Chapter 3

Elara's POV

My heart cracked clean in half.

I ached for him. I felt guilty that I wasn't what he needed. I wanted to apologize. And somewhere in the rubble of all that, without any logic to justify it at all—

I fell for him. Right then and there.

His grip was inhuman. I could feel the bone threatening to buckle under fingers that didn't understand the concept of "too much" for a human frame. A broken sound escaped my throat, and hot tears pricked the corners of my eyes.

Orion flinched. He released me instantly, dropping his head as his jaw tightened with something that looked a lot like self-reproach.

"I'm sorry. I forget sometimes—the difference in strength."

As he spoke, he braced both hands against the tempered-glass counter. The glass splintered under his palms like it was nothing.

That was the first time I truly understood the sheer violence of werewolf strength. It was the first time I felt genuinely, hopelessly small.

I reached out, wanting to touch his face—to offer some comfort for the anguish written in every line of his body. Something deep inside me needed to soothe him. But I pulled back. Shy. Ashamed of the wanting.

The little supermarket went silent. It was just the two of us, and I swear I could hear both our heartbeats over the ragged, helpless sound of his breathing. When he finally lifted his head, the silver had faded from his eyes. What remained was a deep, complicated blue—mysterious and startlingly clear.

For just a second, I had the strangest feeling that I knew those eyes. That I had seen them before, on some other night that felt a little like this one.

When had I seen them? I couldn't remember.

He finally spoke.

"Listen. We are not compatible as mates. I intend to reject you."

I stared at him, not fully tracking what he meant. The blankness on my face only seemed to deepen the pain on his.

"I say the words: I reject you as my mate. You say: I accept your rejection. That's all there is to it. Understood?"

I nodded, confused.

It sounded simple enough. Whether I actually wanted to say those words was a whole other question.

I'd taken a basic werewolf studies elective in ninth grade. His words brought it all back—I knew that if I accepted his rejection, whatever thread existed between us would be severed. We'd be strangers. I'd never see him again.

I didn't want that.

I was still trying to figure out what I actually wanted to do when he said the words. Fast and certain, like he'd already made his peace with it.

I'd missed my window.

That hit harder than it should have.

I stood there, staring at the face that made my heart stutter, my lips parted but unable to form a single sound—

Then, the door burst open. A group of men in black suits stormed in and threw a cloud of silver powder straight into his face.

"Alpha. You cannot reject your mate. Not for the White Moon Pack."

One of the older men looked at me with something almost like fondness. "We'll see each other again soon, future Luna."

And just like that, they hauled an unconscious Orion past me and out the door. I ran after them, watching as they loaded him into a black stretch Lincoln and vanished into the night.

I found out later that the man leading them was Theodosius—the Grand Elder of the White Moon Pack. Whether I should thank him or blame him for everything that followed, I still wasn't sure.

Orion never loved me. I should have known that from the start. But I kept dreaming, right up until tonight.

After that night, I threw myself into becoming someone worthy of standing beside him. I studied until I earned my way into Newland University—one of the top five schools in the country—as his junior by one year. I leveraged my talent for genetics into lab grants and research positions, slowly grinding to bridge the massive gap between his world and mine.

I told myself that one day he'd truly see me. That one day, I'd deserve to be his Luna.

Instead, he spent those years hopelessly in love with someone else. Celeste—the daughter of the Amber Crystal Alpha, a genetics prodigy, and the rare carrier of a Red Wolf bloodline. She was everything he wanted. Everything he thought I could never be.

It was only after Celeste married the Silver Wing Alpha that Orion finally turned to me—hollowed out by loss, looking for a place to put the pieces of himself.

I said yes. Because I loved him.

I told myself that love was enough. That if I gave him everything—if I ran his household, fulfilled my duties, and stood by him without complaint. That someday, he'd love me back.

I was wrong.

He was the most powerful Alpha in the werewolf world. The only silver wolf of his kind. He was never going to fall for a human girl with nothing to offer.

I should have seen it coming.

It was time to let it end.

I should have filed for divorce a year ago, the day Celeste's husband died. I knew the truth even then.

Orion. You can finally have what you always wanted.

I'm letting you go.

I didn't wait for morning.

I picked up my phone and dialed a number I'd been sitting on for a long time.

Victoria. The leading geneticist in the field, and the one person who had been telling me for years that she wanted to work with me.

"My little genius." Her excitement bled through the line before I'd said three words. "You finally called."

I thanked her for her patience, then got straight to the point. "I'm ready to accept your collaboration offer. But I need an advance on the payment."

"Of course," she said without a second of hesitation. "Anything else? Anything at all?"

I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath.

Victoria—a woman I had met twice in my life—showed more genuine concern for me than the man I had spent five years married to. There was something deeply absurd about that.

"The money is enough for now. Thank you, Victoria."

She made me promise to reach out if anything changed.

I hung up.

Sometimes I wished I wasn't a world-class geneticist. Ignorance might have let me hold on to some hope for Mia. But I knew—better than almost anyone—that there was no workaround, no alternative therapy, no experimental shortcut. A marrow transplant was the only way.

Three minutes later, five million dollars hit my account.

I stared at the digits and made a silent vow: This is where it ends.

From this moment on, I am no longer the mate of Alpha Orion.

No longer the Luna of the White Moon Pack.

I am only what I was before any of this—the geneticist the scientific world used to know as E.

Tears ran down my face without sound. I opened my laptop and drafted a formal petition for forced dissolution of mate bond, then sent it to the Lycan Council.

The Lycan Council—seated high in the mountains of Bloodfang Peak—was the governing body of the werewolf world. Given my human status, and everything I had contributed to the White Moon Pack over the years, I believed I would receive a fair ruling.

By morning, the reply was in my inbox: Your petition has entered the review process. A decision will be rendered within seven days.

Seven days.

And then Mia and I would be gone.