Chapter 2

Ivy's Pov

The door clicked shut behind him and I sat there at that kitchen table staring at the divorce papers still unsigned under my hands, and I thought about how five years of my life had just walked out to go check on another woman without even waiting to hear what I had to say.

My phone buzzed on the table. I looked down at it.

Noah: If you still want pheromones, stop making unnecessary trouble and just be good.

I read it twice then I smiled, I deleted the entire conversation thread. Every message. Every one-word reply he had bothered to send me in the last three days.

He had been using pheromones against me for years. An Alpha's pheromones are not just a comfort to a pregnant omega — they are a necessity. They help the fetus develop properly or without them, a werewolf baby struggles. Noah knew that and he used it the same way someone uses a leash, releasing it just enough to keep me grateful, pulling it back the moment I stopped being convenient. Every time I tried to stand up for myself, every time I pushed back even a little, he would withdraw them until my body was in enough distress that I had no choice but to go back to him. 

It was five years of that, being managed like a problem he hadn't found a permanent solution to yet.

I stood up, folded the divorce agreement back into its folder, and started packing.

I didn't have much. What I had now was a small rented apartment near the outer edge of pack territory, close enough to the boundary that you could hear the wind differently at night. I had my savings, not much of those either since I had never been given a formal income as Luna despite everything I had built for this pack and I had a suitcase that was only half full when I was done.

Sera, my best friend arrived twenty minutes after I called her.

She came in wearing an oversized brown jacket and jeans, "Are you serious this time?"

"Yes," I said.

"Ivy…." She stepped closer, studying my face the way she had been studying it for years, reading all the things I didn't say out loud. "Because you've been serious before. You were serious when he gave her your anniversary dinner reservation. You were serious when he skipped your hospital checkup to take her to the coast. And every time—"

"This time is different, Sera. I promise."

She went quiet for a moment. Then, softly, "The baby. How is the baby? Whatever you've decided, we can figure it out. I'll help you disappear if you need to. Say the word and we're gone tonight."

I opened my mouth and something cracked in my chest. I pressed my hand over my face and I laughed, but it came out all wrong, wet and broken, and then I was crying and laughing at the same time in a way that didn't feel human. "The baby is gone," I managed. "He's gone, Sera. All those years of waiting, hoping…he…he died.."

I choked hard on my words and the room went completely silent aside from my sobs.

Sera crossed the space between us in two steps and pulled me in, both arms around me, and I pressed my face into her shoulder and cried the way I hadn't let myself cry in three days. 

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, Ivy." She held me tighter. "Where is Noah? Does he know?"

I pulled back and wiped my face with the back of my hand. "He's probably with her. He left to go to her tonight without even waiting for me to finish talking." I laughed again, bitter and short.

 "He's the one who pushed me into the water, Sera. At the banquet. He was trying to catch Amy and he knocked me in and he didn't even look back. That's why the baby is gone. His own father killed him."

Sera went very still, then I watched something cold and dangerous move across her face. "He pushed you into the water." She said it slowly, like she was making sure she understood correctly. "Eight months pregnant and then what, he just….he just left you there?"

"He walked Amy away from the pool. I was on the floor coughing water out of my lungs and he walked her away and asked if she was okay."

"Ivy—"

"And the pack members standing there told me I was clumsy. Said I should have stayed home and eaten like a pig." I picked up my bag. "Can we just go? I can't be in this place anymore."

Sera pressed her lips together so hard they went white and she picked up my suitcase without another word.

***

She helped me clean out the apartment in under an hour. There wasn't much to sort through, just a few boxes of books, some kitchen things, and a small framed photo of my mother I kept on the bedside table that I wrapped carefully in a shirt before placing it in my bag. Sera kept glancing at me the whole time with that look on her face, the one she always got when she was biting back everything she actually wanted to say.

"I always told you," she finally said, folding one of my sweaters. "From the very beginning. I told you that man was going to burn you alive and smile while doing it. He's a fucking bastard be you were too deep in a puddle of love mess."

"I know you did."

"You loved him before he even knew you existed. You sat in the back of that classroom and memorized his schedule and the one time he helped you….one time, Ivy, when those girls had you cornered and he happened to walk by and you turned it into a love story and gave him everything."

"I know," I said quietly with regret.

"The mate bond is not an excuse to let someone destroy you."

"I know that too, Sera stop already" I had known about it for a long time. Knowing something and being able to act on it are two very different things when everything in your biology is screaming at you to go back, stay close, forgive, endure. But my son was gone now. The last thread had been cut and I had nothing left to endure for.

Sera nudged my shoulder. "Come on. Let's get out of here. I'm taking you shopping. New life, new everything and a glow."

I actually smiled at that. "I have maybe enough in savings to buy two shirts."

"Good thing I'm paying then." She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door.

Her phone rang before we reached it.

She picked up, frowned, and held a hand up at me. "Slow down, what? Who wants to buy it?" A pause then her frown deepened. "How much?" Another pause. "Who is it, Mara? Is it…. okay, we're coming. Don't do anything. Don't sell it. We're coming right now."

She hung up and looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "That was Mara at the shop. You know that jade music box you left with her? Your mother's?"

My stomach tightened. "What about it?"

"Someone powerful just walked in and wanted to buy it. Mara says she's uncomfortable and she needs you there."

We got there in fifteen minutes.

I stepped through the door of Sera's small consignment shop and stopped so fast Sera walked into the back of me.

Noah was standing at the glass display, relaxed in the way he only ever was when he was around her. Amy was beside him with one hand looped through his arm, her blonde hair loose, wearing a pale dress that probably cost more than my monthly savings. She was pointing at the music box behind the glass and looking up at Noah with that smile she used when she wanted something, soft and tilted and completely irresistible to him.

"Can we get it? It's so beautiful, Noah. And it's perfect for the collection. I just love it—"

"If you want it," Noah said simply, "it's yours."

Mara, the shop owner, spotted Sera and hurried over with clear relief on her face. "You're here, thank God. Alpha Noah wants to purchase the Caldwell's Kade piece. I didn't know what to—"

"We're not selling," Sera said flatly. "Not to him or anyone."

Amy turned around at Sera's voice, and her eyes slid past her and landed on me. Something shifted in her expression, just mild surprise, and then she smiled and walked toward me with her hands clasped like we were old friends.

 "Ivy, oh I'm so glad you're here. Is this your friend's shop? I was just asking Noah about the music box—" She tilted her head, acting soft and sweet. "Could you let her lend it to me? Just for a while? Noah and I, we actually first met because of a music box just like this one. It sounds silly but it means so much to me. I don't know how long I have left but I just want to hold onto things that feel like us, you know?"

She said it so delicate and sad and perfectly designed to make anyone who pushed back look like a monster.

Then she lowered her head slightly, adjusting the neckline of her dress, and I saw it.

The air left my body and rage simmered in my viens.

Around her neck, half tucked against her collarbone, was a thin gold chain with a small crescent moon pendant. The clasp was bent in the same place it had always been bent because my mother used to fidget with it when she was nervous and it had never been fixed. I knew every scratch on that pendant. I had held it in my hands as a little girl and watched my mother put it on every single morning.

My mother had died in the pack dungeon. She had gone in wearing that necklace and it was supposed to have been lost with her body. Noah had promised me, looked me in the face and promised that he would find it for me. That was two years ago.

He had found it and he had put it around Amy's neck.

The burning started behind my eyes and I pressed my teeth together hard and I looked at Amy, She was still talking, something about time and memories and not knowing how long she had left, that voice pitched just right to make everyone in the room feel sorry for her.

I looked at her and said, "People die every day." My voice came out quiet. Steady. "Do I have to give way to every single person who is about to die? Do you have to take everything away from me Amy?"