Chapter 4

His hands were still wrapped in the white gauze he'd used to bandage Selene. Traces of that Omega's medicinal salve still clung under his fingernails.

He walked to my bedside and reached to examine the freshly stitched wound on my head.

I jerked my head away, dodging his touch.

"Your hands still smell like her medicine. Don't touch me." I stared at him coldly.

Damien froze in place and withdrew his outstretched hand.

He dropped his gaze. "I'm sorry." His voice was raw and hoarse.

I didn't spare him another glance. I turned away and pulled a document and a black pen from beneath my pillow.

I slapped them down on the bedside table in front of him.

"You keep saying you want to make it up to me. Sign this." I pointed at the last page.

Damien picked up the document and instinctively started to flip to the first page.

I immediately pressed my hand over his, stopping him.

"What, afraid I'm asking for too much? Too many of your precious territories and assets?" I sneered. "This is what you call sincerity? All those promises about making things right?"

Damien's expression darkened.

He clenched his jaw, pulled the document free from under my hand, and without reading another page, signed his name on the signature line at the back.

He thought it was a simple property compensation agreement.

He had no idea it was a joint petition to the Wolf Council for formal dissolution of our Mate Bond.

With his signature, all I had to do was submit it, and our bond would be officially severed.

After signing, his guilt seemed to deepen. He personally ordered the pack kitchen to prepare a full table of my favorite dishes.

The two of us sat in the empty dining room. He poured two glasses of red wine and raised his, trying to lighten the mood.

I sat motionless, my wine glass untouched.

Just then, a commotion erupted outside the front door.

A guard shouted: "Selene collapsed! Her silver poisoning is flaring up!"

Damien's hand froze mid-toast.

He set down his glass quickly, two seconds of conflict flashing through his eyes.

I set down my own glass and watched him quietly.

"Go." My voice was perfectly flat.

"I'll send another Healer to handle it," he said, frowning.

But his body had already risen from the chair, betraying every word.

I looked at his tensed muscles and called him out.

"Your body's already standing, Damien."

His expression twisted into something painfully complicated.

He glanced at me, said nothing, and strode out the door.

The food on the table sat untouched until it went cold.

I sat alone in the dining room until well past midnight.

I pulled out my phone and checked social media. Selene had just posted.

In the photo, she lay in her ramshackle lean-to, draped in Damien's expensive Alpha coat.

Beside her makeshift bed sat a bowl of steaming herbal broth and a bouquet of moonflowers still beaded with water.

The same moonflowers Damien had bought for me the day before, trying to win me back.

Selene's caption read: "Thank you for coming to see me so late. Did you pick these flowers yourself?"

I locked my phone without expression.

Late that night, a violent storm broke over the territory.

I left the dining table still laden with cold dishes.

I didn't bother with an umbrella. I walked straight through the downpour to the eastern edge of the territory—to the small cabin where my mother lived alone.

She opened the door and found me soaking wet, rainwater streaming down my body.

She didn't ask a single question. She pulled me inside, brought a dry towel, and carefully dried my hair.

Then she went to the kitchen and set a bowl of hot stew in front of me.

I sat at the table, head bowed, mechanically spooning stew into my mouth.

My mother sat across from me and was quiet for a long time before she spoke.

"Your father was the same way." Her voice was very calm. "He always swore I was the only one. But his body kept going to other she-wolves, over and over."

"I spent ten years swallowing my pride, trying to hold on to him."

"In the end, he left without a backward glance."

I set down my spoon.

"Once a man's heart moves to someone else, nothing you do will keep him."

She reached across the table and gripped my ice-cold fingers tightly.

"If you want to petition the Council to break the bond, I'm behind you one hundred percent."

"No matter what happens, I will always be on your side."

My jaw ached from how hard I was clenching it.

The tears I'd been holding back finally fell—hot and silent—dropping into the soup bowl in front of me.

In the middle of the night, a heavy thud from the bedroom jolted me awake.

I rushed in and found my mother collapsed on the cold bedroom floor.

Her entire body was seizing violently. Her lips had turned a terrifying shade of purple-black.

I was a Healer. I dropped to my knees immediately and checked her pulse.

The second I felt it, I knew. The old injury she'd carried since she was young had finally erupted in full.

Her wolf spirit was tearing away from her body.

If it wasn't stopped immediately, she wouldn't survive the night.

The only thing that could forcibly anchor her wolf spirit was the Moon Spirit Stone—an extraordinarily rare artifact locked in the pack vault.

And access to that stone was controlled entirely by Alpha Damien.

I grabbed my phone in a frenzy and called him.

I dialed over and over, but every call rang out unanswered.

I didn't have time to think. I bolted out of the cabin.

I sprinted through the storm toward the Alpha's residence and slammed open the heavy study door.

Damien sat behind his massive desk.

In front of him, the Moon Spirit Stone glowed with a faint blue light.

And Selene lay on the leather recliner beside the desk.

Her face was deathly pale. Silver-grey poison lines had spread across her neck and arms.

She clung weakly to Damien's wrist.

"Alpha, the silver poison has reached my heart… please, save me…" she begged through tears.

I stood in the study doorway, caked in mud and rainwater, my eyes locked on the lifesaving stone in front of Damien, my voice shaking.

"Damien, my mother is dying."

"Give me the Moon Spirit Stone!"