When His Hidden Mate Walked Away

After waking up in this life, the first thing I did was go to the pack elder and sign the Mate-Bond Dissolution Agreement.

“Are you sure?” the elder asked.

I nodded.

The agreement required seven days of public notice. Once the notice period ended, the mate bond between Damon Bloodmoon and me would dissolve on its own. Until then, Damon could not know. He had to believe I was still preparing for the marking ceremony like the obedient hidden mate he thought I was.

When I returned to Bloodmoon territory, Damon had just heard that Iris Dawnfield had ended her alliance with a border pack and was coming home. He tried to look calm, but the bond between us still existed, and even with his emotions partly shielded, I could feel the restless pull in him.

The next morning, he brought up the ceremony while scrolling through his phone.

“Freya, let’s move the marking ceremony to next month.”

“Next month?”

“Iris just came back. Her parents are gone, her alliance fell apart, and she has no one else in the pack she trusts.” Damon rubbed his brow. “She and I grew up together. If I hold a marking ceremony now, people will talk, and she’ll feel like she doesn’t belong here. Once she settles in, I’ll give you the ceremony properly. You’ve always been stronger than her. One more month won’t hurt.”

In my previous life, I cried and asked why every promise to me had to wait until Iris was safe and happy. He only looked at me as if I had become unreasonable.

“Freya, when did you become this selfish?”

This time, I only smiled.

“Okay.”

Damon seemed surprised, but before he could answer, Iris texted him. His attention shifted the moment he saw her name.

“I need to pick her up at the border,” he said. “Can you handle the ceremony paperwork for now? Just postpone whatever needs to be postponed.”

“Of course.”

I placed the folder in front of him.

“The elder said these are routine updates for the ceremony schedule and pack registry. Sign where I marked.”

Damon frowned. As Bloodmoon’s Alpha heir, he had been trained to be careful with documents, but Iris’s next message arrived before he read past the first page.

“Freya, I don’t have time to go through all this.”

“Then don’t. I already checked it.”

He looked briefly guilty.

“You’ve always been reliable.”

Then he signed.

His name landed on the Mate-Bond Dissolution Agreement without hesitation. He did not know what he had signed. He only knew Iris was waiting.

A few minutes later, he left with his coat in one hand and his phone in the other. Through the mate bond, I felt the eager pull of his wolf moving toward someone else.

Damon and I had been mates for three years, but the marking ceremony had never happened. Outside the elders and a few close relatives, no one knew. Public pack records still listed him as unmated, and whenever his name appeared in gossip, Iris was always beside it.

His childhood sweetheart. His responsibility. The girl who had no one but him.

I used to hate those words. Now I only found them exhausting.

Later that night, after he came back half drunk from welcoming Iris home, I helped him into bed. His phone slipped from his hand, and the screen lit up with Iris’s birthday as the passcode hint.

In my previous life, I had unlocked it and found an entire album full of Iris: her first shift by the moon altar, her crying against his shoulder, her wrapped in his coat at the snowy border.

Not a single photo of me.

This time, I did not open his phone. I already knew what was inside.

Seven days remained in the public notice period, and seven days also remained before the ceremony Damon thought I was helping him postpone. I would not stop him from protecting Iris, ask him to choose, or make him stay. I would sign what needed to be signed, step aside, and leave before he realized the link between us had begun to break.

Seven days later, he would be free.

So would I.