Chapter 2

Clara’s pov

I didn’t go back for my things that night.

The party noise faded behind me until there was only the sound of my own boots on the dirt path and the occasional snap of a branch underfoot.

My wolf kept pacing inside me, restless and angry, the rejected bond sitting in my chest like something that had been torn but not cut clean.

It hurt in a dull, constant way that made it hard to take a full breath.

By the time I reached the small house on the edge of pack land that had been mine since I was sixteen, the lights were already off.

I didn’t turn them on. I just moved through the dark by memory, grabbed the duffel from under the bed, shoved in clothes, the old photo of my parents, the cash I’d been saving from the diner shifts in town.

My hands shook once. I clenched them until it stopped.

Maya found me as I was zipping the bag.

She didn’t knock. Just pushed the door open and stood there in the doorway, still in the dress she’d worn to the party, arms crossed tight.

“You’re leaving.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

She stepped inside and shut the door harder than she needed to. “Clara, you don’t have to do this. He was an asshole. Everyone saw it. You can stay. We’ll figure it out.”

I shook my head and kept packing. “There’s nothing to figure out. He rejected me in front of the whole pack. I’m not sticking around so they can watch me pretend it doesn’t matter.”

Maya’s voice went quieter. “Where will you go?”

“Millbrook. It’s far enough. Human town. No pack politics.”

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she crossed the room and pulled me into a hard hug. I let myself lean into it for three seconds before I stepped back.

“Text me when you get there,” she said. “And if you change your mind…”

“I won’t.”

She nodded once, jaw tight, and left without another word. I waited until her footsteps faded before I locked the door behind me and walked to the old truck.

The drive out of Moonridge was quiet. No one stopped me at the boundary markers. No one came looking.

I kept the windows down even though the night air was cold.

The bond still burned, but the farther I got the less sharp it felt, like distance itself was dulling the edges. I told myself that was a good thing.

I didn’t stop until the sun started coming up behind me.

Millbrook was smaller than I expected. One main street, a handful of shops, a diner with a faded blue sign, and a motel at the far end that looked like it hadn’t been painted since the nineties.

I parked the truck in the lot and sat there for a minute with my hands on the wheel, staring at the peeling letters that said “Vacancy.”

The woman at the front desk barely looked up when I walked in.

“Single room?” she asked.

“Yeah. Just for a few nights.”

She slid a key across the counter. “Twenty-eight a night. Cash preferred.”

I paid and took the key. Room 7 was at the end of the row, ground floor, window looking out toward the parking lot. It smelled like bleach and old carpet.

The bed was hard. The shower ran lukewarm. I dropped the duffel on the floor and sat on the edge of the mattress with my elbows on my knees.

This was it. First night alone.

No pack house noise. No cousins arguing in the next room. No Alpha’s scent on the wind. Just the hum of the ice machine outside and the occasional car passing on the road.

I pulled out my phone and typed a short message to Maya.

Made it. I’m fine.

She replied almost immediately.

You better be. Call if you need anything.

I didn’t answer. Instead I set the phone face-down and lay back on the bed, staring at the water stain on the ceiling.

My wolf was quiet now, exhausted maybe, or just waiting.

The rejected bond still sat there, a low ache under my ribs, but it no longer felt like it was going to tear me open.

I closed my eyes and let the silence settle.

Sometime after midnight the heater kicked on with a rattle. I got up, locked the door twice, and pulled the thin curtains shut.

Then I sat on the floor with my back against the bed and let myself feel the weight of everything that had happened in the last twelve hours, the snap of the bond, Kael’s voice saying those two words in front of everyone, the way the pack had watched me walk away like I was already gone.

I didn’t cry. I was too tired for that.

Instead I made a quiet promise to myself in the dark of that cheap motel room.

I would not go back. Not for him. Not for any of them.

Tomorrow I will find a job. Something simple. Something that paid cash and didn’t ask questions.

I would rent a place that didn’t smell like a pack. I would live among humans who had no idea what a mate bond even was.

And if the pain in my chest never fully went away, fine. I could carry it. I’d carried worse.

I stayed on the floor until the sky outside the curtains started to lighten again.

Then I stood, stretched the stiffness out of my shoulders, and looked around the small room like it was the first solid ground I’d stood on in a long time.

Millbrook. Human town. No one here knew my name or what I’d left behind.

It was enough for now.