Chapter 4

I woke in the Black Hollow medical center with gauze covering my chin and pain throbbing through my cheekbone.

The healer said I had needed stitches but was no longer in danger. My moonstone pendant still suppressed my scent, slowing my wolf’s healing and leaving her weak beneath the restraint.

Callum sat beside the bed with dried blood on his sleeve and exhaustion shadowing his face. As soon as I opened my eyes, he grabbed my hand.

“Thank the Moon Goddess. You terrified me.”

For a moment, I almost believed he understood what he had nearly lost.

Then he said, “Sienna didn’t mean for you to fall. She thought the apology party would make you laugh. Her wolf has been unstable all night, and you know how she gets during the full moon.”

“She invited people into your house to film me being humiliated again.”

“She didn’t know you would slip.”

“She poured wine across the floor.”

Callum’s jaw tightened.

“I’m not saying what she did was right. She feels terrible. She cried all night.”

I lay in a hospital bed with stitches in my face, and he was still asking me to understand her.

“My greatest mistake was believing you would protect me.”

“I have always protected you.”

“No. You take care of me after she hurts me. You wipe away the blood, bring me flowers, and tell me she didn’t mean it. Then you put me in front of her again.”

Callum’s face paled.

“I never wanted you to get hurt.”

“But you always needed me to forgive the person who hurt me.”

Before he could answer, a guard contacted him through the pack link.

“Sienna is refusing treatment,” he said. “She’s threatening to leave before the healer clears her.”

He stood, proving my point before the conversation had even ended.

“I need to deal with this before someone gets hurt. I’ll be right back.”

“Someone already has.”

Callum leaned toward me, but I turned away before he could kiss my forehead.

“Rest,” he said after a moment. “Don’t leave until I come back.”

As soon as the door closed, I removed my IV, put on my coat, and went to find the healer.

Voices reached me through the stairwell door.

“Stop acting like the world ended,” Sienna said. “Give her two days and say something sweet. She always comes back.”

“This time is different,” Callum replied. “She packed everything, and tonight she could have been seriously hurt.”

“For six years, I’ve watched you embarrass her, apologize, and bring her flowers. She forgives you every time.”

Callum said nothing.

Sienna laughed softly.

“If this nearly broke her, imagine what she’d do if she knew how the two of you started.”

My hand froze on the door handle.

“Shut up, Sienna.”

“You lost a bet to me during the spring full moon six years ago. Your punishment was getting that lonely woman with no pack to agree to a date. Even your romantic confession on the rainy steps was part of it.”

“That was six years ago.”

“She still talks about that night, doesn’t she? Poor Tessa. She thinks it was fate.”

“I approached her because of the bet, but everything afterward was real.” Desperation entered Callum’s voice. “I fell in love with her. I didn’t spend six years with Tessa to entertain you.”

“Then she’s lucky, as long as she never learns that the first time you chose her, you were really choosing me.”

I tightened my hand around the door handle.

For six years, whenever Callum disappointed me, I returned to the memory of the rainy steps and his promise that I would never be alone. I told myself the man from that night was the real Callum and everything else was a mistake.

Now even that memory belonged to Sienna.

I was the joke that lasted six years.

I walked away before either of them saw me and requested an immediate discharge.

“The Alpha ordered us to keep you overnight,” the healer said. “You may still have a concussion.”

“He doesn’t get to decide for me. I’ll have another healer examine me when I get home.”

The word felt unfamiliar after so many years.

The healer finally handed me the discharge papers, and I signed Tessa Reed for the last time.

After collecting my luggage from the hotel, I sent my location to the family driver. A black car arrived within twenty minutes, marked only by a small silver-wolf crest beneath the windshield.

The driver opened the rear door.

“Miss Valeborn, your parents are waiting. The plane is ready.”

Inside the car, I checked the messages filling my phone.

Where are you?

Tessa, answer me. We can fix this.

Please come back. I’m sorry.

Callum had finally started searching because, for the first time in six years, I had stopped behaving the way he expected.

I blocked him, Sienna, and everyone who had laughed while she humiliated me. Then I handed my temporary Black Hollow access badge to the driver.

“Make sure this is returned.”

The family plane waited at the northern airfield. Once we were in the air, I watched the lights of Black Hollow disappear beneath us.

I reached for the moonstone pendant I had worn for six years, hoping someone would love me without knowing my family name.

When I unclasped the chain, warmth moved through my body. My wolf stretched beneath my skin, and the pain in my cheek began to dull.

I set the pendant on the empty seat beside me.

I was not going home for a throne, a title, or a more powerful Alpha. I was going home because being alone no longer frightened me as much as begging someone to put me first.

Callum still did not know who I was, but it no longer mattered. He had already shown me exactly who I was to him.