Chapter 3

"Why do you always have to be so unreasonable?"

Leo looked thoroughly irritated. His gaze shifted to Raye behind me.

"I can see your influence on Raye. Neither of you has the composure a werewolf in our pack should have!"

I smiled.

"We've been calm for long enough."

I took Raye's ice-cold hand in mine.

"If you refuse to leave, then I'll leave with Raye."

The front door slammed shut behind us, and Leo's footsteps gradually faded away.

"Mom, I'm sorry." Raye clutched the hem of her shirt. "It's all because of me that you two keep fighting," she said softly.

My heart immediately ached.

"Raye, listen to me. None of this has ever been your fault.

"We'll pack our things and stay somewhere else for now. Once the paperwork is finalized, I'll take you back to my pack. Okay?"

Raye's eyes welled with tears as she nodded firmly.

The next morning, Leo finally realized we were gone for good.

He didn't try to win us back. He simply contacted me through mind-link.

[Still not coming home?]

He was just as arrogant as always. He was waiting for me to admit I was wrong and go crawling back to him.

I didn't bother to reply to him.

Three days soon went by.

When I went online, I saw that Camille had posted an update.

It was a photo of Leo, Camille, and Lucas sitting around a dining table together.

Lucas immediately uploaded a post of his own.

[Thanks for the pendant, Leo!]

The pendant represented the honor and status of a pack's heir. Leo had given it to Lucas without a second thought.

Back when Raye came of age and asked for nothing more than an ordinary moonstone to stabilize her wolf spirit, he had yelled at her for wasting pack resources.

I had no interest in watching them gloat. I liked the post and scrolled past it.

The next second, Leo's voice echoed in my mind.

"Ivy Reid, what the heck are you trying to do?"

My tone was flat. "I'm making room for your family of three. Isn't that obvious?"

"How much longer are you going to keep this up?" Leo sounded exhausted. "You took our daughter and disappeared without saying a word. You then publicly humiliated Camille and Lucas.

"Have you ever considered how difficult you're making things for me?"

He was the one who had done the wrong thing. Yet somehow, he was making it seem like he was the victim.

I immediately cut off the mind-link before he could say another word.

For the rest of the week, we had no contact at all.

It wasn't until Raye told me she had left something important behind at our old house. I had no choice but to go back with her to retrieve it.

The moment we pushed open the door, we saw Lucas putting a bracelet on Leo's wrist.

"I really like this bone bracelet."

Leo lifted his hand, removed the wolf-fang charm from his wrist, and casually tossed it into the trash.

He then put on the cheap bone bracelet Lucas had bought from a roadside vendor.

The wolf-fang charm he had thrown away was a birthday gift from Raye. She had spent an entire year nurturing it with her own wolf energy, day and night, before giving it to him.

Raye stood in the entryway and watched the scene unfold. She then smiled bitterly.

Leo turned around and saw us. A trace of embarrassment appeared on his face.

"Camille and Lucas came over to celebrate my birthday. I only invited them to stay for dinner," he quickly explained.

Neither Raye nor I responded. We quietly walked into Raye's room and began looking for the thing she had left behind.

"A whole week has passed. Today's my birthday, and you didn't even prepare a gift. Now you're going to stand there with an attitude?"

Leo frowned. He was clearly displeased.

"What did you prepare for me when I came of age last week, Dad?" Raye asked.

Leo's expression instantly went stiff.

"Since you don't value it, there's no reason for me to give it to you," Raye said.

She snorted. Right in front of Leo, she tossed the scarf she had spent an entire month staying up late to knit into the trash.

"Goodbye."

Raye took my hand and walked away without looking back.

Leo took a deep breath and chased after us. It seemed like he wanted to explain himself, but Camille suddenly let out a pained cry behind him. His footsteps stopped abruptly.

He didn't take another step forward, and we never looked back.

I thought that if we could just hold on until the paperwork was finalized, I would finally be able to leave with Raye for good.

I never imagined that, just as we were about to leave, Raye would be attacked by rogues near the border of the territory.