Chapter 4

Elena

My heart broke into pieces… pieces that could never be fixed.

Goddess, I couldn’t bear to look at them. I turned and ran, my vision blurred with tears until I reached the living room. My legs gave out, and I sank to the floor.

I cried… not softly, not quietly, but in pure agony.

I didn’t know how long I stayed there. Maybe an hour or two.

Then I heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

I froze.

I turned… and saw Marcus walking down with Lydia.

Marcus froze when he saw me.

For a second, we just stared at each other. His eyes widened, not with guilt, but with annoyance. Like I was an interruption. 

My wolf woke up then. A howl of agony tore through my soul, so loud I was sure the whole pack could hear it. 

The mating bond, that fragile, golden thread that had connected my heart to his, felt like it was being doused in acid and ripped out. The physical pain was blinding. I doubled over, gripping the doorframe, a cry wrenching from my lips.

“Elena,” Marcus said, his voice cold. “What are you doing here? You should be in the hospital.”

I couldn’t speak. I could only gasp for air, the pain in my chest and belly so intense I thought I would die right there.

He paced closer but he didn’t come to me. 

Instead, he walked past me to the shelf and pulled out a folder, his face cold and unreadable.

“Since you’re here,” he said, his voice sharp and distant, “this saves me a trip.”

He threw the folder at me. It hit my chest and fell to the floor, spilling out photographs. I looked down, my vision swimming.

Pictures. Of me. Talking to Ben, the head of the pack warriors, in the garden last month. Me accepting a bouquet from a visiting Alpha at the spring festival. Me laughing with Dr. Evans outside the hospital weeks ago. Innocent moments, stolen and twisted.

“You think I’m the only one living a lie?” he snarled, pointing at the pictures. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? You’ve been sleeping around for months, you filthy whore. Is that even my child the doctor told me about?”

The accusation was so monstrous, so wrong, it stole the last breath from my lungs.

“No…” I choked out, falling to my knees among the photos. “No, Marcus, no! They’re lies! I would never… I have only ever loved you! The baby is yours! Please, you have to believe me!”

I crawled forward, my hands scrabbling at the pictures, tears pouring down my face, mixing with the shame and agony on the floor. “Look at me! It’s me! I have been faithful! I have loved only you!”

He looked down at me, disgust curling his lip. Lydia watched from behind, a cruel spectator to my execution.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, each word a final nail in the coffin of our life. “The papers will be here today. Sign them. Take the money. And get out of my pack. I don’t want you here. I don’t want your bastard child here.”

Bastard child.

The words broke what was left of me.

I collapsed onto the floor, my body wracked with sobs so violent they were silent. 

The pain was everywhere, in my heart, in my soul, in the tiny, fragile life inside me that he had just rejected. 

My wolf was howling and howling inside a cage of despair, feeling our mate, the other half of our soul, sever the bond completely.

He didn’t say another word. He just turned his back, walked back upstairs to our bedroom with Lydia, dismissing me from his life, from his heart, from our story.

I lay there on the cold floor of the living room that was no longer mine, surrounded by the lies that had killed the truth of us. 

Goddess, the father of my child just called my child a bastard.

A hot tears treamed down my face.

......

The house was a tomb. The silence felt final. I pushed myself up from the floor, my body aching in ways I never knew possible. 

I pushed myself up, the photos still lay scattered around my knees. I didn’t look at them again. I just stood, wiped my face with the back of my hand, and walked out.

Upstairs, the bedroom door was closed, a wall between me and the man who was now a stranger.

But on the floor, close to the door was a clean, crisp envelope in the gray light. I didn’t need to open it to know what it was. My future, or the end of it, waiting for my signature.

A strange calm settled over me. The tears were gone. The screaming in my head had faded to a quiet, empty hum. There was no more fight left. He had killed it.

I walked to the door. I picked up the pen lying neatly beside the folder. I opened it. The words "DISSOLUTION OF MATRIMONY" swam in front of my eyes. I didn’t read the terms. I didn’t care about the money, the settlements, the clauses. My eyes found the line at the bottom: Elena Silverwood.

I signed my name. The pen scratched loudly in the quiet. It was the easiest and hardest thing I’d ever done.

I put the pen down. Closed the folder.

Then I walked past the closed bedroom door, and to the guest room. My old suitcase was in the closet. I opened it on the bed.

I packed fast. I didn’t go into our room. I didn’t want anything that smelled like him, that reminded me of us. I took only what was truly mine. Soft, plain clothes from the back of the guest closet. A few books. The small, carved wolf my father gave me when I was a child—the only thing I’d brought from my old pack.

From the bathroom, I took my toothbrush and the simple hairbrush I liked. I left all the expensive perfumes, the lotions, the jewelry he’d bought me. They felt like costumes.

On my way out, I stopped at the door to the forbidden room. It was still open. In the dim light, I could see the pictures of her, smiling from the walls. I walked in. I went to the closet and found the red dress from last night, the one I’d thrown away. I picked it up. I walked to the center of the room, surrounded by a hundred images of Lydia, and I dropped the dress on the floor.

It was a small, silent goodbye. To the woman I’d tried to be. To the lie I’d lived.

I picked up my suitcase. It was light. I walked downstairs, my steps echoing. I didn’t look at the signed papers on the table. I didn’t look at the grand fireplace, the fancy furniture, the life of a Luna.

I went to the key rack by the kitchen door and took the keys to the small, old sedan I sometimes used for errands. It was in my name. He could have everything else.

The front door was heavy. I unlocked it and stepped out into the cold, dark morning. The sky was just beginning to lighten at the edges, a deep, bruised purple.

No one was awake. The pack grounds were still. I put my suitcase in the back of the car. I got in the driver’s seat. The engine coughed to life.

I took one last look in the rearview mirror. Not at the mansion, but at my own eyes. They looked tired. Sad. But they were mine again.

I put the car in drive and pulled away. I didn’t look back. The road ahead was empty and dark, leading away from the Silver Moon Pack, from Marcus, from Luna.

I was just Elena now. And I had nowhere to go. But anywhere was better than here.