Chapter 2

When I woke up, I was lying in a private room at the pack healing center.

Kael sat by the window, reading through a stack of documents.

For a few seconds, neither of us said a word.

Then he stood, took a warm cup of moon-herb tonic from the bedside tray, and brought it to me.

“Drink it. The healer said it helps with blood loss.”

I took the cup from his hand.

“I can do it myself.”

He watched me drink nearly half before he asked, “Does anything still hurt?”

I ignored the question.

“Give me my phone.”

Maybe my tone caught him off guard. He paused for a moment before motioning to the pack steward.

The second my phone was back in my hand, I saw several missed calls.

Kael saw them too.

“Who keeps calling you?”

He had never cared enough to ask before.

“Someone you don’t know.”

His face cooled.

“Selene, how long are you going to keep acting like this?”

Before I could answer, his own phone vibrated.

He glanced at the screen.

Lyra.

The frost in his expression melted almost instantly. He stepped into the corridor to take the call.

By the time he came back, my phone was ringing again.

I answered, and a man’s anxious voice came through at once.

“Selene, you said you’d arrive today. What happened? Did you change your mind?”

“No,” I said softly. “Something came up here. I’ll be there in two days.”

His voice tightened at once. “Two days is too long. Be careful. Don’t let Kael notice anything, especially the papers.”

“I know.”

I looked toward the corridor and lowered my voice.

When Kael returned, the call had already ended.

He must have caught the faint smile still on my face, because his expression darkened.

Then Lyra called again, and whatever he had meant to ask was gone.

Maybe he thought it was one of my cousins. After all, after I became his mate, almost everyone left in my life had been reduced to that.

He picked up his coat.

“Something came up in the territory. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

Then the day after that.

Then the day after that.

He never came.

But I still saw him through the videos our mutual friends sent me.

One after another.

Kael taking Lyra to pack banquets.

Kael bringing Lyra to private dinners.

Kael introducing her with a kind of pride he had never once shown for me.

On the day I was discharged, he posted nine photos.

The sunset burned gold behind them. He stood with Lyra on a skydeck above the valley, cupping her flushed face as he kissed her like she was the only woman in the world.

I looked at the post for a while, then left one comment.

Wishing you both a long life, and the heir you wanted.

After leaving the healing center, I did not go back to Blackthorn House.

I went straight to the Moon Registry Hall.

The registrar looked up when I asked for a bond-severance agreement.

“For a claimed mate?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She slid a thin packet across the desk.

“If the claim was made in public but never sealed with a mark, the bond can still be broken by agreement. Both signatures are enough.”

No mark.

No true bond under the Moon.

Just signatures.

Clean and final.

I folded the papers, put them into my bag, and walked back out into the cold.

This time, I would not be the one waiting for mercy.