Chapter 3

After the banquet, Adrian caught my wrist in the corridor outside the hall. "Listen to me."

"About what? Why you handed my place to another woman in front of the pack? Or why you thought I would keep understanding you forever?"

His grip tightened just enough for my wolf to bare her teeth. "Before Matteo died, he begged me to protect Bianca and Sophia. The Council challenge is still active, and rogues are watching the southern border. I had to make them look protected. I didn't do this because I love her."

"So you hid it from me."

"I knew you wouldn't agree."

I almost smiled. "You weren't afraid I'd refuse, Adrian. You knew it was wrong, so you made sure I never got a choice."

His jaw hardened. "When the challenge is over, everything goes back to normal. You'll still be my mate. You'll still be Luna."

"But tonight everyone saw who stood at your right hand."

Before I could walk away, Bianca came toward us with pity painted on her face.

"Don't be so sensitive, Evelyn. Every pack needs both kinds of women. One to carry the burden. Another to stand beside the Alpha when the world is watching."

That was the cruelest part. I had carried the weight for ten years, and she thought she could stroll in and claim the visible half.

I held her gaze. "Then stand there properly."

Her eyes sharpened. She stepped closer and lowered her voice. "It won't stay a performance for long. Blackwater saw me wearing the moonstone. They saw me at the head table. Once a man starts replacing one woman in public, the rest is just ceremony."

"You're wearing borrowed jewels, standing in borrowed light, and speaking in a house built by my hands. If I were you, Bianca, I'd be less eager to celebrate."

Her smile faltered. Then she gasped, twisted her heel, and slammed into the wall.

"Bianca!" Adrian moved at once.

She clutched his arm, eyes wet. "I only came to make peace. I didn't mean to upset her."

I didn't move. "I never touched you."

"Enough, Evelyn." Adrian stepped between us and put an arm around Bianca's waist. The bond in my chest went cold, then hot, then silent. "She lost her mate, her daughter is being threatened, and you choose now to make a scene?"

I laughed once. "I'm making a scene?"

Bianca leaned weakly against him. "Please don't fight because of me."

That was when I understood there was no point in saying another word.

I looked at his arm around her, the moonstone at her throat, and the hallway full of wolves pretending not to listen. "Then hold her properly. You've already taken everything else far enough."

Back at the packhouse, I packed passports, medicine, winter coats, cash, my mother's jewelry, Noah's school documents, and the emergency file every Luna keeps in case her Alpha becomes the danger.

Noah sat on the carpet and watched me. "Mom, are we leaving?"

"Tomorrow is your birthday," I said, kneeling in front of him. "I promised I'd spend it with you."

"Will Dad come back? I don't want Aunt Bianca in your place. I don't want Sophia calling him Dad."

I swallowed the ache in my throat. "I don't know if he'll come back. But I know this: no one gets to use your pain to make someone else look important."

Adrian didn't come home that night. Noah and I sat by the window until dawn. Just before sunrise, he whispered, "Dad won't forget my birthday."

I said nothing because my son still deserved hope, even if I no longer had any.

Adrian never showed up.

At noon, I called him. Laughter rang in the background, along with clinking glasses and a child's excited voice. My wolf recoiled before my mind caught up.

"Today is Noah's birthday," I said. "Where's the surprise you promised him?"

He went quiet, then answered too quickly. "I can't leave right now. Check the drawer by my bed. There's a ticket to the North and a black card. Take Noah away for a few days. I'll come get you when I'm done."

"You can't leave because you're sitting at the head table with Bianca, aren't you?"

"Evelyn, don't do this now. When it's over, I'll make it up to you and the boy."

Then he hung up.

In the drawer, I found the ticket, the black card, and a diamond bracelet. Payment dressed up as an apology.

At the same time, the pack account posted again. Adrian sat at the head table with Bianca at his right hand in the moonstone necklace. Sophia leaned close beside them, a pink cake glowing between the candles.

The caption read, "Some pack families need no explanation. The right people reveal themselves by who remains at the table."

Noah tugged my sleeve and handed me his tablet. Sophia's story showed Adrian carrying out her cake, straightening the ribbon at her waist, and smiling as she kissed his cheek.

"Some girls are lucky enough to get the best Alpha-dad in the world," the caption said. "Thank you for loving me like your real little girl."

Noah burst into tears. "So he wasn't busy. He just went to celebrate with her."

I looked at my son and stopped waiting. "Yes. So we're leaving."

Half an hour later, I walked out of Blackwater packhouse with Noah beside me. On the dining table, I left the signed bond-severance petition, my formal Luna renunciation, and a custody declaration witnessed by a neutral elder in the North.

I took only what belonged to me, my son, and the stubborn little piece of dignity that house had nearly swallowed whole.

Instead of using Adrian's ticket, I booked a flight to Oslo.

The moment our plane crossed out of Blackwater territory, the mate bond pulled hard in my chest, as if it knew before Adrian did.

I pressed a hand over the ache and whispered the words every mated wolf fears.

"I, Evelyn Vale, reject Adrian Blackwood as my mate. I release his name, his claim, and his bond."

The severance wouldn't be complete until the ritual in Skadi territory, but the first cut had been made. For the first time in ten years, pain felt like a door opening.