Chapter 4

I skipped the rest of my classes and left the academy.

As I crossed the moonlit woods back to Moonvale territory, my mother linked me.

“Serena, what happened?”

The pack link must have carried something in my emotions before I could hide it.

I stopped under the trees and told her everything. Felicity’s insults. Rowan watching. Rowan defending her. The slap.

For several seconds, my mother said nothing. When her voice returned through the link, it was cold.

“Go home. I’m coming back now.”

I ran straight to my room and tore through everything I owned. Bookshelves, closets, storage chests. Then I dragged out a large box and threw in every single thing Rowan had ever given me: the first polished moonstone he picked up beside a creek, an old training wrist guard he once tossed at me because he had extras, a carved bone token bearing the Nightshade family crest, and the short, crooked notes he only wrote when he happened to be in a good mood.

By the time I finished, the box was full. I checked twice to make sure I had missed nothing, then carried it across the territory and dumped it into the pack burn pit.

My mother reached home not long after. The moment she saw my face, her eyes sharpened.

She crossed the stone road between our territories and knocked on the Nightshades’ door.

Rowan’s mother answered looking confused, but my mother did not soften a word. She told her exactly what Rowan had done, how he let Felicity humiliate me publicly for weeks, and how he still chose to stand in front of that girl instead of me.

Rowan’s mother went pale.

Our families had been close for decades. Shadowfang and Moonvale had fought side by side, traded territory rights, and planned to bind another generation through Rowan and me.

Now that bond had cracked.

When my mother returned, she pulled me into her arms.

“No one gets to treat our Serena like this. Whatever you choose, your father and I are on your side.”

All the humiliation I had been holding back finally broke. I buried my face against her shoulder and cried.

Rowan came back later that night.

He must have seen the box in the disposal pit, because he soon appeared outside our house and pounded on the door hard enough to shake the frame.

“Serena! Open the door. We need to talk.”

I opened it, Rowan stood there with a face colder than frost.

“Why did you throw everything away?”

“None of your business.”

The bruise from that morning still covered half my face. Rowan had not held back. My left cheek was swollen purple-blue, the shape of his fingers still visible.

When he saw it, his expression changed.

For several seconds, he only stared before speaking more quietly.

“How did it get this bad?”

He reached toward my face, but I stepped back before he could touch me.

I rarely got hurt growing up. Whenever I scraped myself or bruised a knee, I always ran to Rowan so he could comfort me. I was not afraid of pain. I just liked acting spoiled in front of someone I loved.

Rowan liked pretending I was too delicate for the world, but he also liked being the person I ran to.

But I was done giving him that.

He had never seen me this cold.

“I didn’t mean to, Serena,” he said. “You kept insulting her, and I lost my temper.”

I cut him off.

“From today on, we’re strangers.”

His jaw tightened, but disbelief still filled his eyes.

“Use my full name from now on. Don’t talk to me at school. Don’t come knocking on my door again.”

I started closing the door.

Rowan grabbed my wrist.

“Is this seriously necessary?” he snapped. “If you’re angry because I hit you, fine, I’ll apologize. Don’t you think you’re taking this too far?”

“What happens when you regret this later?”

“I won’t.”

“Why?” he demanded through clenched teeth. “Because I slapped you once?”

“Yes,” I said, looking him in the eye. “Because you slapped me.”