Chapter 1

On the night of our eighth anniversary, I cooked everything Ethan loved.

He didn't come home.

I sat alone at the table until the food went cold.

Then I did what I always did.

I opened Selene's profile on the pack network.

New post.

One hour ago.

A photo of Ethan, shirtless, building a fire in her den.

Her hand on his shoulder.

Her face turned toward the camera with a smile that showed too many teeth.

The caption read:

Grateful for old friends who drop everything when you need them. Even their marking anniversaries.

I stared at it until my eyes burned.

Then I liked it.

Filed the bond-dissolution request.

And started packing the trunk I'd kept ready for months.

Ethan didn't believe it when he found out.

"She's throwing a fit," I heard he told his packmates.

"Give her three days."

"I'll crook my finger and she'll come running back."

"She always does."

What he didn't understand was why I always came back.

It was because I loved him.

That was gone now.

...

The Blood Moon rose at dusk.

Elena stood at the window of the Voss Pack manor, watching it stain the eastern mountains red.

Eight years.

Tonight marked eight years since Ethan had marked her throat in this very room, his canines breaking skin while the pack howled their approval outside.

She touched the scar.

Still sensitive.

Still his.

The bond between them hummed — thin, distant, but present.

She reached for it the way she always did, seeking his mood, his location, the background warmth of their connection.

Cold.

He was cold.

And moving fast.

She didn't need to check her phone.

She felt him through the link — thirty miles east, heart rate elevated, the particular chemical signature of his wolf when it was hunting.

Or protecting.

Or with her.

Selene had returned three days ago.

The foster sister, presumed dead in the rogue attack that had devastated the northern packs five years ago.

She'd walked through the manor gates at noon, still beautiful, still carrying the scent of lilies that made Elena's wolf want to bare teeth.

Ethan had gone to her immediately.

He hadn't come back.

Elena turned from the window.

The table was set for two — roasted venison, herbed roots, the dark wine he preferred.

She'd prepared it herself, a tradition for their marking anniversary.

The bond had been fraying for months.

She'd told herself this night would fix it.

The door opened.

Not Ethan.

Kael, his beta, looking everywhere but at her face.

"Luna. The Alpha sent word. He's... detained."

"Where?"

"The eastern border. Rogue activity."

The lie sat between them, heavy as stone.

She felt Ethan's location through the bond — not east toward the border, but north, toward the old hunting cabin where Selene had stayed before her disappearance.

Where they'd spent their first night together, years before Elena existed.

"Thank you, Kael."

He left.

She stood in the dining room, looking at the candlelight flickering on empty plates.

Then she reached for the bond and pushed.

It was like pressing her hand into deep water.

Resistance, then sudden clarity.

She saw through his eyes — briefly, violently — before he slammed shut the mental walls that kept pack members from his mind.

But she'd seen enough.

Selene, laughing.

Ethan's hand on her waist.

The cabin's familiar rough walls, unchanged in five years.

And his wolf, rising inside him, responding to her scent with a hunger Elena hadn't felt directed at herself in months.

She withdrew.

The bond snapped back into place, quivering with his shock at her intrusion.

He'd felt her.

He knew she'd seen.

Her phone buzzed.

[Don't wait up. Pack business. —E]

She looked at the message.

Then she opened the pack's shared network.

Selene's thread was at the top.

Grateful for old friends who drop everything when you need them. Even their marking anniversaries. The Voss Pack always takes care of its own.

Below: an image.

Ethan, shirtless, building a fire.

Selene's hand on his shoulder, her face turned toward the camera with a smile that showed too many teeth.

Elena stared at it until her eyes burned.

Eight years.

She'd been his Luna for eight years.

She'd bled for this pack, buried their dead, sat through every council meeting, every border negotiation, every night he came home smelling of someone else's den.

She'd told herself the bond's thinning was natural.

That his distraction was stress.

That Selene's return was temporary.

She'd been lying.

She picked up her wine glass.

Drank it.

Set it down with precise, careful movements.

Then she opened her trunk — the one she'd prepared months ago, just in case — and began to pack.

But she didn't leave yet.

First, she liked Selene's post.

Then she filed the bond-dissolution request with the pack council.

Let him see.

Let them all see.