Chapter 3

I held a hand to my cheek and stared straight at Diane.

From the moment I'd walked in, she had defended someone else, thrown coffee in my face for someone else, hit me for someone else.

I knew she didn't love me, but never before had she hurt me again and again for someone else's sake.

Five years ago, when Allen and I were bound as mates before the Moon Goddess, Diane had wept at the sight of the moonstone ring that symbolized our love.

But now everything had changed.

"What are you looking at me for?" she asked uneasily, then sat down and avoided my eyes.

"Nothing." A strange calm settled over me.

That was what it felt like when all hope was gone.

Slowly, I slid the moonstone ring off my finger, held Allen's gaze, and set the ring down on the table.

The blue stone threw off a dazzling light that fell across Allen's face.

"Allen, there's no need for any ceremony. I, Jenny Carter, swear before the Moon Goddess: Allen Blackwood is no longer my fated mate. From this moment on, we are nothing to each other."

As the words left me, I saw Allen's brow crease. His whole body went rigid, as if he were fighting something down.

So was I, enduring a pain that felt like being torn apart.

This is the backlash every werewolf must suffer when a mate bond is severed.

I took a deep breath and turned to Diane, keeping my voice as steady as I could. "Mom, you love Olivia, so let her be your daughter. Adam adores her, so let her be his sister. You don't need me, and I don't need any of you anymore."

Diane, the woman I had once called Mom, stared at me blankly, then exchanged a glance with Allen as if she wanted to say something.

But I was done listening.

After I left, I went to the home Allen and I had shared.

As the pack's Alpha, Allen lived in the grandest mansion, the kind of place an ordinary werewolf like me had never set foot in.

Once, I had thought of it as our love nest.

Soon, another woman would be living here in my place.

I packed my things, took one last look at the place, and headed downstairs to leave.

The next second, the door was kicked in. Allen's eyes burned red with rage, and the moment he saw me, he shifted fully into a massive wolf.

He pinned me to the floor effortlessly under one paw and let out a furious roar.

"Jenny, what did you do to Olivia? She said she was going to find you and apologize, and now she's missing. Where are you hiding her?"

Allen was an Alpha, and far too strong. Just the weight of his paw made it hard to breathe; my chest felt ready to split open.

Diane slapped me twice across the face in a fury, until my ears rang.

They kept demanding to know where I had hidden Olivia, but I knew nothing. I had no answer to give.

"Not talking?"

Allen shifted back into human form, seized me by the hair, hauled me out of the mansion, and threw me onto the back lawn.

"Jenny, don't test my patience. Olivia is distraught right now. Something could happen to her out there alone!"

Then he pulled on a glove, took a silver blade from Diane's hand, and waved it in front of my eyes.

"Allen, what are you doing?!"

Silver was the thing I feared most, and the blade was coated in something black. I recognized it at a glance: wolfsbane venom.

Not long after Allen and I first got together, I was poisoned with wolfsbane. My body failed fast, and he carried me through the night to Freya Bennett, the pack healer, who purged the poison.

He'd thought I was dying then. He cried until both his eyes were swollen and kept watch over me for two days and two nights without sleep.

By the time I recovered, he had nearly collapsed from exhaustion.

And now, to find Olivia, he was willing to use that same brutal method against me.

"Get that away from me! Don't touch me! I don't know where she is. It wasn't me!"

"Still won't tell the truth? I rule this pack. No one but you would dare lay a finger on her!"

As the glinting silver dagger inched closer, my body began to shake uncontrollably.

Something inside me was thrashing wildly, and I curled into a ball in agony.

My chest, where he had stomped down, felt ready to burst, but the pain inside me hurt worst of all.

Allen worried that Olivia might sink into depression over a missed promotion, never realizing I was already suffering from mild depression myself.

Their lies had made it worse. Now they wanted my life on top of it.

"Talk."

Faced with that poison-slicked dagger, I was scared out of my mind, but I could not confess to something I hadn't done.

"I really don't know... Aah!"

The dagger sliced across my arm. My skin split open as if scorched, turning an ashen gray.

Before I lost consciousness, I heard Allen's phone ring.

"What? You found her? Good. I'm on my way!"

And then they all left. Not one of them cared whether I lived or died.

Then the Moon Goddess's voice, holy and solemn, filled my mind.

"Jenny, you're awake."

A vision appeared before me: Olivia smiling sweetly in a hospital bed.

Diane was feeding her milk, Adam was telling her jokes, and Allen held her hand in his and pressed a reverent kiss to it.

I also saw my own true form.

The wolfsbane had not killed me. Instead, it had combined with the poison that had lain dormant in my body.

And I finally knew: I was not a werewolf without a wolf after all. I was a white wolf, the rarest and most powerful of our kind.

Poison had suppressed my bloodline from birth; that was why, unlike other werewolves, I'd never been able to manifest my wolf or my power.

Suddenly, I didn't care about any of them at all.

After I came to, I found Freya and took her medicine. I felt much clearer afterward.

I dragged my suitcase into a cab and rode to the airport.

There was nothing left in this pack to hold me.

The mate I had once loved more than anyone and my family were still at the hospital, keeping vigil over the thief who had stolen everything from me.

None of it mattered anymore. It was better this way. They didn't need to know I was already gone.

They didn't need to know I was never coming back, either.