Chapter 5

I stayed in the infirmary for three days.

During those three days, Caleb only sent a young healer to change my bandages. Treatment, if it could be called treatment, meant wiping away the surface blood and pressing common herbs over the wounds. The medicine was too weak to stop the decay, let alone wake the wolf that had gone silent inside me.

The young healer’s hands were clumsy. Every time he peeled back the bandages, pain shook through me until cold sweat covered my skin. I never made a sound. I only gripped the sheet beneath me and waited for it to pass.

Adrian arrived just in time to see it.

His face darkened. He crossed the room, took the medicine from the healer’s hand, and said, “Out.”

The young healer fled.

Adrian sat beside the bed and redressed the wound himself. His movements were lighter than I expected, but his frown deepened with every passing second.

“If it hurt this badly,” he said, “why didn’t you call me through the mate bond?”

I said nothing.

His hand paused. His voice lowered.

“Before, even a scratch from training would send your wolf pushing into the bond until I came to check on you.”

Back then, I probably would have held his hand and asked him to be gentler. If he had coaxed me once, I could have swallowed every grievance.

Now that version of me felt like someone else.

I turned my face away.

“I was childish for using the bond to bother you before.”

Adrian’s fingers stiffened.

I continued, “It won’t happen again. If this bond is a burden to you, the bonding ceremony can be canceled. I’ll speak to the old Alpha myself.”

The room went still.

Then Adrian set the medicine bottle down hard.

“Elena.”

His voice sank.

“A fated mate bond is not something you use to test an Alpha’s limits.”

I looked at him.

His face had gone cold again, as if that brief flicker of concern had never existed.

“I’m telling the truth.”

“The truth?” He stared at me. “You cut off your responses through the bond, then talk about canceling the ceremony. Do you want me to believe you truly don’t want the Luna’s place, so I’ll be forced to lower my head?”

I had no strength left to explain.

“No.”

But he had already decided not to believe me.

Adrian stood, anger held tight in his voice. “Elena, Frostpine’s Luna position is not a bargaining chip. If you want to stand beside me, learn to carry responsibility like a Luna first.”

Then he turned and left, slamming the door behind him.

I looked at the medicine bottles beside the bed and smiled weakly.

What bargaining chip did I have left?

I simply did not want it anymore.

For the next few days, I remained in the infirmary. They called it recovery, but it felt more like confinement. Caleb would not let me leave, and almost no one was allowed in. Aside from the young healer, no one spoke to me.

So I spent my time with my phone.

My gallery held countless photos of Adrian and me.

At first, it had only been the two of us. Beside the training field, he lowered his head to fasten my wrist guard. After a winter gathering, he draped his cloak over my shoulders. On my coming-of-age night, he waited outside the crowd for me, his eyes fixed only on mine.

Back then, I truly believed the mate bond from the Moon Goddess was the best gift I could ever receive.

But later, Celia slowly appeared in every frame.

At border training, she stood at Adrian’s right side.

At pack dinners, she sat beside him.

Before the winter hunt, she wore his spare cloak and smiled like the real Luna.

And I always stood nearby, smiling too hard, trying to prove I was the one chosen by the Moon Goddess.

I opened my pack feed.

Almost every post was about Adrian. The first training badge he gave me. The first pack gathering we attended side by side. The day the old Alpha acknowledged me before everyone as Frostpine’s future Luna.

There were blessings beneath those posts.

There were also insults.

Some said I was lucky a weak Omega like me had been chosen at all. Some said I had nothing except the mate bond. Others said that if I stopped clinging to Adrian, Celia would have looked more like Frostpine’s Luna long ago.

Before, those comments would have made me shake with anger. I would have replied to them one by one.

Now, I only deleted the photos.

Then I cleared every post about Adrian.

In the end, only the earliest photo remained.

In it, I stood at the front of Frostpine’s main house, freshly brought into the pack by the old Alpha. Adrian was younger then, less cold. He stood beside me and looked down at me as if he really meant to protect me for the rest of my life.

I looked at it for a long time.

Two nights left until the full moon.

Then I pressed delete.

At this point, there was no reason to keep any of it.