TWO

ARIA

No.

That was the only thought I had. Just that one word, repeating, filling every empty space in my head.

No. No. No.

I was already moving before I even made the decision to move. My feet just went, carrying me back down the corridor, away from the door, away from his father’s voice still ringing in my ears. Good boy.

My hand flew to my mouth. I could feel everything trying to come up at once, the tears, the scream, all of it pressing against the back of my throat, and I swallowed it down and kept moving. Liana arrives in two days.

I turned a corner. Then another. My chest was caving in on itself and I didn’t know where I was going, just away, just somewhere that wasn’t there, somewhere I didn’t have to stand and be the last person in the pack to figure out what everyone else already knew.

That bitch.

I made a sound. Small and broken. It slipped out before I could catch it and I heard footsteps behind me almost immediately, the low murmur of voices, and my body went cold.

I couldn’t run. Not really. Not in a pack full of wolves who could cover ground in seconds. Running would only make it worse, only make me look like exactly what they all already thought I was, so I stopped.

I pressed my back against the wall, closed my eyes for two seconds, and then stepped out into the corridor like I’d just been walking. Like I had somewhere to be. Like the mark on my neck wasn’t still throbbing and the whole world hadn’t just collapsed into a pile of ash. Adrian was there.

He stopped when he saw me. Something moved across his face, fast, there and gone so quickly I almost missed it. Guilt. Raw and unmistakable. He covered it in half a second, replaced it with something softer, but I’d already seen it. I’d already seen it.

“Aria.” He said my name like a question. “Were you just—” he paused. “Are you just coming?”

I smiled.

I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know where I found that smile or what I pulled it from but it came, sitting on my face like it belonged there.

“I came to find you,” I said. “You didn’t come back.”

Something shifted in his jaw. “I’m sorry. My father, he—” he exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “You know how he is.”

“What was he saying?”

“The alliance.” He said it smoothly. Too smoothly. “He was pushing again. The usual.”

I looked at him. This person I had given everything to, less than two hours ago, whose name I had said against his skin like a prayer. I looked at him and I wanted so badly to be wrong. I wanted there to be some version of this that made sense, some explanation I hadn’t thought of yet.

“Did you tell him no?”

“Of course.” No hesitation. Not even a flicker. “I told him it’s only you. That’s it, that’s all. Nothing’s changed.”

I nodded slowly. “And the marking?”

Something moved in his eyes.

“What about it?”

“Did you tell him?” I kept my voice even. “About the mark?”

He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers brushing the edge of the mark as he did it. Gentle. Careful. Like he was tending to something precious.

“No,” he said softly. “That’s ours. Just ours. Nobody needs to know about that yet.”

Just ours. The words landed like stones in still water.

We can only hope that bitch gets pregnant.

He’d just told his father. He’d sat in that room and reported back like a soldier returning from a mission and then walked out here and looked me in the eyes and said just ours.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” I stepped back, just slightly. Just enough. “I’ll meet you at home then. I just need some air”

He frowned. Looked at me the way he always did when he thought something was wrong, that small crease between his brows. “Are you okay?”

I almost laughed. I bit the inside of my cheek instead. “Why wouldn’t I be?” I said.

He searched my face for a moment. Then he leaned in and kissed me, soft and slow, and I stood there and let him, and I felt absolutely nothing. Or maybe I felt too much. Maybe the feeling was so large it had gone all the way around and come out the other side as nothing.

“I love you,” he said against my lips.

“I know,” I said.

I turned and walked away before he could see my face change.

The eyes found me immediately. They always did. But this time it was different. This time they weren’t just curious or contemptuous.

This time they looked at me like they knew exactly what had just happened, like they’d been watching the whole thing play out from the beginning and had already decided how it ended. A she-wolf near the entrance said something to the woman beside her and they both laughed, low and private. I walked faster.

By the time I got through the packhouse doors the tears had already started and I couldn’t stop them, didn’t even try. I just walked out through the main gates, down the path that curved through the trees toward the small house at the edge of pack territory. His mother’s house.

He’d told me about it on one of those nights when everything was quiet and he let his guard down. How his mother used to bring him here when his father got too bad. How this house was the one place Aaron couldn’t follow them into, the one place she’d made entirely hers.

How being here made him feel close to her still, even now, even years after she was gone. I had thought it meant something. Him bringing me here. Him choosing to live here with me.

Now I stood in the doorway and looked at the small sitting room, the worn furniture, the curtains his mother had probably chosen, and I thought, he hid you here.

Right at the edge of everything, just far enough away that nobody had to look at you too hard. You weren’t home. You were a kept thing. A waiting room. I went inside.

I don’t remember deciding to pick up the vase. I just had it in my hands and then it was against the wall, exploding into white pieces across the floor. The sound was satisfying in a way I hadn’t expected, so I picked up the next thing. A ceramic bowl from the shelf.

Then the framed photograph above the fireplace. Then the glass from the kitchen counter, swept off in one clean motion that sent it shattering across the tiles. I stood in the middle of it all and inhaled deeply.

It didn’t help. Nothing helped. The mark was still on my neck and his voice was still in my head and every sweet thing he’d ever said to me was now sitting in a completely different light, rearranging itself into something I didn’t want to look at. Had any of it been real?

I pressed my hands to my eyes, it didn’t matter. None of it mattered now. What mattered was that I couldn’t stay here. Not in this house, not in this pack, not in the shape of a life that had been built around me like a cage and dressed up to look like love.

They’d come for me if I just left. I knew that. An omega who’d been marked by the Alpha heir didn’t just get to walk away. They’d find me. Aaron Blackwood would make sure of it, if only to protect whatever plan he had for me next. So I had to be gone. Completely gone.

I went to the study, the safe was behind the bookshelf, exactly where Adrian had shown me. Only you know about this, he’d said. I almost believed that too. I almost believed a lot of things. The lock clicked open on the second try.

The money was stacked in neat bundles, more than I’d expected, more than I could carry easily. Pack funds probably.

Emergency reserves. I didn’t let myself think about it too hard. I just started filling the bag I’d found by the door, bundle after bundle, until the bag was heavy and the safe was empty.

I’ll starve them all, some small vicious part of me thought, and I didn’t even feel guilty about it.

I found the matches in the kitchen drawer.

I stood in the middle of the sitting room for a moment, bag over my shoulder, and looked at the house one last time. The broken pieces on the floor.

The curtains his mother had chosen. The life I’d believed in for long enough that dismantling it felt like removing something from inside my own body. I struck the match.

The curtains caught first. Then the rug. I watched for exactly as long as I needed to, just long enough to be sure, and then I turned and walked out the back door into the trees. Behind me the house breathed light into the dark sky. I didn’t look back.

I had given him my first time, my whole heart, the version of myself that still believed people meant what they said. I had given him everything I had and he had taken it and reported back to his father like it was a task completed.

So fine.

I shifted the bag on my shoulder and kept walking, the trees closing in around me, the pack getting smaller at my back.

Goodbye, Adrian, I thought. I genuinely hope your life falls apart.