The Choice That Isn't 

"Mommy, you're squishing me."

Ezra's muffled voice cut through my spiral, and I realized I'd been clutching him to my chest for a solid three minutes. I loosened my grip, pressing a kiss to his dark hair.

"Sorry, baby. Just missed you."

"I was only gone for like two hours," he said, wiggling free with the brutal honesty of five-year-olds. "Mrs. Chen said I was a perfect angel and gave me cookies. Three cookies, Mommy. She said angels deserve treats."

Despite everything, I smiled. "Did she now?"

"Uh-huh. And she said you looked like you needed a nap, and that I should be extra good today so you can rest." He tilted his head, looking at me carefully with those eyes like his father's—Damien's eyes, a voice whispered traitorously. "Are you sick?"

"No, sweetheart, just tired. Moving is alot of work."

"Oh." He accepted this with a child's easy trust, then brightened. "Can we go to the park? I saw one on the way here. It has swings and everything!"

The park. A normal, safe, with human activity that didn't involve mysterious immortal wolves and impossible bonds and forests that called to me like sirens.

"Absolutely," I said, perhaps too eagerly. "Let's go right now."

The afternoon was a study in normalcy. We went to the park, a small but well-maintained space three blocks from our apartment and I pushed Ezra on the swings until my arms ached. We got ice cream from a truck, explored the local library, and picked up groceries from a corner store where the owner greeted me like I'd lived here for years.

This is good, I told myself, watching Ezra make friends with another little boy at the playground. This is what we came here for. Peace. Normal. A life where we're not constantly reminded we weren't good enough.

But under the calm surface, my wolf paced restlessly, drawn back toward the forest,towards him.

"You're not going back," I muttered under my breath, earning a strange look from a mother at the next bench. I smiled apologetically and focused on Ezra.

My phone buzzed unexpectedly and my heart almost skipped, expecting another cryptic message from Kael or a cruel text from Vivienne.

Instead: DAMIEN.

I stared at his name for few minutes before opening the message.

DAMIEN: Did you arrive safely? Ezra isn't answering the phone I gave him.

ME: Because I collected the phone from him and we're fine.

DAMIEN: I want to talk to him. Please.

The audacity, and the sheer entitlement of it made my blood boil. But I looked at Ezra, laughing as he climbed on the jungle gym, and remembered that however much I hated Damien right now, but then, he's still and always will be Ezra's father.

So I called him back and he answered on the first ring.

"You have two minutes," I cut him off. "Then I'm hanging up and blocking this number."

Silence. Then: "Can I talk to Ezra? Please. I just... I need to hear his voice."

Something in his tone made me pause. He sounded lost and uncertain. Nothing like the confident Alpha who had told me that our bond was a mistake.

Not my problem anymore, I reminded myself but I called Ezra over anyway.

"Daddy wants to say hi," I told him, holding out the phone.

Ezra's face lit up. "Daddy!"

I walked a few feet away to give them privacy, but I couldn't help hearing Ezra's side of the conversation.

"Yeah, the new place is cool... No, not as big as our old room, but it has stars!... Mommy says we're gonna paint my room blue... I made a new friend named Jason... No, I miss you too... When will you visit?"

That last question hit me badly because I hadn't thought about visitation, about how we'd navigate Damien being in our lives without actually being in our lives, and about how Ezra would grow up split between two worlds.

How I'd survive seeing Damien with Vivienne, watching them build the family he'd refused to build with me.

"Mommy?" Ezra held out the phone. "Daddy wants to talk to you again."

I took it reluctantly. "What?"

"Thank you." Damien's voice was rough. "For letting me talk to him."

"He's your son. I'm not going to keep him from you out of spite." Even if I wanted to. "What do you want, Damien?"

"To know you're okay. Both of you."

"We're fine, perfect and loving the dream." The bitterness leaked through despite my best efforts. "How's Vivienne? How far along is she?"

His sharp intake of breath told me he hadn't expected me to know. "Sera"

"She texted me yesterday. Congratulations, by the way. I'm sure this baby will be everything I failed to give you."

"That's not fair"

"Fair?" I laughed, harsh and jagged. "You want to talk about being fair hun? You rejected me for another woman while I was still trying to be the perfect mate, the perfect Luna, the perfect everything you needed. You let your pack bow to her while I stood there like a ghost. And to worsen it all you let my son, our son call her Mommy and now you want sympathy because I'm bitter about it?"

"I never wanted to hurt you," he said quietly.

"But you did anyways, and I'm sure you would do it over and over again, that's for sure or wouldn't you? beause she's your true mate and I was just the mistake you were stuck with until she showed up."

"The bond with her is…" He stopped, seeming to realize there was no way to finish that sentence without making it worse.

"Stronger than what we had," I finished it for him. "More real, right. I know, Damien. I've spent seven years feeling you wish you were somewhere else. Just someone else. So don't pretend that this is some sort of a great tragedy for you, you know what you were doing and you got exactly what you wanted."

"And you?" His voice dropped. "Did you get what you wanted?"

The question caught me off guard. Had I? I'd wanted a mate who loved me, a pack who accepted me, a family that was whole and I just wanted to be enough and matter.

"I got away from you," I said finally. "That's a start."

I hung up before he could respond, my hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone. Ezra was back on the swings, oblivious to his mother's breakdown, and I was grateful for it.

This is why we left, I reminded myself. No more pack politics, no more trying to fit into a space that was never meant for me. Just me and Ezra, building something new.

But even as I thought it, I felt the pull toward the forest. Toward Kael, toward a different kind of complication entirely.

"No," I said aloud. "Absolutely not."

A woman walking her dog gave me a concerned look and I just ignored her.

That night, after Ezra was asleep, I stood at my kitchen window staring at the dark line of trees. I could feel him out there waiting, watching and the bond between us if that's what it was thrummed like a live wire, urging me to go to him.

One week, he'd said. It had been less than a day, and I was already fighting the urge to run back into that clearing.

"This is insane," I told my wolf. "He's a predator, a monster and the fact that he outright told us he's dangerous."

He's ours, she responded simply. The broken bond hurts. This one doesn't.

She was right. The tie to Damien felt like a wound, raw and infected. But the connection to Kael... it felt like coming home to a place I'd never been. Terrifying and right in equal measure.

My phone buzzed.

MARGARET: You went into the forest.

I closed my eyes. Of course she knew.

ME: I came back.

MARGARET: This time. Sera, I'm saying this as someone who wants you to survive: stay away from him. Whatever he promised you, it's a lie. Silverbloods don't form bonds with normal wolves. They consume them.

ME: What if he's telling the truth?

MARGARET: Then you're in more danger than I thought.

She didn't text again. I stood at the window for another hour, watching the forest, feeling the pull grow stronger.

Finally, I forced myself to bed, burying myself under blankets and trying to ignore the howl echoing from the woods. Trying to ignore that my wolf wanted to answer.

I dreamed of silver eyes and winter nights, of running through endless forests with something magnificent and terrible at my side. I dreamed of hands on my skin, lips at my throat, a voice whispering mine like a prayer and a curse.

I woke up gasping, my body aching with want, and hated myself for it.

The next day brought a routine I desperately clung to: breakfast with Ezra, a trip to enroll him in the local kindergarten, lunch at a diner where the waitress already knew my order. Normal, human and safe. But everywhere I went, I felt eyes on me. Not threatening though, just observing. The supernatural community of Pinehaven, I realized, kept tabs on the new wolf who'd been stupid enough to walk into Kael's territory and come back alive.

At the grocery store, a woman with inhuman grace and eyes too green to be natural stopped me in the produce section.

"You met him," she said without preamble. No question.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please." She smiled, revealing teeth a bit too sharp. "The whole town can smell him on you. Like smoke and winter. You reek of Silverblood." She picked up an apple, examining it. "How did it feel? Meeting something that could kill you with a thought?"

"Terrifying," I admitted.

"And yet you're still here. Still in town. Why haven't you run?"

Because I had nowhere left to run. Because my son deserved stability. Because some masochistic part of me wanted to see how this impossible situation resolved itself.

"I'm not running from anyone anymore," I said instead.

The woman's smile widened. "Brave. Stupid, but brave. I'm Lydia, by the way. I run the coven on the east side. If you need help with... anything supernatural... my door's open. We protect our own in this town."

"I'm not part of a coven."

"No, but you're pack-less and vulnerable. That makes you ours by default. Pinehaven looks out for refugees." She handed me the apple. "Free advice? Whatever he offers you, the price is higher than you think. Silverbloods don't give anything without taking something in return."

She left me holding an apple I didn't want and questions I couldn't answer.

The days blurred together. I fell into a rhythm with Ezra, making our tiny apartment feel like home. I avoided Margaret's texts, ignored Damien's increasingly desperate calls, and tried not to think about the forest.

But every night, I stood at that window, the pull grew stronger.