Chapter 18: Everything

Calla POV

I heard about it before Damian even had the decency to tell me himself.

One of the maids mentioned it while doing my hair that morning, casual as anything, like she was commenting on something. "Heard Miss Wren's asked the Alpha to arrange a mate for her. The whole staff's talking about it."

I kept my face perfectly still in the mirror. "Is that so?"

"Strange timing, isn't it? Right when Alpha Vane's still deciding things."

"I'm sure it's nothing," I said, smiling easily, dismissing it the way I dismiss anything that isn't mine to worry about in front of the help.

Inside, something had gone very cold and very fast.

By midday, everyone in the household seemed to know. I could feel it in the way people looked at me differently, waiting to see how I'd react, whether the poor wronged sister would finally show some crack in her composure now that Wren was talking about leaving for good.

I gave them exactly what they expected.

"Oh, that's wonderful for her!" I said, loud enough for the group of elders near the courtyard to hear, hand pressed to my chest like the news had genuinely moved me. "I'm so happy she's ready to move forward. She deserves some peace after everything."

"Bit sudden, isn't it?" one of them asked.

"I think it's brave," I said, letting my voice go soft and admiring. "She's spent two years just trying to survive. If she's finally ready to build something for herself, who am I to question the timing?"

They ate it up, murmuring approval, someone even complimenting me on being such a gracious sister given everything I'd supposedly been through. I smiled and thanked them and excused myself the second I reasonably could, because my jaw was starting to ache from holding the expression in place.

Everything I built. Every relationship, every ounce of trust, every carefully placed word over the last two years, all of it depended on Wren staying exactly where she was, quiet, contained, easy to manage, close enough that I always knew what she was doing and who she was talking to.

A mate meant a new pack. New territory. New alliances I didn't control. It meant her disappearing somewhere I couldn't watch her anymore, somewhere she might finally say something to somebody who would actually listen.

I found her later that afternoon in that ridiculous garden shed she claimed, sorting her herbs like always, unbothered by the fact that half the household was gossiping about her decision.

"Can we talk?" I asked, closing the door behind me.

"About what."

I didn't have an audience here. Nobody was watching. And for one second, I let myself drop the version of me that everyone else got.

"You're really going to just leave?" I asked. "After everything?"

She looked up at that, something flickering across her face, not quite surprise, more like recognition. Like she'd been waiting for me to eventually stop pretending, even if just for a moment.

"Yes," she said.

That was it. Just like that, no satisfaction at finally getting to hurt me the way she probably should've wanted to. Just yes, flat and simple, like I asked whether she wanted tea.

"After everything," I repeated, and I heard my own voice crack slightly, more real than I meant to let it. "I gave you a home, Wren. I let you stay here. I didn't have to be kind to you at all, after what you…"

I stopped myself. Too far. Even without an audience, some habits ran too deep to fully break.

"After what I what?" Wren asked, watching me with an attention that felt uncomfortably sharp.

"Nothing," I said quickly. "I just meant, we're sisters. I thought that meant something to you."

"It did," she said. "For a long time, it meant a lot to me."

"And now?"

"Now I think I finally understand what it actually meant to you." She went back to sorting her herbs, like she already said everything she needed to say on the subject. "That's different."

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" She glanced up again, and something in her expression had gone very still, very calm, the kind of calm that used to make me nervous back before I learned to read it as exhaustion instead of danger. "I've watched you build a whole life on the story everyone believes about me, Calla. I don't hate you for it. I'm just done living inside it."

"So you're punishing me. By leaving."

"I'm not punishing anybody." She set down the dried stems, looking at me directly now. "I'm just choosing myself for once. That's not the same thing as revenge, even if it feels that way to you."

I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to tell her she had no idea what it cost me, keeping this whole story balanced for two straight years, managing every reaction, every rumor, every moment somebody looked at her too closely and started wondering if the pieces actually fit together.

Instead I just stood there, feeling something close to panic settle in my chest, because a leaving Wren wasn't a contained Wren anymore. A leaving Wren was somebody I couldn't predict, couldn't manage, couldn't quietly steer back into line with a soft word and a squeeze of the hand at the right moment.

"You'll regret this," I said, quieter now, the warmth completely gone from my voice. "Once you're out there, married to some stranger, you'll wish you'd stayed here where people actually know you."

"Maybe." Wren shrugged, unbothered by the threat buried in that sentence. "But at least it'll be a life I chose instead of one I got stuck in because leaving felt scarier than staying."

She picked her tray back up and walked past me toward the door, done with the conversation, done with me for the moment, and I stood there in that little shed full of dried herbs and cut stems, feeling the architecture of the last two years shift underneath me like ground I could no longer fully trust.

I fixed my expression before I stepped back outside. Wounded but gracious.

Nobody watching me cross that courtyard would've guessed that underneath it, I was already trying to figure out exactly how to stop this before it went any further.