Chapter 16:The Last Straw Doesn't Look Like Much

Wren POV

It wasn't one big thing. That's what nobody tells you about giving up on people. You expect some huge, dramatic moment, a final betrayal big enough to justify walking away. What you actually get is a Tuesday.

The morning started with Rosalind's fitting for some ceremonial dress she needed for an upcoming pack function. I stopped by her room to see if she wanted company, something normal, something we used to do together before any of this.

"Oh, Wren." She glanced up, distracted, half a dozen fabric swatches spread across her bed. "Actually, could you go check on Calla? She's supposed to be picking colors with me and she's running late."

"Sure." I stood there a second, waiting for anything else. There wasn't anything else.

I found Calla in her room, not running late at all, just lounging on her bed reading something, in no hurry whatsoever.

"Mom's waiting for you," I said.

"Oh, is she?" Calla didn't even look up right away. "I'll be there in a minute."

I went back and told Rosalind she was coming. Rosalind's whole face lit up differently than it had for me five minutes earlier, already excited about whatever color scheme they'd land on together. I stood in the doorway another second before letting myself out, unnoticed either way.

That was the morning.

The afternoon was worse, in a smaller, meaner way. There was a pack council meeting, minor business, mostly about redistricting some grazing land near the eastern border. I wasn't technically required to attend anything like that anymore, hadn't been for two years, but Damian had asked me to sit in, and said it'd be good for me to start being seen at official things again.

Turns out being seen wasn't the same as being heard.

One of the older council members brought up my name halfway through, something about whether it was appropriate for a "convicted individual" to be present at formal pack business, even just sitting quietly in the back.

"With respect," the man said, not looking at me directly, "some of us aren't comfortable with her presence at official proceedings."

The room went quiet. I felt every eye slide toward me and then quickly away, the way people look at something they don't want to be caught looking at.

I waited for Damian to say something. Anything. He was Alpha now. One word from him would've ended it.

"Perhaps we can discuss this later," he said instead, moving straight past it to the next item on the agenda, like the comment had simply been a minor scheduling conflict instead of somebody publicly questioning whether I deserved to sit in a room.

Later never came, obviously. Nobody discussed anything. The meeting finished, everyone filed out, and Damian caught up with me in the hallway afterward looking apologetic in that useless way that doesn't actually cost him anything.

"Sorry about Elder Corwin," he said. "He's old-fashioned. Doesn't mean anything by it."

"Sure," I said, "he meant nothing by publicly questioning whether I should be allowed in the room."

"I'll talk to him."

"You should've talked to him in the room, Damian."

He didn't have an answer for that. Just that same tight, uncomfortable look he always got now, guilt without action attached to it, which by this point I'd learned was worth exactly nothing.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in my garden shed, sorting herbs I didn't actually need sorted, just needing something to do with my hands while I sat with the quiet, familiar disappointment of it all.

It wasn't rage. That would've been easier, honestly. Rage burns out eventually. This was something colder, something final, settling into my chest like a decision I hadn't consciously made until it was already finished making itself.

I wasn't going to keep waiting for this to feel different.

I found Damian in his study that evening, going over paperwork by lamplight, and I didn't bother easing into it.

"I need you to help me find a mate," I said.

He looked up slowly, like he thought he misheard me. "What?"

"A mate." I stayed in the doorway, arms crossed. "I need to leave this pack eventually, and doing that alone as an unmated female with my history isn't exactly simple. You're Alpha. You can arrange something official. That's what I'm asking."

"Wren, what… where's this coming from?"

"Does it matter where it's coming from?"

"Of course it matters." He set his pen down, fully turning to face me now, something almost panicked creeping into his voice. "You can't just decide to leave the pack. This is your home."

"Is it?" I kept my voice even, no heat in it at all. "Because it hasn't felt like my home in a long time, Damian. Not since I got back. Maybe not for a while before that either, if I'm honest."

"That's not…we're your family."

"You're the family that let me take the blame for something I didn't do and sent me to a labor camp for two years without checking on me once," I said, factually. "I'm not saying that to hurt you. I'm saying it because it's true, and I think you need to hear it plainly instead of feeling bad about it in private where it doesn't cost you anything."

He flinched like I'd hit him.

"I'm not angry anymore," I said, and meant it. "I'm just done waiting for something here to change. I don't need this family to fix itself. I need a way out that doesn't leave me completely exposed once I go."

"You're serious." He said it slow, like the reality of it was only just landing. "You're actually serious about this."

"Completely."

He stared at me for a long moment, something breaking open behind his eyes that hadn't been there a second ago, some assumption he apparently was resting his whole understanding of me on.

"I didn't think you'd actually.." He stopped, swallowed, and started again. "I thought, eventually, things would settle. That you'd want to stay. That we would figure this out as a family."

"I know you thought that." I said it gently, as gently as I had left in me. "That's kind of the problem."

He didn't say anything else. Just sat there, pen forgotten on the desk, staring at me like I just told him something in a language he was still working out how to translate.

I let the silence sit there a while, because honestly, I didn't have anything else to add either.

"I'll think about it," he finally managed. "Just…give me some time."

"Take your time," I said, already turning to leave. "I've got plenty of it left in me. Just not much of it left for this house.”