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Author: Sweet
Leon glanced at the slip.

"Going back to White Bay again?"

"This time I'm removing the mark."

He finally looked at me, but he didn't take the paper.

"Erin, you're carrying my child. Stop threatening to leave every time your feelings get hurt."

The wind caught the slip. I pressed my hand down on it, and the cut on my palm split open again.

He saw the blood, and his voice softened a little. "I never said I wouldn't take care of you. Just come home tonight."

I took the tissue he handed me and shut the car door.

The next day, Leon was 20 minutes late.

When he sat down, he was still texting Clara back.

"Can we go once this is done? Clara has a follow-up today."

I didn't answer. I took out the ID documents, medical records, and separation arrangements my lawyer, Martha Reed, had put together.

Simon, the council witness, handed each of us a copy of the papers.

A private mate contract was legally binding, even without a public ceremony. Ending it didn't depend on who the pack Elders liked or supported, either.

But because I was pregnant, rejecting the mark outright could trigger a violent reaction from my wolf.

My healer, Helen Moore, recommended a 28-day treatment that would weaken the bond step by step.

"Today you'll both sign informed consent, authorizing the bond to be dissolved once the treatment is complete," Simon said. "If either of you objects, it has to be filed formally. Getting back together requires a joint application. One person alone can't cancel the process."

Leon finally put his phone down.

"So she can change her mind within the 28 days?"

"She can apply to stop it, but you can't decide that for her. What you're both signing now is consent to dissolve the bond."

Simon circled the final date and had each of us confirm it.

I said, "I agree."

Leon looked at me for a few seconds, then signed too.

He capped the pen, then said quietly, "I'm signing so you know I won't hold you back. It doesn't mean we're really splitting up."

I put away my copy.

"That's not what the papers say."

He set down the pen like it didn't matter. "You said you weren't coming back the last two times too."

When I walked out of the council building, the sunlight made my eyes sting.

I really had left twice.

The first time was when Clara lost a brooch. Leon opened my purse in front of all the guests and said checking it would clear my name.

The brooch turned up later in her shawl. But no one told the guests they'd been wrong.

The second time, an intimate voice message I'd sent Leon got edited and leaked to the staff group chat. Clara said she'd only forwarded something anonymous, so he had me suspended from the foundation until the talk died down.

I'd just found out I was pregnant.

He promised he'd publicly acknowledge me as his mate before the baby was born.

So I came back.

He took the fact that I'd come back twice as proof he could do it to me again.

Martha put my papers away for me. "Is your place in White Bay sorted out?"

"It's all set."

I sent her my train ticket too.

This time, I didn't buy a return ticket.

On the seventh day of the treatment, Leon brought Clara to the lake house.

I was still living there because Helen had advised me not to put myself through a move just yet. I had my own bedroom, and Martha had confirmed my right to stay there during the separation.

Leon had been staying at pack headquarters for the past few days.

He'd texted me exactly once, telling me to return the documents to the study so they'd be easy to find later.

I was sorting baby clothes when the doorbell rang.

Leon was standing outside with Clara, and he handed me a pastry box.

"Clara came to apologize for what happened at the mall."

I shook my head. "I told you I don't want to see her."

But Leon had already let Clara in, and she sat down at the dining table.

"I shouldn't have grabbed your things last time," she said. "I thought that crest belonged to the real Luna. I got it wrong."

I finished folding the baby clothes. "So getting it wrong means you can shove a pregnant woman around?"

Leon frowned. "She came here to apologize. Do you have to make an issue of every word?"

He opened the pastry box. Inside were little pastries covered in chopped hazelnuts.

"They're from that bakery you used to go to," he told me. "We made a special trip for you."

"I'm allergic to hazelnuts."

Leon froze for a second.

Of course he'd forgotten.

Clara kept smiling. "Then just scrape them off the top and—"

"No." I closed the box. "Take them away."

Clara hung her head, and tears dropped onto the table.

Leon sighed. "She didn't know. Why be so cold? It's not like you actually ate any."

The gauze around my hand was right in front of him. Since he'd walked in, he hadn't asked about it once.

"I heard the apology. I'll still give the police whatever they need."

Clara looked up at him.

Leon's voice finally went cold. "You really want to give her a criminal record?"

"That depends on what she did."

He looked at me for a long time, then set an invitation on the table.

"It's the annual dinner tonight. Mom agreed to add a seat for you. What good does it do you to make things ugly right now?"

My name was on the guest line, with no mention of me being his mate. I was at table three.

"I have a treatment appointment."

"You have treatments every week. Can't you push it back?"

I pushed the invitation back to him.

He picked it up. "Then Clara will stand beside me during the opening speech. Don't get mad about it later."

I nodded. "I won't."

Leon didn't seem to expect me to agree so easily. He picked up the pastry box and helped Clara to her feet.

On the way out, he turned back. "Don't pack all the baby clothes away. You'll just have to take them out again sooner or later."

I zipped up my travel bag.

Liv tried to comfort me. We're not going there.

I nodded.

But two hours later, that dinner found me anyway.
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  • He Called Me Luna After I Broke Our Bond   12

    This time, nobody could call it a misunderstanding.Martha walked me through the evidence they'd gathered. The camera at the memorial garden's entrance had caught Clara arriving with the hired man. The joggers had video from the scene, and my phone had saved part of the emergency call.The man, Kurt Doyle, admitted he'd been paid to follow me and block my way. He tried to blame Clara for the worst of it.His statement also gave them a new lead.In the chats Clara had told him to delete, there was a photo of a maintenance notice for the healing center's stairwell.She wouldn't have photographed that notice in advance if our meeting had been an accident.The police went through the communication records by the book and pulled the files from the earlier incidents together into one case.Hoping for leniency, the kitchen temp handed over the unedited chats and the payment agreement. Clara had used the tablet at the estate to send the payment, then used the household account name on the scre

  • He Called Me Luna After I Broke Our Bond   11

    I learned later from my mother that after calling the police and an ambulance, she'd called Leon too. He was on his way to the train station.She asked if he was still in White Bay, told him I'd been attacked at the memorial garden, and urged him to help.His car happened to be passing the garden's north gate.With the bond gone, he couldn't sense that I was in danger anymore. It was my mother who told him where I was.In the water, all I could hear were the joggers on the boardwalk shouting.A life ring was thrown down and landed a few strokes away from me.I could barely lift my arms anymore.I pieced together what happened on shore from witnesses after I was rescued. Clara dropped the brush and tried to leave, but the garden caretaker stopped her.The man tried to run off along the boardwalk too, but two patrol guards who'd come running cut him off.When I looked up again, Leon was there.He pulled off his coat, grabbed a rescue float, and went into the water from the ramp closest t

  • He Called Me Luna After I Broke Our Bond   10

    That night, after seeing Leon, I had a nightmare.In the dream, Noah had been born. He was asleep on my shoulder, so warm.I wanted to call Leon over to see him.But when I turned around, the baby was gone.I woke with a start, my arms still curved like I was holding him.My mother heard me and came to sit with me for a long time.When the sun came up, I decided to go to the memorial garden.Noah was buried beneath a small stone marker with his name carved into it. My father had helped me with the paperwork for the plot, and I'd picked out a shrub that bloomed white in spring.I didn't want my baby to go without even a name, like no one had ever been waiting for him.Before I left, I told my mother I'd be back by ten and turned on location sharing with my family.The memorial garden sat beside a saltwater lagoon, and people often walked there in the mornings. I went to the little stone marker, set down the wooden wolf, and sat on the bench."Mommy didn't sleep well last night. But it'l

  • He Called Me Luna After I Broke Our Bond   9

    Martha told me Leon stayed at the healing center for two days of observation.Victoria tried to visit, but he wouldn't see her. He just had his lawyer handle the rest of the handover and revoke her authority to represent him in his personal affairs.Clara's lawyer, meanwhile, was working out next steps with the police, pointing to her injury and her cooperation with the investigation.The evidence was still being checked. Leon's word alone couldn't prove anyone guilty.When Owen handed materials over to Martha, he told her that this time, Leon hadn't asked for things to be wrapped up quickly.Owen had also asked Leon whether he wanted to use the pack's resources to keep the news quiet.The answer was one sentence."Hand over everything the law requires, and stop rewriting the story for anyone."On the third day, I had Martha send him my answer.I agreed to see him once.In the meeting room at the White Bay community center. For 30 minutes. With my lawyer there.Martha sent him the time

  • He Called Me Luna After I Broke Our Bond   8

    It was Martha who told me something had happened to Leon at the estate."Victoria insisted he come back to talk, and he went."That became part of the investigation, too. Through the lawyers, I saw the statements related to the original case. He'd gone back to collect the devices linked to the household account and revoke Victoria's authority to give private instructions on his behalf.Owen was helping the police with documents, so he was going to be late.According to Leon's statement, when he walked into the living room alone, a warm drink was already waiting on the table.Victoria was sitting by the fireplace, and the first thing she asked about was me. "I hear you want to go to White Bay to find Erin?"Since she's broken the mark, she should know we can't welcome her the way we used to."Leon put the papers transferring her authority on the table right then."I'm not asking you to welcome her. I'm here to take back control of my affairs."Victoria had handled the Blake family's soc

  • He Called Me Luna After I Broke Our Bond   7

    In his letter, Leon also wrote about the night he went home alone.The lock still recognized him. The door opened, and the lights came on by themselves. The living room was neater than it had ever been.He said that for a moment, he actually fooled himself.He thought I'd just tidied up and was curled up in the armchair upstairs with a book.He called my name. No one answered.There was no half-finished glass of water on the table.Only his shoes were by the door. The soft gray boots under the shoe rack were gone.My rosemary plant was gone too, leaving a faint ring on the windowsill where the pot had been.The expensive jewelry was neatly arranged in a drawer, with a list beside it for the lawyers to sort out what belonged to whom.I'd taken my books, my clothes, and the few round stones I'd picked up when we went to the beach together.I hadn't gone out of my way to wipe out every memory.Our photo was still in the living room. In it, I was smiling so hard my eyes crinkled, and Leon

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