MasukPOV: Maya"Darling girlfriend. New child." The grimace that crossed his face told Maya he was aching to put her back in line. In his eyes, she was nothing more than a bitter, cast-off mate, throwing a fit in public where the wrong wolf might smell it. "Maya, cut this out. Once you're finished here, I expect you to bring Caleb back to the packhouse. We need to keep this civil. Don't let this reach Margaret, or you'll ruin whatever chance you have left of making things right.""Make things right?" A sharp, scornful laugh escaped her, her eyes steady on his. "You actually think I want you back?" For a heartbeat something wavered in his expression, something almost soft, before the hardness slammed back down over it. "Maya…""Let's be honest, Nathaniel. I don't go rooting through the bin once I've thrown something out. You want to pretend I'm not here? Fine by me. Feeling's entirely mutual. Just sign the papers.""Maya…""Nathaniel!" Elise's voice cut in as she drew closer. "Elise, why do
POV: MayaMaya chose the corner table by the wide windows on purpose, well aware of what the choice meant. The Ivory Room was the kind of place people waited weeks to book, and she wanted the view laid out below her, a skyline that seemed to agree with the freedom she'd only just started letting herself feel. Across from her, Caleb worked his way through the tasting menu with open delight, sampling one dish after another, his enthusiasm impossible not to catch."Mum, this is incredible! Can we take some home?" he asked, fork suspended mid-air."Absolutely, love. If it's this good, I'll have them box up a second round just for you." A real smile spread across her face as she said it. In the weeks since she'd walked out of Blackstorm's packhouse, joy had come to her easily, almost embarrassingly so. She hadn't understood how much of herself she'd folded away just to manage another wolf's ego until she finally stopped doing it.Across the table, the real estate agent, sharply dressed, so
POV: Nathaniel"Say that again." Nathaniel came off the chair in one motion, disbelief twisting his features into something fiercer than the healing wing had any business seeing. "Where did she go?""Alpha, she packed and left with Caleb." Nora's voice wavered down the line, bracing for the storm she could already hear building. "She said she isn't coming back. She told me to clear their things out of the packhouse and dispose of everything.""Maya." Her name slipped through his clenched teeth like a curse-word older than either of them. His grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles went white beneath the skin, until his claws threatened to lengthen without his permission. He ended the call before he said something in front of hospital staff that no Alpha could take back.He'd known, on some level, that she wanted this. She'd even had the papers drawn up, human ink on human paper, and he'd let himself believe it was a phase, something he could smooth over the moment things settle
POV: MayaWithin the hour, I'd packed and was waiting downstairs with Caleb, my case by the door and his smaller one balanced on top of it.We took only what had always been ours. Anything Nathaniel or the Blackstorm line had ever bought for me could stay exactly where his money had put it.To me, all of it held the same value now. Worthless. Same as him.Nora Fitch, the packhouse's longtime steward, stared at the two cases like they might be a trick of the light. "Luna? Young Caleb? What in the moon's name is going on?"I held her eyes for a moment. "Nora, whatever's left of ours in this house, I need you to deal with it.""Of course, I'll have it packed up and sent wherever you'd like," she said quickly."Not packed up." I heard my own voice go flat and cool as I studied her earnest, worried face. "I want it gone. All of it. Thrown out.""Luna, please, what's happened?" Her expression creased."Nora, I've divorced Nathaniel, and I've rejected the bond that came with him. This pack h
POV: MayaI had always been the picture of a compliant mate, the dutiful Luna who never once questioned where her Alpha went or who he went there with. So tell me why, standing across from him now, did I feel like something closer to a stranger in my own home than a wife?Nathaniel took a breath, visibly working to steady his tone into something gentler. "I'll admit, I've been distracted with pack business and Cole Industries, and I haven't given you the attention you deserve. I'll do better." He softened further, pushing the bag another inch toward me. "It's the newest design, limited run, I had it brought in specifically for you. Whatever else you want, just take it." He set a card down beside it, supplementary, tied to his own accounts, no limit attached.This was Nathaniel's version of an apology. Where money was concerned, he'd never once been careful with me. In most people's eyes, I'd been the ideal Luna for it, quiet, undemanding, never a scene, never a complaint.Making a fus
CALEBFor someone my age, I was good at this. Better than good, if I'm honest, though Mum would tell me off for saying so out loud.Computers had always been my playground. Nobody taught me any of it. I just picked it up the way some pups pick up scent-tracking before they've even shifted for the first time, and by the time I was old enough to understand what I was actually doing, I was already better at it than most of the adults getting paid to stop people like me. In certain corners of the world my mum knew nothing about, they called me Mr. Caesar. A digital ghost. Somebody who could dig up anything, if you gave him enough time and a decent connection.This time I'd gone after the national medical registries first, running every fragment I had against every record available. Nothing. Not one useful match anywhere in the system.It left a knot in my chest I didn't love sitting with.I wanted to hand my mum an actual name, not just a promise that I was looking. But the trail had gone







