Chapter 3

Lucas slowly averted his gaze, not offering any praise. "Where are you going?"

"To see a lawyer," Elaine shrugged.

Lucas’s expression darkened immediately. “You’re not serious.”

She moved past him on the staircase. The silk swept his shin as she went, and his hand came up out of reflex and closed gently around her elbow. She stopped. He let go at once, as if the elbow had burned him.

"This is not the way to get my attention," he said.

"That's the trouble with you, isn't it." She turned just enough to look at him. "You think there is a way to get your attention."

The words landed somewhere he hadn't been protecting. He blinked, then settled his features.

"You're not well," he said. "I'm willing to grant you that the news today, whatever it actually is, has upset you. But this — " he gestured at her, at the dress, at the staircase she was standing on — "this is a performance, Elaine. And it's an embarrassing one. You don't get to play the wounded wife when there's nothing for you to be wounded about. Ayla is *ill*. You're not. You don't get to compete with her tonight."

That she laughed.

Now, she only felt absurd. She had six months left to live, but her husband only cared about another woman. And he accused her of lying.

She once hoped he’d give her some attention, but now the thought seemed laughable.

“You only see her, don’t you?” Elaine said with a smile. “Fine. You can keep flirting with her. No problem. Just sign the papers.”

“I’m not asking for your permission,” she added. “Just your signature.”

With that, she turned and left, her silhouette vanishing through the front doors before he could find a response.

Lucas stood in the empty hall long after she’d gone. Her scent lingered faintly in the air, mingled with the perfume he hadn’t recognized earlier. It was something bold and new.

His jaw was tight, and his fists clenched at his sides.

Behind him, Ayla cleared her throat.

“She must’ve found out about the Luna banquet,” said Ayla. “She’s just trying to stir things up.”

Lucas didn’t answer.

“She’s never really fit the part, you know?” Ayla added. “Always too quiet. She probably thought faking some illness would get her out of it.”

Lucas still said nothing. He should’ve been angry. No, he was angry.

Still, her words had echoed louder than her footsteps as she walked away.

Meanwhile, Elaine stepped out of the sleek black car in the heart of the city.

People on the street whispered in surprise as they saw her.

“Who’s that? She’s so beautiful...”

“Doesn’t she kind of look like Luna?”

“No way, Luna would never wear something like that. She’s always so modest and dignified…”

Her lawyer and longtime friend, Harriet, was already waiting at the café. Her sunglasses were perched on her head as she sat at an outside table. She sipped a coffee with narrowed eyes.

“You came dressed like a supermodel,” Harriet said in disbelief as Elaine sat across from her.

“I like it.” Elaine smiled faintly. “It’s how I feel now.”

“Which is what? A goddess?”

“Alive,” Elaine said.

“What’s going on?”

"I need a lawyer," Elaine said,"I need to know how a Luna gets out of an Alpha marriage. Council vote. Elder vote. Timeline. Cost."

Harriet froze.

The cup in her left hand tilted, splashing hot coffee over her fingers and onto the pristine tiled floor, but Harriet didn't even flinch from the burn.

She turned slowly, her jaw slightly slack, staring at Elaine in absolute, breathless shock.

"You're divorcing him? You're asking for a rejection?"

"I am," Elaine said.

Harriet kept looking. The expression on her face was not the happy one Elaine had been expecting — it was the wary one.

"What happened, Elaine? Tell me the truth."

I can't tell her, Elaine thought. If Harriet finds out I’m dying, she will fall apart. She’ll turn into a frantic mess, running to every pack doctor, suffocating me with panic.

Elaine didn't have the strength to be the center of a tragic emergency. She refused to burden the only person who truly loved her with the sorrow of her death.

"Nothing happened," Elaine said smoothly. "I've just finally come to my senses about him. About the marriage. About the whole damn thing. I’m done wasting my life."

Harriet stared at her for a long second. Then, a massive, triumphant grin broke across her face.

"All right. All right!" Harriet laughed out loud, clapping her hands together. "If you're finally telling me you see that man for the emotionless piece of shit he is—fine! I'll take it. I'll take it seven years late!"

Harriet turned to the nearest display and pulled out a vibrant crimson silk dress.

"You are wearing red tonight," Harriet declared, shoving the dress into Elaine’s arms. "I have been waiting to put you in a bold color like this since your engagement party. Walk in wearing this, and let Lucas see exactly what he’s losing."

Elaine laughed, surprised at the sound. It had been months since she had genuinely laughed.

Between fitting rooms they talked about money. Harriet was the only person Elaine trusted with the size of the number she wanted to move, and Harriet's legal mind immediately clicked into high gear.

"If you transfer that much out of the joint account at once, your father's bank will smell it before lunch. Spread it. Three banks. Set up a foundation, quietly. The lower-wolves' clinic in the Sixth Quarter — your old project, before his father decided it wasn't appropriate luna work."

"And get me clean of the family accounts. Foundation in my name only. I want them unable to touch a penny."

"Consider it done."

As if summoned by some curse, Elaine’s phone rang.

“Where are you?” her father asked abruptly. "The Alpha meeting begins at eight. You will be dressed appropriately and you will be on Lucas's left within the hour or so help me — "

"Father."

"Don't Father me."

"I will be there." Her voice came out cool and steady, and she let it. "I'll wear what I want. I won't be sitting on Lucas's left, because Ayla will be. I'm attending as a courtesy. Not as anyone's wife."

"You are the Luna of Wind Wolf Pack. You will behave like — "

"I am the Luna in name."

She had never used those words before, to anyone. They went out of her like a small splinter pulled loose. Lucas, who thought she shared a back-channel with this man, would have laughed.

"I've been doing the work and wearing the dresses and apologizing to your wife's friends for seven years. I'm taking the evening off. Tell Mother to find someone else for the kitchens if anyone serves cold soup tonight."

"You will pay for this."

"I'm sure I will."

She hung up. Her hand was perfectly steady.

When she turned back, Harriet was at the counter with the gown over one arm, looking at her with the careful face people use around someone they are about to ask a question they already know the answer to.

"Was that — "

"That was him. And yes, I said what I said."

Harriet handed the cashier her own card.

"Tonight is on me. As a matter of historical record."