บททั้งหมดของ Seven-Day Claiming: บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

The door closed behind Adrian.For a brief moment, he stood there, his wolf howling in protest. He could hear Harmony’s heavy breathing through the door. Heard her knees hit the floor. Heard her stifled sob.What had he done?Every fiber of his being wanted to turn around, open the door, and wrap his arms around the woman falling apart without him.His mate.His everything.Adrian clutched his chest as a deeper pain seared through him.Daniel.His Alpha.His brother.

On the fifth day, Harmony nearly called Adrian.The urge came in the middle of the night, sharp enough to pull her out of sleep before the dream could fully release her. Adrian had been in the forest. Bleeding. Or maybe not. Dreams were strange. The mist had been red near his hands, but when she ran toward him, he turned away. The wolf stood between them, not threatening, just blocking the path as though protecting her from what she could not see.Harmony woke with his name in her mouth. She grabbed her phone. Opened his contact. Her thumb hovered over the call button. One touch. One. She could hear his voice. Maybe. Or she could put him at risk. She hated that she did not know which was true.If he was silent because silence kept him alive, then calling him would be selfish. If he was silent because he was dead, then the silence was already final. If he was silent because he had chosen to shut her out, then calling him would hand him more of the power he had taken when he left.Her t

One night, almost two months after he left, Harmony said the words she had been holding back.“Let me come.”The line went quiet. She was sitting on the floor beside her bed, phone pressed to her ear, knees drawn to her chest.“Adrian.”“No.”“You didn’t even think about it.”“I have thought about nothing else.”“Then say yes.”“I can’t.”“You mean you won’t.”His silence answered.Harmony stood because sitting made her feel too small. “You told me I had a choice.”“You do.”“Not if you keep making it for me.”His breathing changed.“Harmony, this is not a visit to Calder Ridge during a peaceful season. This is aftermath. There are still threats. There are packs watching for weakness. Families grieving. Children afraid. A council that questions every decision I make.”“All the more reason—”“No.”The word was sharper this time. Harmony stopped.Adrian softened immediately. “I’m sorry.”“Don’t apologize. Listen.”“I am listening.”“No. You’re protecting. There’s a difference.”The line

Harmony woke to emptiness.It was not the quiet of an early morning or the ordinary stillness of her flat before London fully woke around her. This felt different. The emptiness seemed to sit everywhere at once—in the space beside her in bed, in the room, in her chest. Raw and hollow, the kind of absence that existed only when something had been there before.For several seconds, she lay staring at the ceiling without remembering why.Then she reached for her phone.Her hand found it on the nightstand, and some automatic part of her expected to see Adrian’s name. A message sent in the middle of his night. An apology. A correction. Something simple and impossible.I was wrong.Come.Harmony unlocked the screen.Nothing.And then she remembered.He was not going to message her.Adrian had not asked for space. He had not told her he needed a few days to think. He had ended it. He had decided that loving her meant removing himself from her life before she could choose anything else.Harmo

Harmony had been staring at the same campaign for nearly an hour when something finally clicked.The problem was not the product. It was the story.She sat forward in her chair and pulled the printed campaign deck closer, red marker already uncapped in her hand. The opening was too safe. The visuals were beautiful but meaningless. The messaging kept talking about what the brand sold instead of why anyone should care.Harmony drew a hard line through an entire paragraph.“No,” she muttered.She flipped the page. Another line. Another note in the margin. Too vague. Where is the person in this? Stop selling. Make them want it.The rest of the office slowly disappeared. Phones rang somewhere behind her. Someone laughed near the conference rooms. A printer started and stopped. None of it reached her. She was inside the campaign now. This was the part she loved. Finding the crack. Seeing where an idea had gone wrong and knowing there was still something good underneath it if she could strip