Chapter 5: Thirty days, zero left.

Lyra POV

As soon as the words left my mouth, the world went still.

I felt it immediately. The bond, that thin, fraying thread of fate I had been clinging to for three years, pulled taut inside my chest like a wire about to snap. Pain bloomed behind my ribs, sharp and bright and nauseating, so much so that I almost doubled over, but I didn’t.

It took me a few minutes to get my bearings, but when I did, I took a deep breath, turned around, and walked away. Past the whispers, past the life I had spent three years building for a man who never once looked at me and saw someone worth keeping.

And I refused to look back.

I'd almost made it halfway across the courtyard before his hand closed around my wrist.

"Are you done?"

Asher's grip was tight but not painful. I could feel the tension in his fingers. His breathing was harder than it should have been, like he had been fighting something inside himself the entire way here.

I didn't turn around. "Let go of me, Asher."

"A rejection isn't something you do on a whim, Lyra. You don't just stand up in front of the entire pack and—"

"And what?" I stared straight ahead at the treeline. "Say out loud what you've been thinking for three years?"

His grip faltered, but barely. Just enough for me to feel it.

I turned to face him. He was close, closer than he had willingly stood to me in months. His jaw was tight, his dark eyes searching my face with an intensity that would have made my heart race six hours ago. Now it just made me tired.

"Isn't this exactly what you wanted?" I asked. "To end our marriage and be with Vivienne? You told the entire pack that my position was temporary. You announced wedding plans with her before the ink on our contract had even dried. So why are you standing here acting like I took something from you?"

Asher's breath caught. Something moved behind his eyes, not guilt, but something close to it.

"The end of the contract doesn't give you the right to reject me," he said quietly. "That's not how this works."

I almost laughed. "Then tell me how it works. You marry Vivienne, and I stay? You hold a wedding with the woman you actually want while keeping me chained to a bond you refused to honor for three years?" I held his gaze. "What exactly is it you want from me, Asher? Because you don't want me as your Luna. You don't want me as your mate. So what's left?"

He didn't answer.

The silence between us pressed against my chest and squeezed, and for one horrible, aching second, I thought I saw something a flicker of remorse in his eyes but at that moment, Vivienne's voice floated across the courtyard, light and sweet and perfectly timed.

"Asher?"

His entire body shifted. The tension in his jaw rearranged itself. His shoulders turned a fraction toward the sound of her voice, and I watched it happen again. I watched the door to his heart close on my face.

"I'll be right there," he called back. Then he looked at me one last time. His voice was stiff, stripped of everything but authority. "Either way, you cannot reject me without my consent. This isn't over."

He let go of my wrist and walked away.

I stood there and watched him leave. He moved toward Vivienne with the same urgency he had shown at the eastern gate, the same gravitational pull he had never once felt toward me. My wrist was still warm where his fingers had been.

I had already let go; I had made my decision and said the words.  

But watching him choose her, again, and again, and again, made her heart squeeze with pain. I let it hurt for a few more seconds, and then I turned away, burying that part of me.

~~~

By the next morning, I had started packing.

I moved through my room quietly, pulling open drawers and sorting through three years of accumulated life. The silk robes the pack had given me for Luna ceremonies. The jewelry Asher's mother had left behind. The stack of administrative files I had organized by season, each one a record of a problem I had solved that no one would ever thank me for.

I took my old clothes, the ones I had arrived in, faded and soft from years of washing. A few basic things I could carry on my back and the necklace.

The worn, tarnished pendant I had been wearing the day Gerald and Diane took me in as a child. I didn't know where it came from. I didn't know who had put it around my neck, but it was the only thing in this world that had been mine before I became someone else's obligation.

I was folding the last of my things when Elliot burst through the door.

I looked up with surprise at him. He always knocked, but he didn’t this time around. He was panting, as beads of tears gathered on his forehead.

"Someone tried to access your medical records." He was breathing hard, hands braced against the doorframe. "Alpha authorization. I flagged the request and managed to redirect it, but Lyra — I think Asher is digging. He suspects something. You know, Alpha instinct and then your mate bond. Since he hasn’t rejected you yet, it’s possible that he can feel the child —" Elliot trailed off.

My hand moved to my stomach before I could stop it.

The custody clause flashed into my mind. Full custody of any offspring shall default to the Alpha and his bloodline.

If Asher found out about this baby, I would never hold it. The child would belong to the pack, to the Voss bloodline, to the man who had never once treated me like I deserved to be in the same room as him. My baby would grow up the same way I did, as a possession and not as a person.

"I have to leave," I said. "Right now."

Elliot nodded. He had already come prepared. "There's a pack about two days east; it’s Silver Hollow. You stayed there briefly years ago, before the contract. The Alpha there owes me a favor. I've already sent word. They'll take you in, keep you off the radar until you figure out your next move."

I looked around the room one last time. Three years of my life lived inside these walls. Three years of waking up alone, eating alone, managing a pack that treated me like a placeholder. The bed Asher had never shared. The desk where I had signed hundreds of documents on his behalf. The window I used to sit beside late at night, staring out at the training grounds, wondering if he ever thought about me after the lights went out.

Without thinking much about it, I reached for my old clothes, stuffing them into my bag, leaving behind my other possessions. Elliot nodded his head several times, as his eyes misted with tears.

“Go,” he said with a strained smile. “Only write to me when you’re settled. Asher would be watching me closely, so don’t send word back—stay safe, okay?

“Thank you.” I nodded, fighting the tears at the back of my throat.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked out.

The sky was already darkening by the time I cleared the pack border. Heavy clouds rolled in from the west, pressing the air low and thick with the smell of rain to come. The forest trail was narrow and uneven, winding through dense undergrowth that closed in on either side.

I moved fast. Faster than I should have, given the pregnancy, but the feeling at the back of my neck wouldn't let me slow down. A crawling awareness. A prickling instinct that something was wrong.

I was being followed.

I scanned the trees. I saw nothing. There was no movement, no sound beyond the rustle of wind through the canopy. But my wolf was pacing inside me, agitated, pressing against my ribs with a low, persistent warning I couldn't ignore.

I ducked off the main trail and onto a narrow side path, moving as quietly as I could. The undergrowth thickened. The light dimmed. My heart hammered so loudly that I was sure whoever was behind me could track me by the sound alone.

Then a voice came from directly behind me. It was male and unfamiliar.

"The Alpha said to bring her back." A pause. "Especially the child she's carrying."

The blood drained from my face.

He knew. Asher knew about the baby, and he hadn't come himself; he had sent men. He hadn’t come to find me, to talk to me, or convince me not to leave. It was to retrieve his heir.

I ran.

One arm wrapped around my stomach, the other pushing branches out of my path, feet slamming against the wet ground. I didn't look back. I didn't think. I just ran — for the baby, for myself, for the future I was trying to mould into existence with my bare hands.

Suddenly, a dark, musty scent hit me.

The unmistakable scent of rogues, coming from every direction, closing in from the left, the right, circling behind me. The forest was suddenly full of them: their heavy footfalls, guttural breathing, and stinking scent, a trademark of their packless nature.

I skidded to a stop, breathing hard. I didn’t know where to run or which direction to go.

My hand pressed hard against my stomach, and for the first time since I had discovered this pregnancy, I felt something move inside me. A flutter. Was it the baby? I wondered silently.

I won't let them take you, I thought. I won't let anyone take you from me.

The rogues stepped out of the shadows, and the circle closed.