Chapter 4

By evening, a rare blizzard hit the North.

Even hidden in the windowless storage room, I could feel the biting cold seeping through the cracks in the door.

Soon, the flimsy door was kicked open.

Jaxson stormed in, bringing a blast of freezing wind and snow with him.

His golden eyes were bloodshot with rage.

He had just returned from a border patrol. When a trembling Omega servant reported that I had actually moved into this closet—a place even the lowest omega wouldn't sleep in—he was so furious he smashed a vase on the spot.

"What the hell are you doing, Ayla?!"

He looked down at me huddled on the freezing floor, his voice squeezed through gritted teeth.

"I let Kira have the master bedroom so she could use the healing aura to soothe her traumatized wolf! There are plenty of guest rooms in the manor. Who told you to hide in a dump like this?!"

I gripped the wall and slowly stood up.

With my inner wolf failing, my hands and feet were as cold as ice.

"The guest rooms are full of Kira's things," I said flatly. "This is the only place in the manor that doesn't smell like her."

My obedience and dead silence didn't calm him down; they pushed him right to the edge of madness.

He was used to my crying and my jealousy. That was proof he controlled me.

He absolutely refused to accept this unbothered detachment.

To him, it was the ultimate disrespect to his Alpha authority.

"Are you trying to make a point?!"

He roared, lunging forward to grab me by the collar and drag me out.

Riiiip—

The collar of my thin cashmere sweater tore open under his rough grip, exposing the hideous scar over my heart.

It was the mark left three years ago, when I cut open my chest to share my life force to save him.

Because my wolf had burned so much energy then, that ugly scar never healed.

Whenever we made love, he used to trace that scar with reverent kisses, his eyes red as he called it the deepest proof of my love.

But now, he looked at that scar without a shred of pity.

Only naked disgust.

"How long are you going to use that scar to guilt-trip me?" He let go abruptly, turning away as if he'd touched something filthy. "Don't think just because you saved me once, you can do whatever you want in this house!"

"If you think living in a shithole and torturing yourself is going to make me feel sorry for you, you can drop dead! If you don't want to stay in a guest room, then get the hell out of my pack!"

The moment he yelled those words, a sharp, suffocating pain hit his chest.

Jaxson paused. He didn't understand why he'd said something so vicious, nor did he understand where the pain came from. But his arrogant Alpha pride wouldn't let him take it back.

I quietly watched his face, twisted in anger.

No tears.

No fighting.

I just pulled up my torn collar, covering the scar that was once a symbol of love.

Then, I bent down and picked up my beat-up duffel bag.

"Okay." I looked him in the eye. "I'll leave right now."

Jaxson completely froze.

He stared at me, seemingly unable to process what he'd just heard.

He didn't get the begging he wanted. He didn't see me grovel and act cute to apologize like before.

What he got was my quietest, most fatal rebellion.

An uncontrollable surge of panic and rage swallowed him.

He lunged, violently ripped the bag from my hands, and dragged me all the way to the manor's front doors.

The negative-thirty-degree blizzard slashed at our faces like knives.

Veins bulging in his arms, Jaxson hurled my bag far into the knee-deep snow.

"Since you refuse to admit you're wrong, get the fuck out! Let's see how long a lone wolf with broken healing can survive in this storm!"

Jaxson knew I was terrified of the cold.

Ever since I gave up my life force, my body temperature had been lower than normal wolves. In winter, I needed his body heat just to sleep.

But what he didn't know was that because he had been violently trampling on our mate bond these past few days, my inner wolf had gone into broken-bond shock.

I had completely lost my werewolf healing and warmth.

Right now, I was weaker than a normal human.

Being kicked out of the manor in a negative-thirty-degree blizzard was an absolute death sentence.

Standing on the edge of the warm carpet in the hall, I turned back and looked at him one last time.

Jaxson stood under the lights, his chest heaving.

Seeing me look back, a barely noticeable flash of relief crossed his golden eyes.

He probably thought I was finally scared. That I was about to drop to my knees, beg him to take it back, beg him to let me back into the warmth.

But I just turned around with absolute resolve and stepped into the blizzard.