Chapter 2

Heavy rain hammered against the car windows. Long streams of water blurred everything into a gray smear. It mirrored my own restless, burning heart.

The caretaker said Dad had collapsed after returning from the celebration. Before being rushed into the emergency room, he had insisted they not tell me so I wouldn't worry.

When the 11th call went straight to voicemail, my heart felt like it had been dropped into the rain and gone ice-cold. With no other choice, I called the Beta, Mark Sylvester.

The call quickly connected, and I got straight to the point.

"Where's Ethan? I need him to contact the healer we used last time. My dad's heart condition has flared up, and he's in emergency care."

Mark's voice came back at once, though too polite and cold for my liking. "I'm sorry, Ms. Clarke, but Ms. Stonehart just gave the instructions. She said we're no longer allowed to assist you with any personal matters, including contacting Mr. Thornfield, after you signed the mate bond termination.

"Unfortunately, I'm only following orders. You know how much Mr. Thornfield favors her. I can't possibly go against her. Why don't you try contacting him yourself?"

"I can't," I replied flatly, so desperate that my voice had turned strangely calm.

"I understand. But you know how much he dotes on her," Mark said, his tone carrying a trace of pity. "Why don't you visit them in person? They're heading to…"

I didn't wait for Mark to finish. I turned the car around and drove straight to that address. I knew that place far too well because Chloe Stonehart had invited me there more than once.

When Chloe opened the door, she was wearing my night robe, the silk one Ethan had given me last year. My initials were still embroidered at the collar. Now, it hung on her body, mocking me like a banner of victory.

"Well, look who we have here. It's our noble Luna."

She leaned against the doorframe, blonde curls cascading over her shoulders. "How did you end up looking like a soaked hyena?"

Her gaze dropped to my dripping hair, and a cold smile curled on her lips. "Kneel, or don't even think about seeing Ethan."

The next second, footsteps echoed from down the hall. Ethan strode over with his robe hanging open at the chest, fresh bite marks staining his neck. He frowned when he saw me and wrapped an arm around Chloe's waist without thinking.

"What are you doing here again?" he questioned, shielding her as if I were something filthy that needed to be kept at bay.

Dad's pale face swam before my eyes, so I swallowed the metallic taste rising in my throat. "My dad's having a heart attack. I need that healer now."

Chloe tightened her fingers around Ethan's sleeve, looking wronged and pitiful. "Ethan, she's doing this on purpose. She's using that old man to threaten you so you'll go back with her!"

"Chloe, enough," he interrupted her, looking at me. "Isabelle, if you really care about your dad, you should learn how to surrender."

The rain roared so loud it nearly drowned everything else. I watched how his arm shielded Chloe, how she smirked, and how soaked to the bone and miserable I looked in the foyer mirror.

When my knees hit the cold marble floor, I heard my pride shatter. The words scraped out of my throat. "Please… Save my dad."

At that, Ethan finally relaxed. With an arm around Chloe, he condescended to make the call to Mark. "Bring the healer Ms. Grey requested to the werewolf hospital."

He even called me Ms. Grey, as if our years of marriage had never existed. To him, I was nothing more than a troublesome stranger.

I didn't look at him again. I stood up and walked back into the rain-soaked night.

On the way to the hospital, my thoughts drifted back to the year Ethan and Chloe had known each other. At first, I hadn't taken her seriously at all. She came from nothing, just an Omega serving drinks at a trendy werewolf cafe.

I thought Ethan had simply lost focus for a moment in our long marriage… until Chloe openly sent me messages meant to humiliate me. I showed those texts to him.

Calmly, he had said, "She's young. You're the Luna—you should give way to her."

That was when I realized Chloe wasn't as harmless as she seemed. Even then, I still didn't take her seriously, not until she pushed me so far that I lost my pup.

Ethan said it was because my body was too weak and had nothing to do with Chloe. Only then did real fear set in.

I started to look into her past, and that was when I learned the truth. She hadn't won him over through schemes or tricks. She had been his schoolmate back in high school.

During the years when Ethan was at his lowest, cast aside by his own family, she had brought him leftover pizza for three years straight. That small kindness stayed with him until then, to the point that he was even willing to dissolve a mate bond for her.

The moment I learned the truth, pain tore through my chest.

When I arrived at the werewolf hospital, the emergency room light was still on. I slid down against the wall and sat on the floor, the chill eating me alive.

Suddenly, another memory surfaced. On a winter night in the senior year of college, Ethan's voice cracked over the phone. "I owe them two million dollars, Isabella. Let's just break up."

That night, I knocked on Dad's study door, took the life fund he had prepared for me, and handed Ethan the check. His eyes were red as he pressed my hand to his chest.

"Isabella, I'll spend my whole life loving, protecting, and repaying you."

His whole life, he said.

I slowly curled my fingers, my nails digging into my palms again. His life was shorter than the shelf life of a frozen pizza, huh?