Chapter 6: Night

Elara’s POV

I dragged my largest suitcase from the closet. The wheels hit the floor with a loud, grating sound, but no one cares.

Leaving in the dead of night was a fool’s errand. I was a non-shifter; I lacked the natural camouflage and speed of the others. To walk out now would be to guarantee a chase, and I had no intention of being dragged back like a runaway prisoner. I would wait until the first patrols started, their movement would provide the only cover I would get to disappear without fanfare.

I walked over to the bed, this was where I had allowed myself to hope.

I remembered the night Jaxon was conceived. I had been Mate-bonded to Rhys for six months, enduring his coldness. I knew he kept me at arm's length because the bond was not emotionally desired.

That night, everything felt different. He came to the room, not drunk, but with a desperate, focused energy. His presence filled the room, a raw, palpable need I had not seen before. I remember the flutter of hope in my stomach. 

Maybe this time, I had thought, maybe tonight, the bond will finally take root for him, too. I reached out, a gentle, tentative touch against his shoulder, offering him the comfort I knew he desperately needed but refused to take from me.

He responded instantly, but with a blinding intensity that bypassed me entirely. He guided me back onto the bed. The act was swift and consuming, driven by an undeniable, powerful imperative that was all Alpha. There was a brief, sharp sense of connection, a physical reality that made my breath hitch. I focused on his eyes, searching for any flicker of recognition or acceptance—anything that said I was the woman he wanted in that moment.

But his focus was internal. As the Mate bond finally sealed—a searing heat that marked me as his—his attention slipped. His voice, low and strained against my ear, called out the name he truly longed for: “Sera…” It was a ghost in the room, a wedge driven between us even as our bodies completed the most intimate of acts. He had taken me to fulfill the bond's requirements, using my presence to conjure the image of the woman he truly loved. He was bound to me by law and blood, but I remained nothing more than a functional substitute.

I pushed the memory away. It was useless pain. The point was the result: Jaxon.

I walked to the dresser and pulled out the photograph. Two-year-old Jaxon, sitting on the lawn, mimicking a wolf howl. He was happy then, before he understood the caste system of the Pack.

I had fought for him. 

The pregnancy nearly broke me; his powerful Alpha genetics were too much for my non-shifting body. He was born fragile. I was the one who pulled him through, staying awake for weeks, giving him my sheer human tenacity when instinct failed. I gave him life and guaranteed his survival.

That sacrifice was meaningless in the face of Wolf law.

I threw the photo back. I pulled out my favorite gray-blue sweater. Jaxon used to like it, saying it looked like “the shadow wolves.”

Now, the sight of me in it was an offense.

The realization that I couldn't shift solidified his rejection after his fourth birthday. My touch became a mark of shame. My attempts to help him train were met with that cold, cutting phrase: “Stop, Mom. You’re useless.” He needed power and status. I provided his greatest embarrassment.

Today was the final, non-negotiable proof. His desperate plea to Seraphina, his absolute need for her power. He saw her as salvation, and me as the flaw.

I looked at the closed suitcase. I would not challenge Rhys. I would not challenge the Pack’s law. I would not drag Jaxon through the humiliation of a public retrieval, only to have him resent me more for disrupting his path to acceptance.

He deserved his destiny, and I could not stand in its way.

I opened the jewelry box. The tarnished silver locket, my mother’s only keepsake. It was the only thing I had that was purely my own.

I walked to Jaxon’s door. I had to leave him one thing that was not part of the Pack’s.

I walked to his bed and carefully tucked the locket deep under his pillow, concealing the chain completely.

“You will get what you want, my dear,” I whispered, my voice completely flat.

I turned and walked out, closing the door quietly.