl, she lunged—teeth bared, eyes burning.

Shelly dropped to the floor, shrieking, arms over her face, before Shawn react in time.

"Shawn… it hurts!"

He stepped between us.

And just like that—My wolf stopped.

She was just a human.

My wolf shifted back.

She hadn't even noticed.

Hadn't seen the claws and the teeth.

All her attention was on him.

Someone called for an ambulance.

Shawn grabbed my wrist and hissed through his teeth:

"You're coming with us."

"If anything happens to her… you'll die with her."