CHAPTER THREE : I Want a Divorce[Part 2]

The hallway outside the Alpha’s office felt strangely bright after the heavy pressure of his gaze.

My heart pounded, my wrist still tingled where he’d held it, and my body hummed with the awful, intoxicating knowledge that, for the first time since I’d been dragged into this house, Lucian Black had actually looked at me.

Not at the empty place where a Luna should stand.

At me.

It didn’t change anything.

He had still refused.

He had still laid claim to me the way a wolf laid claim to territory.

I’d expected that. The refusal. The anger. The threat.

What I hadn’t expected was the way the curse inside him had surged and recoiled at my touch.

Or the way a part of me, jagged and foolish, still wanted to lean into him when the world tilted.

*Never beg again,* I reminded myself. *Never trust blood. Never die quietly.*

I walked toward my room, forcing each step to be even.

Voices drifted down the corridor as I approached the wing where my family’s guest rooms were.

“…tomorrow night,” my father was saying. “Under the moon. It’s the perfect opportunity. All eyes on the ritual, no one on us.”

I stopped, the breath freezing in my lungs.

The door to the sitting room was ajar, a sliver of light and sound spilling out.

My sister’s voice followed, lilting and amused. “You really think she’ll still play along after the little show she put on at breakfast?”

“I don’t care if she plays along or not,” my father replied. “She does as she’s told. She always has. And if she doesn’t…” A soft clink, as if he were pouring himself a drink. “That’s what the witch is for.”

My stomach turned.

“Involving her again is risky,” my mother whispered, barely audible. “We already—”

“We already did what had to be done,” my father cut in sharply. “You should be grateful I pulled us out of that last mess at all. Don’t start growing a conscience now.”

“You really think the Alpha will believe it twice?” Lena asked. “First the shrine, now this—”

“He believed it once,” my father said. “Because he wanted to. Because it was easier to kill the little Luna from nowhere than question his own people. As long as he thinks she’s a liability, he’ll let her go. One way or another.”

Cold crept into my bones, familiar with the forest earth.

They were already planning to lead me to my death again.

Not years from now. Not vaguely, someday.

Tomorrow night.

I pressed my back to the wall just outside the door, trying to slow my breathing.

In my last life, I hadn’t heard this conversation. I had shown up when told, obedient and hopeful, thinking a ritual blessing at the shrine meant I was finally being trusted as part of the pack.

I hadn’t known they’d already bought my death with borrowed coin and whispered promises.

Now I knew.

“…and if she runs?” Lena asked, tone idle. “You know she’s changed. She stood up to you this morning. That wasn’t like her.”

“I’ll handle her,” my father said. “Just like I always have. She doesn’t have anywhere to go. No one else wants her. She’ll do what she’s told. She always comes back.”

Silence.

Then my mother’s small, strangled voice: “She’s still our daughter, Victor.”

A glass slammed down.

“She’s our solution,” he snapped. “And we should be grateful for that.”

My hands curled into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms.

Not this time.

I eased away from the door before they could sense me, feet silent on the corridor rug. My pulse pounded so hard my head throbbed.

Once, their words would have shattered me.

Once, I would have run to my room, cried until there was nothing left, and then dressed carefully for tomorrow’s slaughter because it was the only thing that made sense.

Because begging hadn’t worked. Because obedience hadn’t saved me. Because I believed them when they said I had nowhere else to go.

I reached my own door and slipped inside, leaning back against it as it shut with a quiet click.

My legs shook.

I let myself slide down to the floor until I was sitting in a heap of black fabric, knees drawn up, forehead resting on them.

Anger burned through the fear like a slow, consuming fire.

They thought nothing had changed. That I was still the grateful daughter who would walk where they pointed and die where they left me.

Lucian thought nothing had changed. That he could bar the door to my freedom, and I would rattle it for a while, then sit down and accept my cage.

They were wrong.

I lifted my head.

“I won’t die for you,” I whispered into the dim room. To my father. To my sister. To my mother. To the witch. To the Alpha who had signed my life away without blinking.

“Not again.”

Tomorrow night, they wanted me under the moon.

Fine.

I would go.

But this time, I would be the one choosing where I stood, what I carried, and who bled.

I pushed myself up off the floor, wiped the angry wetness from the corners of my eyes, and went to the small dresser where I kept the few things that were truly mine.

A folded scrap of paper—my copy of the contract. A small knife wrapped in cloth. A memory of every “you should be grateful” they’d ever thrown at me.

I laid them out.

They thought my gratitude had made me weak. Gratitude buried me once. Vengeance will dig me out.

They were right.

Now, I would show them what ungrateful looked like.