I Returned You to the Woman You Loved

Ivy's eyes were still red when she opened her door.

"Wren? What are you doing here this late?"

"Adrian is drunk." I took her hand and forced my voice to remain steady. "He keeps calling your name."

In my previous life, Adrian and Ivy had ended their engagement that very evening. I had stayed behind to look after him. Then his Alpha wolf had broken through his control, and we had slept together.

The following morning, Ivy saw us in the same bed.

Adrian had nearly marked me during the night. To protect my reputation and the standing of Blackwood's Alpha, he later completed a mate bond with me. Three years afterward, Ivy died. In the letter she left behind, she confessed that the sight of us together had become a nightmare she could never escape.

Adrian blamed every part of her death on me.

I would not repeat the same mistake.

"Where is he?" Ivy asked.

"Upstairs."

I led her to Adrian's bedroom and waited outside as she entered. Alcohol had stripped away the discipline that normally held his Alpha wolf in check. His aura rolled through the upper floor in suffocating waves, driving every lower-ranking wolf in the house into instinctive submission.

Yet the instant Ivy approached him, the agitation inside him eased.

Adrian caught her around the waist and dragged her into his arms. "Don't leave me."

Tears slipped down Ivy's face. She held him just as tightly.

"All right," she whispered. "I won't."

I closed the door for them.

I stood outside the closed door for a few seconds longer than I needed to.

In my previous life, I had spent years wishing Adrian would hold me the way he was holding Ivy now. I had mistaken duty for tenderness and convinced myself that one day he might look at me the way he looked at her.

This time, I had placed the woman he loved back in his arms myself.

It still hurt.

But I turned away before either of them could open the door.

Back in my own room, I pulled a box from the deepest corner of my closet. Blackwood patrols had found me at the border when I was fourteen, orphaned and half-starved after a rogue attack. Mrs. Blackwood had formally adopted me into the family and brought me into the pack house. From then on, I had called Adrian my brother and believed this place was truly my home.

Inside the box lay the first fountain pen Adrian had given me, a platinum clasp that had fallen from one of his old bracelets, and the portrait I had secretly drawn of him when I was sixteen.

I fed all three to the fire.

In my first life, everyone called Adrian a good husband. He kept my car fueled and called a physician when I was ill.

But every year on Ivy's birthday, he locked himself in his study and remained there until sunrise.

I had refused to understand what that meant. Now I did. The care he gave me came from duty. The woman he could not release was the one he loved.

Flames curled through the last portrait until his face blackened and disappeared.

In this life, I had returned him to her with my own hands.

At last, I could release myself too.

The next morning, I found Adrian in the kitchen. He had fried Ivy's eggs sunny-side up, toasted bread, and made a fresh pot of coffee.

"Ivy, come eat."

His gentleness left me momentarily disoriented. In my previous life, he had once made hot tea when my cramps were so severe that I could not get out of bed. I had taken that small kindness and used it to deceive myself for years.

"Wren, eat with us," Ivy said, waving me over.

I had barely sat down when Adrian picked up his coffee and moved to the chair beside her. His gaze remained cool and guarded, as though he believed that if Ivy had not appeared last night, I would have taken advantage of his condition and climbed willingly into his bed.

I picked up a slice of toast. "I need to get to school."

"You haven't eaten anything," Ivy said.

"I'm not hungry."

I put on my backpack and left the pack house.

I spent the day at business school completing an application for a trade internship with Southern Pack. In my previous life, I had abandoned the same opportunity for Adrian. This time, if my application was accepted, I would leave Blackwood territory.

That evening, Mrs. Blackwood summoned everyone home for dinner because the family had an important announcement. She was the one who had adopted me all those years ago. But after living twice, I no longer mistook her house for a place that would always belong to me.

Adrian was standing near the front entrance when I arrived. The moment he saw me, he frowned.

"Why are you here?"

"Mrs. Blackwood asked me to come."

I tried to pass him. He raised an arm across my path.

"Wren, we need to talk."

"About what?"

"Last night." He lowered his voice. His golden eyes held no warmth. Even without an Alpha command, his presence made the air around us feel heavier. "I was drunk, but I didn't lose my memory. I know you entered my bedroom."

"I was the one who brought Ivy to you."

"I know." He paused. "That doesn't mean I've changed my opinion of you."

He clearly believed bringing Ivy to him was only a new way to capture his attention.

"I love Ivy," he continued. "She will be the Luna of Blackwood Pack. Finish your degree. Build a life of your own. Stop imagining there can ever be anything between us, and don't use the fact that we grew up together as an excuse to get close to me."

The familiar pain in my chest surprised me with its sharpness. In my previous life, he had looked at me the same way after discovering the letters I had hidden. With disgust. With suspicion. As if my love had never been a feeling, only a carefully designed trap.

"Don't worry." I stepped back. "It won't happen again."

At dinner, Ivy raised her left hand, blushing.

"Adrian and I are engaged again. We'll hold the formal mate ceremony in three months."

A diamond glittered on her ring finger. Adrian enclosed her hand in his, his expression softening as he looked at her.

As Blackwood's Alpha, he became the center of every room simply by entering it. Once, I had dreamed of sitting at his side as Luna.

Now I only lifted my glass.

"Congratulations. I wish you both happiness."

Adrian glanced up. He seemed to be waiting for me to lose control. Instead, I finished my wine and ate the rest of dinner in silence.

As I left the dining room, I heard him talking to Ivy in the sitting room.

"After the mate ceremony, Wren will move out."

"This is her home too," Ivy protested immediately.

"She's the Blackwoods' adopted daughter, and she's twenty-two years old. She shouldn't still be living in the pack house. More importantly, she shouldn't keep building her entire life around me. She needs to learn how to leave me."

I did not go inside.

I did not tell him I had already learned.

Instead, I opened the email that had just arrived. My application to the Southern trade program had passed its preliminary review.

Adrian believed he was merely forcing me out of this house.

He had no idea I was preparing to leave the entire Blackwood Pack.