Ethereal
On the third day of our cold war, my fiancé, Alpha Rowan Blackwood, agreed to take his assistant, Kiara Lane, on a month-long trip across three states.
He packed while I was still feverish from a patrol injury and left without asking whether I could stand.
He expected to come home to dozens of calls, jealous accusations, and an apology for questioning him.
Instead, when he handed Kiara the border-security project I had built, I stayed up and finished the proposal she couldn't write.
When she destroyed the test data, Rowan erased the activity logs and blamed me. I surrendered my management badge without defending myself.
When he promoted Kiara into my position and reduced me to overnight field support, I congratulated her.
For the first time in weeks, Rowan looked pleased with me.
"You're finally starting to act like a proper future Luna," he said.
Kiara smiled. "See? Stop fighting her. Take away enough, and eventually she'll learn which decisions belong to her Alpha."
Rowan didn't deny it.
Certain I had finally learned my place, he decided to return my position and hold the marking ceremony I had once begged him not to postpone.
He expected gratitude.
What he had forgotten was that, somewhere between restaurant photos with Kiara, he had approved a stack of documents without reading them.
My resignation was in that stack.
So was my transfer out of Blackwood Pack.
By the time Rowan decided I was obedient enough to become his Luna, I no longer belonged to his company, his Pack—or him.