Category: English

Ten years after I died, they finally caught the bastard. Thirteen murders. One of them — me. The trial is livestreamed to millions. He sits there, rattling off crime after crime. Victim locations. Body dumps. Cold, mechanical, bored. Then he gets to number nine. Me. He stops. Looks straight into the camera. And smiles. “This one — oh, this one was the saddest little thing. And she deserved every second of it.” His grin stretches wider. “You’ve got thirty minutes. Bring me her family. Every last one. Or I take it all back — every confession, every location. Gone.” “Good luck finding the rest of those bodies without me.” The internet loses its mind. My name is everywhere — trending, screaming across the live chat. Strangers are already posting, trying to track down my family. And Lucas Crane — my Lucas — rips off his cap and grabs his phone like he wants to crush it. “Nora.” His voice is ice. “You’ve been partying overseas for ten goddamn years. What — you still can’t let it go? You hate them that much?” “Paying off a serial killer to put on a show? That’s a new low. Even for you.” … Ten years. The shy rookie I fell in love with is gone. Detective Captain Crane now. All sharp edges and authority. Even when he’s furious, it barely shows — just his voice going dangerously quiet. “Tomorrow is my wedding to Audrey. I put up with your bullshit for a decade, and you pull this? Now? Today?” “Nobody’s falling for it, Nora. Not anymore.” God. If I were still alive, I’d already be tripping over my own words to apologize. But I’m not alive. I haven’t been for ten years. I can’t answer him. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service—” He freezes. Pulls the phone away from his ear. Stares at it. Right. I’ve been “overseas” for ten years. The number’s been dead almost as long as I have. All that rage — nowhere to land. Like screaming into a void. He picks up his cap. Puts it back on. Sits down. Locks his jaw. Back to the mask. Someone in the chat finally connects the dots. “Wait — Nora Sinclair? THE Nora Sinclair? The architect prodigy? She vanished right after the bridge project launched!” “Holy shit. She didn’t vanish. She was KILLED.” “She was twenty-four years old.” The chat floods with grief. For me. And Lucas — unshakable, by-the-book Lucas — suddenly can’t sit still. He’s on his feet. Practically shouting at the camera. “Nora didn’t vanish. Her real identity got exposed. She was a fraud. She ditched everything and ran off to live her best life abroad.” “She nearly tanked the entire bridge project by walking away.” “If Audrey Sinclair hadn’t stepped up — poured ten years of her life into finishing it — that bridge would be rubble right now.” The second Audrey’s name leaves his mouth, something shifts in him. His whole face goes soft. He sounds like a kid bragging about his first crush. Breathless. Proud. Stupid with it. I’ve seen that face before. The first time he got his commendation — Medal of Valor, youngest officer in the precinct — he grabbed my hand in front of everyone. Pulled me forward like I was the real prize. “Everyone — this is Nora Sinclair. Ashford’s most brilliant architect. And my fiancée.” “Half this medal belongs to her.” He unclipped that bronze pin from his own chest and fastened it to mine. His hands were shaking. The whole room erupted. Wolf-whistles, cheers, someone banging on a table. And Lucas — face red as a fire truck — kissed me right there. In front of all of them. That was then. Same man. Different woman. Every medal since, every award, every proud moment — they all belong to her now. Audrey Sinclair. The real daughter. The one who replaced me in every way that mattered. That heart of his — the one so pure it made me cry — he gave it away. Whole. Unbroken. To her. And now, when someone says my name, all I see on his face is disgust. “Nora — even if you paid a murderer to say you’re dead, I won’t buy it.” “Show your face and end this. Or I’ll have you arrested.” He turns on the killer. Eyes like knives. “Where. Is. She.” Every cop in that room drops their gaze. Nobody dares meet his stare. But the killer? He just laughs. “Officer.” Slow. Amused. “I already told you. Thirty minutes. Bring me her family.” He lifts one finger toward the clock. Something cold and ancient in his eyes. “Ten minutes gone. I’d hurry if I were you.”

The chat goes dead silent — then erupts. Everyone’s rattled by the killer’s threat. Within minutes, the internet is plastered with posts trying to find my family. “Don’t let Nora fool you!” Lucas is on his feet. Voice calm. Controlled. Already building his case against me before anyone else can think. “Nora’s jealous. She’s trying to wreck my wedding to Audrey.” “I made Audrey a promise — swore it on that bridge. The day the Ashford-Bridgeport Bridge opens, that’s the day I marry her.” “Nora timed this whole stunt to blow it all up.” He’s glaring at the screen like he wants to reach through it and shake me. I can practically hear what’s running through his head: Nora, you lived Audrey’s life for thirty years. What more do you want? “Lucas!” The courtroom doors slam open. Audrey staggers in, drenched head to toe from the storm. Lucas has his jacket off and around her shoulders before she takes two steps. “What are you doing here in this weather? I told you I’d come to you after work.” His voice is tight. Barely hiding the panic underneath. Like the thought of her suffering even a little bit is more than he can take. Then he turns to the camera. Hard. Cold. “Nora — you can see what you’ve done to Audrey. Are you satisfied now?” Audrey shakes her head, pale-faced, clutching his sleeve. “She has every right to resent me, Lucas. Please — don’t blame her.” She pulls out a folder, perfectly dry inside a rain cover, and holds it up to the camera. “Nora — if you’re upset about the bridge project, I’ll have the committee put your name back as lead architect at tomorrow’s ceremony.” “Just please stop making things harder for Lucas. He’s only doing his job to keep people safe.” Not a trace of anger in her voice. Not even close. Her eyes are actually glistening — on the edge of tears. Soaking wet. Trembling. The perfect picture of grace under fire. The chat flips instantly. “Nora is disgusting. Dragging the real daughter through this for her own ego.” “Must be nice living abroad. Rich enough to bribe a serial killer for attention.” But the bridge project? Audrey took it from me. The day she walked off with my blueprints, she didn’t even flinch. “Nora — you lived my life for over thirty years. Think of this as interest. Seems fair, don’t you think?” Just like that, the lead architect’s name on the internal system was changed to Audrey Sinclair. “Nora! Haven’t you done enough?” Lucas snaps the safety off his gun. Presses the barrel against the killer’s temple. His whole body is shaking with rage. “You like performing? Fine. Let’s keep the show going. Tell me — where is Nora’s body?” “Captain — stand down!” Officers scramble toward him, trying to wrestle the weapon away. The killer doesn’t even blink. He watches Lucas spiral — and laughs. “I’ve seen every face in that family photo of hers. Bring me all of them. Every single one. Or you get nothing.”

“What photo? What are you talking about?” Lucas looks completely lost. Obviously doesn’t remember. Of course he doesn’t. He’s taken thousands of photos over the years — work events, award ceremonies, commendations. Why would he remember one unremarkable group shot? But that photo was my only family portrait. After Audrey was confirmed as the real Sinclair daughter, both families took one photo together. My adoptive parents and my birth parents — all smiles. All clustered around Audrey. Not one of them willing to stand within arm’s reach of me. But even that lopsided, heartbreaking picture — I kept it like treasure. Carried it with me for ten years. After I went back to my birth parents, they couldn’t even be bothered to smile at me. To be closer to Audrey, they gave up everything and moved to Ashford. Even when they came back to Bridgeport for the holidays — just one day a year — they’d sigh the entire drive, complaining about the three-hour detour. “If only there were a bridge connecting the two cities. Then we could see Audrey every day.” That one sentence. That’s all it took. I turned down an offer from a Fortune 500 firm overseas. Poured everything I had into getting the bridge project approved. The day it was greenlit, I walked out of the construction trailer I’d lived in for over two hundred days. Went home to tell my birth parents the good news — for the first time. I was so happy I didn’t notice the man following me. By the time I saw the knife in his hand — by the time I tried to run back inside — the front door had a new lock. A new code. My parents had changed it without telling me. I was locked out. I died on my own doorstep. That half-inch threshold felt like a mountain I couldn’t climb as I collapsed. “Oh, sweetheart — Mommy and Daddy are so sorry we’re late!” An elderly couple stumbles into the courtroom, wailing at the camera. “You’ve been overseas for ten years — do you really still resent us?” “Baby, just let it go.” I’ve heard that line a thousand times. Haven’t I let go enough? I let go of being the Sinclair heiress. Went home without a fight. I let go of my dream job overseas — threw myself into building that bridge. I let go of the blueprints I’d slaved over for months — handed the credit to Audrey without a word. And for Lucas, I let go of my life. What else is there left to let go of? Lucas slaps the table impatiently, glaring at the killer. “Talk. Now.” The killer glances at him with open contempt — then pounds the table so hard it shakes. “You’re trying to fool me with actors? Those aren’t her parents!” I freeze. Then laugh at myself. Ten years. I’ve forgotten what my own parents look like. I can’t even tell these are imposters. A vein pulses at Lucas’s temple. “Her birth parents are in Bridgeport! Her adoptive parents are in Ashford! The bridge doesn’t open until tomorrow and there’s a goddamn hurricane out there — how am I supposed to get them here?” The killer grins to himself. “Then thank you, Officer, for giving me a reason to recant.” “You’ve got six minutes.” The chat is furious on my behalf — calling Lucas heartless, cruel. Thousands of people across both cities start searching for my parents on their own. Lucas, terrified of the backlash spiraling further, has no choice. He calls in a police helicopter to fly both sets of parents in. “Thirty seconds left.” The killer props his feet up on the table, counting down with obvious pleasure. “Three…” “Two…” “One!” The courtroom doors burst open on the final second. Everyone exhales. But my birth parents and adoptive parents stroll in — unhurried, arm in arm. All four pairs of eyes go straight to Audrey. “Oh, baby girl — you came in the rain? Look at you, you’re soaked!” “Are you cold, sweetheart?” When someone mentions me, all they do is scoff. “Nora, dead? Please. She’s probably sunbathing on some beach abroad.” Lucas snaps. Grabs the killer by the collar. Roars in his face. “TALK!” The killer looks around the room — at all of them — and suddenly smiles. Quiet. Almost sad. “She really was pitiful…” The audience holds its breath. Then the killer lifts his head and finally says it: “Her body is inside the central pillar of the Ashford-Bridgeport Bridge. Sealed in concrete.”

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Five years later, I returned to Harbor City. The invitation to Mrs. Shaw’s birthday gala had arrived at my hotel three days prior—cream-colored card stock, the Shaw family crest pressed into the seal. I almost threw it away. But Julian had raised an eyebrow when he saw the name, and something in his expression told me he already knew I’d go. Because can not hide forever. But also not for Adrian Shaw’s shameless love acting. So I went. — The Shaw estate hadn’t changed. Crystal chandeliers, white roses, the same old money perfume that clung to the drapes.Every major family in Harbor City was in attendance. I stood near the terrace doors, a glass of champagne in my hand. I recognized most of the faces. They recognized mine. The whispers started before I’d made it past the foyer. I ignored them. Then Adrian Shaw walked toward me. He was still handsome. He wore a charcoal suit that fit him like a second skin. His jaw was sharper than I remembered. In his hands, he held a garment bag. And even before he unzipped it, I knew what was inside. The wedding suit. The one I had designed for him with my own hands, twenty years of love stitched into every seam. The one he had ripped off and ground beneath his heel on our wedding day—in front of cameras, in front of reporters, in front of every person who had ever watched me love him. The room went quiet. “Elara.” His voice was low. Controlled. The voice of a man who’d rehearsed this. “I know I have no right to stand here. But I’ve carried this with me for five years, and I need you to hear what I have to say.” He held the suit out like an offering. “Marry me.” A gasp rippled through the crowd. Then whispers. I looked at the suit. At his face. At the tremor in his hands. And I felt—nothing. “Oh my God. He’s proposing. Adrian Shaw is proposing to Elara Su.” “After everything that happened? After the scandal? He must be losing her mind right now.” “Are you kidding? She loved him for twenty years. She’ll say yes. Of course she’ll say yes.” They remembered. Everyone remembered. This is the woman who spent ninety million dollars on a fireworks proposal over Harbor Bridge. The drones that spelled his name across the night sky. The LED screens on every building in the financial district—*I love Adrian Shaw*—for an entire month. Twenty-five-year-old Elara had loved with her whole chest. I had wanted the entire world to witness our love story. And the entire world had watched it burn. I set down my champagne glass. The clink echoed in the sudden silence. “Thank you for the kind gesture, Mr. Shaw,” I said. My voice was calm. Almost bored. “But I was young and foolish back then. I don’t have those feelings anymore.” The crowd went absolutely still. Adrian’s face flickered—shock, then disbelief, then something that looked almost like panic. “Elara, don’t joke with me. I know you’re still angry about what happened, but I can explain—” “There’s nothing to explain.” I smiled. Not warmly. “Five years is a long time. People will change. And I don’t have a habit of recycling trash.” He stepped closer, the wedding dress still hanging from his hand. ““You don’t mean that. You loved me. You followed me everywhere. You—” “I also forgave you once for wearing my wedding dress on someone else,” I cut in. “And I forgave your sister calling me a fraud. And I forgave you choosing her over me on our wedding day.” His jaw tightened. “Lily was my family. I had to protect her.” “You had to protect her from what? The truth?” The whispers turned sharper. “She’s really saying no. Elara Su is saying no to Adrian Shaw.” “After all that?” “Maybe she may has love another man.” Adrian’s expression hardened. He lowered the dress. “You’re still angry. I understand. But Elara, we had something real. You can’t just—” “I can,” I said. “And I did.” He stared at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, he lowered himself to one knee. The room gasped again. “Elara Su,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I love you. Five years I’ve regretted what I did. I know I don’t deserve a second chance. But I’m asking for one anyway.” He held up the wedding dress. “Elara Su—will you marry me?” I opened my mouth and ready to refuse. And then a small voice cut through the silence like a bell. “Mommy!”

The entire room froze. A tiny figure in a white lace dress broke through the forest of adult legs, dark hair bouncing, eyes locked on me with the single-minded determination that only small children possess.She crashed into my legs and wrapped her arms around my knees. Sienna. I caught her automatically, my body responding before my brain caught up. She smelled like baby powder and strawberries. “Mommy, Mommy! Daddy said to wait in the car, but I missed you!” Every eye in the ballroom was locked on us. On her. Adrian stared at my daughter like he had seen a ghost. His face went from white to gray. The wedding dress slipped from his fingers and pooled on the floor. “You… you have a daughter?” His voice was barely audible. I picked up my daughter and settled her on my hip. “She’s four,” I said calmly. “Born in April 2020.” Whispers exploded like a bomb. “A daughter? Elara Su has a daughter?” “Who’s the father? She never announced any wedding.” “She’s bluffing. Probably hired a child actress—” Adrian heard them too. Something desperate shifted behind his eyes—the first flicker of real fear. He squared his shoulders, and for the second time that night, lowered himself to one knee. “Elara Su.” His voice rang out—pitched deliberately for the room, for the witnesses, for the record. “I was wrong. I lost you through my own stupidity. But I am asking—in front of every person here tonight—for one more chance.” “Will you marry me?” The hall held its breath. I looked down at him. At the suit I had once stitched with trembling, lovesick hands. At the face I had once believed I would grow old beside. I didn’t answer right away. I felt Sienna’s small fingers curl into my collar. Her weight on my hip—warm and real. I kissed Sienna’s forehead, then looked at him. “March 2020. I held the ceremony overseas.” Adrian rose slowly to his feet. Whatever remained of his composure lay in ruins. His jaw was locked tight, his knuckles white around the wedding suit’s fabric. He stepped closer. His voice dropped—as though lowering the volume could somehow erase the audience of two hundred. “Elara, whatever game this is—whoever you married to punish me—it doesn’t matter. I’ll wait. However long it takes.” He lifted the suit again. The gesture that had seemed grand fifteen minutes ago now looked desperate. Fraying at the edges. “This was made for me. By your hands. That means something. That doesn’t just easliy disappear.” Sienna chose to look up at Adrian with the kind of withering disdain only a four-year-old could deliver with total sincerity. “Mommy,” she announced, loud enough for the nearest fifty guests to hear, “why is that man still talking? He’s very annoying.” A strangled laugh escaped someone nearby. Adrian’s jaw clenched. “Elara, I don’t believe you’ve moved on. I know you. I know what we had.” The crowd was watching us like a tennis match—heads swiveling, breaths held, waiting to see who would break first. Before I could respond, another voice cut through the murmur. “She doesn’t want to.” Every head turned. The crowd parted. Julian Sinclair walked through the gap like he owned the room. Navy suit. Cufflinks gleaming. His face was calm, but his eyes were cold—radiating the kind of cold fury that made people instinctively step aside. He came to my side and wrapped an arm around my waist. Possessive. Unapologetic. “Julian Sinclair.” He extended his hand toward Adrian, but his voice perfectly polite and perfectly lethal. “Her husband.” A collective gasp. “Apologies for the interruption, butI believe my wife already said no.”

Julian’s presence hit the room like a cold front. The whispers didn’t just die—they evaporated. Two hundred guests stared at the man who had materialized beside me, his arm around my waist, his gaze fixed on Adrian Shaw with the kind of quiet contempt that didn’t need volume to be devastating. Adrian was still stood there. The wedding suit pooled across his arms. His face had gone from white to gray. “Sinclair?” someone breathed. “Julian Sinclair is her husband?” ““Heir to the Sinclair Group?—that’s who she married?” “How is that possible? He’s been off the radar for years—” Julian didn’t acknowledge any of it. His attention shifted to Sienna, who was tugging at his sleeve with practiced urgency. “Daddy.” She pointed at Adrian with one small, accusatory finger. “That bad man tried to steal Mommy. He got on his knees and everything.” Julian crouched to her level. His expression was grave—the kind of seriousness he reserved exclusively for their daughter’s reports on injustice. “Did he scare you?” “No.” Sienna crossed her arms. “But he’s very annoying. And he made Mommy talk to him for a really long time.” “I see.” Julian straightened, one hand still resting on my waist. He looked back at Adrian. Adrian rose slowly. He stared at Julian—not with the hostility of a rival, but with the bewilderment of a man whose entire reality had shifted beneath his feet. “You—” Adrian’s voice was hoarse. “You’re her husband?” “And also the father of her daughter, her legal husband” Julian said smoothly. “Would you like to see the certificate? I carry it everywhere.” He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a small booklet. He set it on the nearest table with a sharp *clap* that echoed through the silent hall. Adrian’s face went gray. Sienna—clearly sensing the moment required her participation—climbed down from my arms, marched to the table, and patted the marriage certificate with her small palm. “See?” she announced to the room at large. “Mommy and Daddy. It’s real. It has stamps and everything.” The tension fractured. Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd—disbelieving, unable to look away. Adrian stood frozen in the wreckage of his grand gesture. The suit lay at his feet like a shed skin. “This is—” His voice cracked. “This isn’t possible. You left the country and immediately—” I said flat. “Julian proposed. I said yes. It was remarkably uncomplicated.” “But—twenty years.” Adrian’s composure was in free fall. “Twenty years, Elara. The fireworks, the billboards, the chapel—everything we promised each other. You don’t just erase that.” Julian’s arm tightened around my waist—barely perceptible, but I felt it. I glanced up at him. His face hadn’t changed: cold, composed, utterly controlled. But his jaw was set in that particular way that meant he was approximately two sentences away from doing something that would require legal counsel. I turned back to Adrian. “The past,” I said. “It’s the past.” “Mr. Shaw, I designed that suit when I was twenty-four years old and very much in love with someone who no longer exists in my heart.” My voice was pleasant. Almost conversational. “If you’d like to keep it as a souvenir, you’re welcome to. But proposing with it in front of my husband is rather tasteless, don’t you think?” Adrian flinched as if the words had physical weight. Julian heard it. Something flickered at the corner of his mouth—not quite a smile, but close. He picked up the marriage certificate from the table, slipped it back into his pocket, and turned to me. “Ready to go?” I nodded. He offered me his left hand. His right scooped up Sienna, who immediately wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his collar. On the whispers, the staring eyes, on Adrian Shaw standing alone in the center of a room that had, five years ago, watched him destroy me. We turned toward the exit. My heels clicked against the marble. Julian’s stride matched mine—unhurried, deliberate. Sienna hummed tunelessly against his shoulder. Behind us, Adrian’s voice followed—cracked, desperate: “Elara—” My footsteps didn’t falter. Julian’s hand found mine. Very Warm. We walked out together. The night air hit my face—cool, salt-edged, carrying the distant scent of the harbor. The valet had already brought the car around. Julian helped Sienna into her car seat with the practiced efficiency of a man who had done it a thousand times. Then he held the passenger door open for me. “You okay?” I nodded and slid in. He closed the door, rounded the hood, and settled into the driver’s seat. For a moment, neither of us spoke. The engine hummed. City lights blurred past the windows—amber and white, streaking through the dark like falling stars. Then Julian reached across the console and took my hand. His thumb traced slow circles across my knuckles—a gesture so familiar, so achingly gentle, that something in my chest unclenched. “Elara,” he said quietly. He didn’t look at me. His eyes stayed on the road, on the lights. “Those things—everything that happened back then.” His thumb paused on my knuckle. “Those things… from before…” He paused, searching for words. “You really let them go?” I didn’t answer right away. I looked at his profile—the sharp jaw, the dark lashes, the faint tension at the corner of his mouth that he thought he was hiding. “I don’t know,” I whispered. I looked down at our joined hands. “Tonight, when he knelt in front of me with that dress, I didn’t feel anything for him. Not love. Not hate. Just… tired.” He was quiet for a moment. Then he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “It will be fine,” he said. “I’m not asking you to delete them. I’m just suggesting if you’ve buried them deep enough that they can’t hurt you anymore.” I met his gaze. The sincerity there made my chest ache—not from pain, but from gratitude. “Yes,” I said. “I think so.” He smiled. “Good girl.”

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Nine years after Jesse Marlow’s mother had me raped and destroyed my family, I limp into the clinic to abort the rapist’s baby — and the half-blood Alpha-heir who let it all happen walks in wearing a doctor’s coat. I freeze for half a second. Then I keep walking. My left sleeve is empty. It’s been empty for nine years. I pin it up every morning like other women pin up their hair. Jesse looks up from the chart. His face does something — a flinch, a crack, gone before I can name it. “Wendy.” I don’t answer. I drop my appointment slip on his desk. “I’m here for an abortion. Today, please.” He doesn’t pick up the slip. He just stares at it like the paper might bite him. “Your body’s not strong,” he says quietly. “An abortion will hurt you. Are you sure?” His voice is the same. Soft. Careful. The same voice that told me I was a slut in front of our whole class. The same voice that walked away while his mother burned my life down. I look at him. Really look. He’s tall now. The half-blood thing they used to whisper about — it shows. His shoulders are too wide for the coat. His eyes are too gold for a human’s. So Crimson Fang Pack didn’t kill him after all. They just polished him up. “Yes,” I say. “I’m sure. The sooner the better.” He picks up the slip. His hand is shaking. He’s trying to hide it and failing. “Why are you doing this?” he asks. “Your husband — he’s not good to you?” My husband. I almost laugh. He thinks I have a husband. He thinks some man somewhere wakes up next to me and calls me his. I don’t correct him. He’s nobody. After today he goes back to being nobody. “Just book the surgery, Dr. Marlow.” He flinches at his own name in my mouth. He examines me in silence. Cold stethoscope. Cold hands. Hands that used to be warm when I was seventeen and stupid and thought he hung the moon. “Today,” he finally says. “We’ll do it today.” They wheel me into prep. A needle slides into my vein. The room starts swimming. A nurse pokes her head in and whispers something to Jesse. He doesn’t even hesitate. He drops everything and walks out. Through the fog I hear the nurses talking like I can’t hear them. “Dr. Marlow’s so sweet to his girlfriend. She’s got a little cold and he runs.” “Yeah. Not like this one. Comes in alone for an abortion. No man. You can tell what kind she is.” My eyelids twitch. I can’t open them. I want to tell them. I want to say it. I’m not a slut. I used to be Jesse Marlow’s whole world. —

Three hours before I limped into that clinic, I was scrolling Facebook on a break at work. A post was going viral. Already thousands of shares. I scrolled because I was bored. I scrolled because my feet hurt and I had twenty minutes before the lunch rush. Then I saw it. “My son dated a normal little girl back in high school. I didn’t stop them. I just used a few small tricks and ruined the girl. My son watched his own girlfriend rot in front of him. He got disgusted. He broke up with her. Now he’s safe at home, doing big things. This is what every great mother does for her son.” Marlene. After nine years, she’s still bragging. The comments were a war zone. Thousands of strangers calling her a monster. Thousands more cheering her on. *Smart mom. Saved her son from a gold digger.* I read it twice. I waited for something to happen in my chest. Nothing happened. I turned off my phone. I went back to wiping tables. It used to take everything in me not to scream when I thought about her. Now I can read a public confession of what she did to me and feel — nothing. Just tired. That’s what nine years of pills and broken sleep does. It hollows you out. It takes the rage and the love and the fear and grinds them into the same gray dust. My boss looked at me funny. “Wendy. You okay?” “Fine.” “You still going to the clinic after shift?” “Yeah.” She nodded. She didn’t ask whose baby. She knew better than to ask. I finished my shift. I caught the bus to the clinic across town. The smaller one. The one nobody I know goes to. The one I used to come to all the time as a kid. I limped up the steps. I signed in. I sat down with the slip in my hand. A nurse called my name. I followed her down the hall to the exam room. I pushed the door open. The doctor had his back to me. White coat. Tall. Shoulders too wide. He turned around. And nine years of gray dust caught fire all at once. Jesse Marlow. Back in the same little human clinic he used to work at, before his father’s pack came in their black SUVs and took him away. He’d come back. Of course he had. The universe had one more joke to play on me. —

I was sixteen the first time I saw him. He was sitting on the curb outside the empty house next to ours. Skinny. Pale. A backpack with one broken strap. A bruise on his jaw that nobody had asked about. My mom watched him from the kitchen window for a week. Then she put extra food in my lunch tin and shoved it into my hands. “Take this to the boy next door, Wendy. Nobody’s feeding him.” That’s how it started. His name was Jesse. He was seventeen. He told me his father had “sent him out here for the summer.” He didn’t say why. The neighbors said why. “He’s the bastard. The Alpha’s bastard from over in Crimson Fang. The pack didn’t want him so they dumped him on the human side with his mother.” I didn’t know what an Alpha was. I didn’t care. He had a bruise on his jaw and my mom had made him dumplings. I brought him food every day for a month. By the end of that month he smiled when he saw me coming. Kids at school whispered. “His mom’s a mistress. He’s half-blood wolf. He’s dirty. Don’t sit next to him, Wendy.” I turned around in my seat. I said it loud enough for the whole row to hear. “Don’t talk about him like that. Jesse’s the best person I know.” I made it up a little. I had to. Somebody had to make it up for him. A girl elbowed me. I looked up. Jesse was standing in the doorway. His eyes were red. He’d heard every word. I got embarrassed and bolted. That night he caught up to me outside the school gate. He didn’t say anything for a whole block. Then his fingers found mine. “Wendy. Thank you. You’re the best person I know too.” I didn’t pull my hand away. We walked home like that. His palm hot against mine. My face hot against the cold air. My heart doing something it had never done before. We were a couple by Halloween. He told me he’d love me forever. He told me we’d go to the same college. Buy a tiny house. Get two cats. One orange, one black. I believed him. I was sixteen and his hand was warm and nobody had ever looked at me the way he looked at me, like I was the only safe thing in the world. On my eighteenth birthday I waited for him on the porch with a cake. He was late. When he finally came home, he wasn’t alone. A woman stepped out of the car behind him. Pretty. Soft voice. Smiling at me like she’d known me for years. “You must be Wendy. I’m Jesse’s mom.” —

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I was born with a large chest. My body was cursed. That’s what the wood nymphs whispered behind my back, my breasts like ripe figs, so full they looked ready to burst, my waist thin as a grapevine you could snap with one hand. When I walked, those two soft mounds would sway, and even the wind stopped to stare. My mother was a priestess in the Temple of the Moon. She got pregnant at the sacred altar and died giving birth to me, refusing to the very end to name my father. The night she died, twelve laurel trees bloomed silver outside the temple. By dawn, every last petal had fallen. The priestess gathered around my cradle and called me an omen. A nymph too beautiful, they said, in the sacred grove of Artemis, was a disaster waiting to happen. I grew up in that grove, treated like a slave. They wrapped me in thick wool robes from neck to ankle, made me hunch my shoulders and lower my head, forbade me from ever looking a man in the eye. “Thena,” the high priestess Teya said, jabbing her finger into my forehead. “You think that body of yours is for seducing men? This is Artemis’s sacred grove. Step out of line, and I’ll feed you to the sea monster Scylla myself.” I didn’t know what stepping out of line meant. All I knew was the ache in my chest from the bindings they made me wear. In summer, the fabric rubbed my skin raw. In winter, the cold turned my fingers blue. But no matter how tight I wrapped, those two stubborn mounds pushed through, refusing to disappear. I cried into the spring more times than I could count, begging my mother to tell me why she gave me this body. The spring never answered. Only the wind rustling through the laurel leaves. Everything changed on a spring evening. Helios’s chariot had just crossed the sky, painting the grove gold and rose. I was walking back from the stream with a clay jug on my shoulder, water sloshing, when I heard sounds coming from the olive grove behind the temple. Muffled sounds. The kind you’re not supposed to hear. I put down the jug and crept closer. Teya was on her knees. Her robe had slipped down to her waist, exposing the dry, wrinkled skin of her back. And standing in front of her was a man I’d never seen before… No. Not a man. A god. He was shirtless, his body carved like a statue, every muscle holding enough force to level a city. Dark brown curls hung past his shoulders. His eyes were amber, burning like twin fires in the twilight. He had Teya by the chin, tilting her old face up to his. “Tell me,” he said, his voice low, like a blade dragging across a shield. “Who’s the most beautiful nymph in this grove?” Teya trembled. “The… the moon goddess’s handmaidens…” “No.” He let her go, his gaze sweeping past her, past the olive branches, past the floating dust motes in the golden light, and landing straight on me. My blood turned cold. His eyes moved down my face, past my trembling lips, and stopped at my chest, pressed tight against the edge of the clay jug, rising and falling with every panicked breath. “You.” He walked toward me, and with every step, the leaves on the ground seemed to shrink back. “What’s your name?” “Thena…” “Thena.” He rolled the name across his tongue like he was tasting it. The corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you afraid of me?” I nodded. Then shook my head. His scent was too much, iron and blood, the smell of a battlefield. It made my knees weak. “I’m Ares,” he said. “God of War.” I knew who he was. Son of Zeus and Hera. Every nymph knew the stories, once a god like him set his sights on you, there was no escape. My knees buckled. The clay jug slipped from my fingers. Ares reached out. His fingers hooked the strip of fabric binding my chest, moving so slowly I had all the time in the world to run. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. He pulled.

The linen tore like butterfly wings. My body, bound and hidden for seventeen years, broke free and stood naked in the twilight, bare to his eyes, to the fading sunlight, to the wind. I gasped. Tried to move back, but my feet wouldn’t obey. His gaze dropped to my chest. His pupils flared. His amber eyes filled with something I didn’t understand, something hungry and wild, like a man who’d been walking through a desert for a thousand years and finally found water. “Teya,” he said, his voice gone rough. “You were right. This body really is cursed.” He paused, bent his head, and brought his nose within a breath of my collarbone. “Cursed by me.” He inhaled. The warmth of his breath hit my skin, setting off a ripple of goosebumps down my neck, my arms, my spine. “You smell like…” His lips brushed my earlobe. “Spring.” I shoved him. I don’t know where the strength came from, but my palms hit his chest solid. I felt his heartbeat, loud and fast, just like a mortal man’s. I staggered back, stumbling over shards of the broken jug. Blood welled from my foot, but I didn’t feel it. “Don’t touch me!” I screamed. Ares didn’t follow. He stood there, watching me flee, watching my hair whip in the wind, watching my bare shoulders disappear into the trees. Then he bent down and picked up the torn strip of linen, still warm from my skin. He lifted it to his nose. “Thena,” he said, like a spell. The sound followed me through the olive grove, through the laurel trees, through the dying light. It sank into my bones. That night, every nymph in the grove heard me crying. I curled up in the darkest corner of the moon temple, moonlight falling cold through the high windows. I tried to wrap my chest again with the torn cloth, but my fingers shook too badly to tie the knots. Tears soaked my knees, my dress, the stone floor. Teya found me. The marks from Ares’s fingers were still fresh on her cheek, purple and swollen. She looked down at me with eyes that held nothing but disgust. “You think you can run from this?” Her voice echoed off the temple walls. “When a god like Ares wants something, no one stops him. No one.” I looked up through my tears. She bent down, close enough that her lips almost touched my ear. “I heard Ares was badly wounded at Troy. A spear went through his thigh. Right through the tendon.” She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to. A god who couldn’t perform. “Lucky you,” she said, her voice turning light, almost cheerful. “Better a broken god than a beast. At least you won’t have to bear children.” She patted my cheek. “Besides, they say men who can’t do it in bed make up for it in other ways.” “I don’t want to marry him…” “Don’t want?” Teya’s face went dark. “Who do you think you are? A bastard with no father. Ares wants you, that’s more than you deserve. If it weren’t for that body of yours, that slut’s body, a war god wouldn’t even look at you.” She spat the word slut like it was poison. I cried again. That night I dreamed. Ares’s hands moved up my legs, and everywhere he touched, my skin caught fire. His lips pressed against my stomach, and I heard his voice, low and shaking, like the ground opening up beneath me: “Thena. You can’t escape me.” I woke soaked in sweat. My hair was plastered to my face, my neck. The blanket had slid to the floor. Between my legs, a heat I’d never felt before, spreading through me like spring floods breaking through ice. I bit my lip until I tasted blood. Shame shook me down to my bones. Outside, the moon hung cold in the sky.

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At the Manhattan’s elite gala, Father told me to lead the opening dance. The three childhood friends who’d promised me weeks ago—all of them avoided my eyes and walked straight toward the fake heiress, Fiona Foster. “Fiona’s position is awkward. If no one picks her, it’d be humiliating.” I stood there, watching Xavier—heir to the Sterling family—approach. I thought he’d finally announce our engagement publicly, but he leaned in and whispered an apology. “You’re calculating, Evelyn. You have means. You’re the Foster family’s true heiress—you don’t need my protection. But Fiona’s different.” I grabbed his hand. He pulled away, walking toward Fiona anyway. When Fiona looked past everyone else and took Xavier’s hand, the crowd started their commentary: “So she was waiting for Mr. Sterling all along. No wonder she ignored everyone else.” “The Foster heir and the Sterling heir—two future powerhouses. A match made in heaven!” Everyone congratulated my father. But his face went black. They didn’t know—everyone in the Foster family was hoping I’d fall in love, so they could hand my inheritance to the fake heiress without a fight. … This opening dance represented the Foster family’s reputation. I’d been lost for twenty-two years. Found and brought home only three years ago. This was the first time the Foster family hosted a gala where I was asked to lead—a recognition of my identity. Xavier knew exactly how much this meant to me. But he still walked toward Fiona without looking back. The atmosphere turned strange. I stood rooted, throat tightening. Watching Xavier take Fiona’s hand and step into the center of the dance floor. The spotlight followed them. The mockery chased after me: “I heard the Sterling and Foster families were planning an alliance. Guess we know who the real match is now. We all thought it’d be the noble true heiress…” “Looks like Mr. Sterling came tonight to back his future fiancée…” The music started. Xavier lowered his head slightly, listening to something Fiona was saying. His gaze—tender in a way I’d never seen before. Turns out when someone truly cares about another person, even their eyes soften involuntarily. And me? I only ever got to see the ruthless business king side of Xavier Sterling. After all, in his eyes, I was the daughter who clawed her way back into the Foster family halfway through— Scheming. Calculating. Even my sadness looked performative. My aunt swayed over with a wine glass, half the ballroom watching. “Well, well. Our legitimate Foster heiress standing all alone?” “Some people just aren’t born with that kind of luck, you know.” “Your grandfather gave you the best of everything the second you came back, but Fiona—she’s naturally blessed. Even after you pushed her aside, she still manages to take everything.” Aunt’s words scraped past my ears like blades. I tightened my grip on the wine glass. Before the gala, Xavier had told me—his position was delicate. Every move he made sent a signal for his family. Unless the Sterling elders gave a clear stance, he wouldn’t dance with me publicly. I was anxious, but I understood his difficulty. After all, in Manhattan, the balance between the Sterling and Foster families was fragile. If he asked me for the first dance, it would be picking a side. So I’d prepared ahead of time. I’d asked each of my three childhood friends separately to dance with me at this gala. They’d all agreed. No hesitation. But when the lights came up, they all walked toward Fiona instead. I’d guessed the beginning. I just didn’t guess the ending. Xavier did avoid dancing with me, the Foster heiress. He just walked toward a different member of the Foster family instead. Turns out there was no family signal. He just didn’t want to protect my dignity. He wanted to give someone else security.

Applause erupted. The first dance ended. Xavier’s hand rested naturally on Fiona’s waist. The three childhood friends who came for me were now busy crowding around them with champagne glasses. Xavier crossed through the crowd toward me. He lowered his head to look at me: “Fiona’s had it rough these years. You came back and easily slid into the heir candidate pool. She worked for years—lost everything because of bloodlines.” “It’s just one dance. You’ve always been generous.” “If tonight gets out,” I cut him off, “what will people say? That the Foster heiress is a joke who can’t even hold her own event?” His brow furrowed. “You overthink everything. Who’d dare laugh at you?” Seeing my silence, his voice dropped. “Evelyn, you’re strong. You can stand on your own. But Fiona’s different!” “If I don’t choose her tonight, if I don’t show I value her, she becomes the Foster family’s abandoned child.” I looked down at the wine swirling in my glass. He didn’t know—the Foster inheritance battle had reached a life-or-death point. Father’s message was clear: Either marry someone from a family equal to the Fosters, like Xavier Sterling, and let Grandfather kick me out of the running. Or he’d “arrange” me to some borderland upstart and eliminate the problem permanently. I’d wanted to stay outside the game a little longer. But this one dance shattered all my room to maneuver. Fiona trotted over, eyes hopeful as she looked at Xavier: “Xavier, could you introduce me to some of the guests?” “I’m not as thorough as Evelyn.” “She always keeps this little notebook—records which young heirs are rising, which uncles control rare resources…” She covered her mouth, frowning with self-reproach. “I—I don’t mean she’s opportunistic. She’s just… diligent.” Nearby, two ladies’ smiles faded. “Recording everyone’s value? This Foster heiress… quite the schemer.” “No wonder she made heir candidate in just three years.” Whispers drifted over. My blood ran cold. That notebook was homework assigned by Grandfather. When I first entered the circle, he told me to study the merits of each family’s elders… Xavier had even coached me on it. But he didn’t say a word in my defense. Let me become the center of the storm instead. Fiona looked at Xavier regretfully: “Did I say something wrong again? I just admire how capable Evelyn is…” He patted her hand. “It’s fine. Evelyn has a big heart—she won’t be mad at you.” Then he led Fiona away to greet others. “Xav—” Surrounding whispers drowned out my voice: “I felt bad for her getting her spotlight stolen, but ugh… turns out she’s that calculating.” “…” I stood in place, freezing from the inside out. Suddenly remembering that rainy day three years ago when I first returned to the Foster family. My adoptive parents were considered upper class. But compared to top-tier families like the Fosters, they weren’t truly seen as equals. The day I was brought back to the Foster estate, Manhattan was drowning in rain. I stood alone outside the ancestral home. Grandfather deliberately tested me, refusing to let anyone open the door. That’s when I met Xavier. He walked over with an umbrella and said: “Just got home? I’ll protect you from now on.” Now, his umbrella was over someone else’s head. I set down my glass and turned toward the terrace. The night wind was cold against my face. The composure I’d forced earlier cracked at the edges. Grandfather returns in seven days. If tonight’s events spread, it would definitely cost me points in his eyes. … After standing there for a while, I walked back into the ballroom. Caleb suddenly hurried toward me. “Evelyn, don’t go over there.” I followed his gaze. Those two were still spinning in the dance floor. He thought I was going to make a scene. Can’t blame him. Of the three childhood friends, he was the only one who’d survived years with me at the orphanage before I was adopted. Back then, whenever they handed out apples, I’d fight for the biggest, reddest one. Once I got it, I’d shove it at him first. Because he was slow at everything, and I was afraid he’d starve. Later, my adoptive parents took me in. I saved every bit of allowance, begged them to pull strings. Sponsored his expensive art school tuition. Did everything I could to lift him up into the influential appraiser he is today. But I was just a wild vine that clawed out of the mud alongside him. No matter how much support and nourishment I gave— I’d never compare to that untouchable sun high in the sky. I stepped around him to leave. He grabbed my wrist from behind. “Evelyn, if Xavier already chose, going over there now will just humiliate you more.” “Let go!” I tried to pull my hand back. He gripped tighter. In the struggle, my already-injured ankle twisted. I lost balance and fell backward. My back slammed against a pillar and I dropped to my knees, the impact echoing dully. Searing pain exploded. Caleb froze. “Why are you doing this? You’ve had everything at the Foster house these three years. What does Fiona have left?”

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I got my miracle on Christmas Eve: my vision came back. But I wish with every broken piece of my heart that I was still blind. I run through the hospital hallway, grinning like crazy. I can’t wait to tell my boyfriend and my bestie. Then I stop cold. A few nurses are huddled around a phone, scrolling through a post. “Have you seen this post? It’s blowing up right now.” “My best friend lost both her parents and her sight overnight. I gave up my job abroad to come back and take care of her with her boyfriend for three years. But I fell in love with him. We’ve done everything together—carefully, secretly. I know I can’t keep doing this. I can’t betray her. So I have to leave. If this post gets 100,000 votes for me to go, I’ll spend the holidays with him one last time—then fly away and never come back.” My eyes lock on the profile picture. It’s a photo I took of my bestie. Senior year. I was leaning over a classroom windowsill to catch her from behind.Changed every single one of her profile pictures to that shot. “Babe,” she said. “I’m keeping this photo until I’m eighty.” Now she’s using it while doing something that shatters me. The votes are split. Blue for “stay and fight for him.” Red for “leave and end this.” Blue is winning. By ten thousand votes. I stare at the screen. My lungs stop working. I waited three years for this miracle. I wanted to see again more than anything. And the first thing I see is this. A tear drops onto the nurse’s phone. They all look up at me. “Right? This love triangle is so messed up but also so sad.” “What would you do? Vote for her to stay with the guy or leave?” “Honestly? Stay. Who wants to be stuck with a blind girl forever? That life looks miserable. So yeah—team blue.” My hands won’t stop shaking. They’re right. I’m blind. I’m a burden. Of course he’s choosing her over me. Even though my eyes just healed—what right do I have to ask him to come back? I’m not that selfish. I swallow the pain and force a smile. “Yeah,” I say. “You’re right. A guy shouldn’t be tied down to a blind girl for life. He should be with her best friend. True love deserves a blessing. I vote blue too.” I turn and walk out the hospital’s main doors. And there they are. Ethan and Lauren rush toward the entrance. His arms are wrapped tight around her body. Three years changed him—his shoulders are broader now. Safer. She looks prettier than ever, light spilling out of her smile. It’s freezing. He drapes his big coat over her shoulders. They look like something out of a movie. As they get closer, Lauren tries to pull away from him. But Ethan pouts. Holds on tighter. Bends down and kisses the corner of her mouth. She kisses him back hard, then pulls away, breathing fast. Glaring at him. Like she’s saying: She’s right there. Be careful. If I couldn’t see, I’d never know. I push the hurt down and smile. “Ethan? Lauren? Is that you coming to pick me up?”

Lauren hooks her arm through mine and kisses my cheek. “Of course we came to get you. We were worried sick.” “Work stuff came up for me today, and Ethan’s lab had some emergency. That’s why you had to come alone. So sorry about that.” Ethan talks to me, but his soft eyes are on Lauren. “Mia, what did the doctor say about your eyes?” I clutch the report in my pocket and shove it down deeper. “Same as always. Maybe in a few years, if I’m lucky.” I catch it. The quick flash of relief in Ethan’s eyes. It slices through my chest. He doesn’t want me to get better. Because if I stay blind, he can keep sneaking around with Lauren. He reaches out and pets my hair. “Don’t be scared, Mia. You still have us. Lauren and me. We’re not going anywhere.” “One day, one year, ten years—we’re never leaving you.” A year ago, I would’ve sobbed hearing those words. But now? I can’t believe he just kissed Lauren ten minutes ago and now he’s feeding me promises like this. Lauren suddenly wipes a tear off my face. “Mia, why are you crying?” “Did someone mess with you while we weren’t here? Tell me who. I’ll rip them apart.” Her panic is real. And it only makes it hurt more. I shake my head. “I’m fine. Wind got in my eyes. Don’t worry.” She pulls off her jacket and wraps it around me. “It’s freezing. Take mine. Let’s go to the store.” I grab her coat like a robot. I don’t feel any warmth. Ethan frowns. He takes off his own coat and slips it over Lauren’s shoulders like it’s second nature. She lifts her arms without even thinking. Like they’ve done this a thousand times. Because they have. Three more days until Christmas. They take me to the grocery store. They’re planning a big holiday dinner. Our eighteenth Christmas together. Lauren holds my arm, her voice bright. “Hey, grab some extra mushrooms. You know Mia loves those.” “Ethan, did you get the chicken? I’m making honey garlic chicken for her!” Ethan smiles at her—that soft, private smile. “Already got it. She’s my girlfriend. You think I don’t know what she likes?” My blood runs cold. Because before Lauren even told him to get my stuff, his cart was already full of her favorite meats, her favorite drinks, her favorite snacks. I’m not first anymore. The guy I’ve loved for ten years? His whole heart belongs to someone else now. They don’t notice me. They keep planning the Christmas menu. And then— Boxes tumble from the top shelf. I don’t even have time to react. But Ethan does. My hand shoots out for him on instinct. But he’s already moving. Grabbing Lauren. Pulling her out of the way. “Lauren—watch out!” My hand grabs nothing. The boxes slam into me. My head cracks against the corner of the shelf. Sharp pain. Then warm blood drips down my forehead, into my eyes. Across the aisle, Ethan is frantically checking Lauren from head to toe. “Are you okay? Did anything hit you? Are you hurt?” Lauren’s shaky. “I’m fine. You got me out just in time.” They both forgot about me. A store employee runs over and grabs my arm. “Oh my god, you’re bleeding a lot. We need to get you to a hospital.” Lauren and Ethan whip around. Then they rush to me. “Mia—why didn’t you move?!” “Don’t be scared. We’re taking you to the hospital.” I shake my head. “It’s not that bad. Just take me to the pharmacy down the street. I don’t want to go back to the hospital.” I don’t want them to know I can see. So they take me to a little clinic. Stitch me up. Drive me home. Now I’m not just blind. I’m blind and scarred.What a joke.

I step inside the apartment, and my chest just aches. There are safety bumpers on every corner—leftover from when I was blind. But that’s not what hits me. The place reeks of her. This is the tiny apartment Ethan and I saved up for after college. Our first home. And while I couldn’t see, she covered the walls with pictures of her and Ethan. Smiling. Kissing. Hugging. The balcony is full of her hydrangeas. My plants? Dead. Every single one. This isn’t my home anymore. I feel like I just walked into their love nest. Ethan takes my hand and leads me to the couch. “Mia, I’m sorry I didn’t push you out of the way earlier. You got hurt because of me. Are you mad?” “I should’ve protected you better.” I stare blankly ahead, pretending. “It’s okay, Ethan. I’m not mad. Those boxes weren’t secured right.” He exhales. Kisses my knuckles. “Good. Just sit tight. I’ll make dinner.” I smile and nod. He and Lauren go into the kitchen together. They’re flirting. Touching each other while grabbing ingredients. I pull out my phone—the one I barely use anymore—and find Lauren’s post. The votes for her to stay with Ethan have hit 100,000. The votes for her to leave are at 90,000. I scroll through it one more time. Then I book a one-way ticket out of New York. When I look back up, Ethan and Lauren are arguing in the kitchen. He grabs her wrist and pulls her into the bedroom. I swallow the knot in my throat and follow quietly. Through the crack in the door, I see him hold up his phone to her face. His voice is shaking. “Lauren, what the hell is this post? You’re leaving me? Going abroad?” He found out. Lauren’s eyes go red. She drops to the floor, clutching her head, crying. “Mia’s going to get her sight back someday. How am I supposed to look at her after that? How do I tell her I fell in love with you?” “Ethan, you and Mia are the couple. I’m just the pathetic other woman who betrayed her best friend.” “I can’t face her. So I’m running away. Don’t make this harder for me.” Ethan lowers himself to his knees. Wraps his arms around her. Kisses her tears away—softly, gently, like she’s something precious. “Don’t leave me. We love each other. How could we just walk away from that?” “The doctor said she’s got years before she can see again. She won’t find out.” “And look—look at the votes. 100,000 people are on our side. They see what we have. Are you really going to ignore that?” My fingers go cold. One by one. Maybe if I was still blind, I’d stay in the dark forever. Then I wouldn’t have to lose my boyfriend and my best friend at the same time. But now I’m standing here, watching them kiss. Comfort each other. Plan their future. Lauren digs her fingers into his shoulders, sobbing. “Ethan, I’m drowning in guilt every single day. So let fate decide. If the votes for me to leave hit 100,000 after Christmas, I’ll go. No questions asked. Just let me go. You belong to Mia, not me.” Ethan’s face twists with pain. He pulls her tighter. His voice cracks. “Okay. I just want you to be happy. Even if it means losing you.” I’m crying without making a sound, cover my lips and walk away.

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On Christmas Eve, I slipped into Chicago without telling Damien. I spent the afternoon cooking ！ a full spread, enough to fill his entire dining table ！ planning to surprise him. While I waited, I scrolled Reddit and stumbled onto a thread. [What does a man do when he actually loves you?] Someone in the comments answered. [He couldn’t make it home for Christmas, so he stayed back to keep me company ！ told his family work ran over.] [He was supposed to get engaged to his girlfriend this year, but I said I wasn’t ready, so he pushed the date back. He remembers every little thing I like, never forgets my birthday, and even decorated the passenger seat of his car just for me.] My stomach dropped. Was it a coincidence? Damien had told me the same thing ！ too buried in work to fly home for Christmas ！ and our own engagement date had been pushed back too. Someone replied to her: [How is that any different from being the mistress?] She laughed it off. [The one who isn’t loved is the mistress. He told me he stopped having feelings for his fianc└e a long time ago. He’s only still with her out of obligation.] [Right now, we’re watching the Christmas fireworks~ ] The photo attached showed a side profile, fireworks blazing in the background. Identical to Damien. ´ I zoomed in. Zoomed back out. Told myself it was someone who just looked like him. Then she posted a second photo ！ hands intertwined. On those overlapping fingers sat a ring I knew too well. My eyes burned. My hand trembled as I dialed Damien’s number. It rang a long time before he picked up. Fireworks crackled in the background. His voice came through soft and warm. “Mia. What’s wrong?” “Where are you?” I asked. “At the office. Still catching up on work.” He sounded completely at ease. If I hadn’t seen that post, I might have believed him without a second thought. I blinked against the sting in my eyes and said, “I’m at your place.” Silence for a few seconds. Then: “I’m heading back now.” I stood there looking at the dinner I’d spent all day making, and something in me felt almost laughable. When Damien came through the door, he wasn’t alone. There was a woman with him. His personal assistant. Nadia Reyes. She’d appeared in the background of our video calls before ！ brief flickers I hadn’t thought much of. I’d only learned her name afterward. When his eyes met mine, something flickered across Damien’s face. A half-second of unease. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” My eyes had gone red. I looked at what he was wearing. The man in that photo wore the exact same thing. I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. “I wanted to surprise you,” I said, my voice coming out hoarse. Turned out Damien surprised me first. I shifted my gaze to Nadia. “You work late with your assistant?” Damien paused. Then steered the conversation sideways. “Next time, just let me know ！ I’ll come pick you up.” I smiled, but there was nothing behind it. I said nothing. “Didn’t expect you to remember me, Ms. Fontaine.” Nadia flashed me a playful wink. “Mr. Voss and I were just finishing up at the office. The moment your call came in, we rushed straight back~” Straight back. She said it like she lived here. Somehow I was the one who felt out of place. Damien glanced at Nadia, something warm flickering in his eyes, then turned to explain to me: “Couldn’t get a cab on Christmas Eve, and I needed to get back fast ！ I had no choice but to bring Nadia along.” “I’ll drop her home in a bit.” I pulled at the corner of my mouth. What Damien didn’t know was that I had taken an unofficial six-hour ride to get here. Nadia smiled at me. “You don’t mind, do you, Ms. Fontaine?” Damien laughed, easy and natural. “She’s not petty like you.” Nadia stuck her tongue out at him. “I’m not petty.” They bickered the way couples do ！ not like a boss and his employee. The hand I’d burned on the stove earlier throbbed quietly beneath everything. Nadia looked at the table full of dishes, visibly impressed. “Wow ！ Ms. Fontaine, you made all of this?” She sighed lightly. “I’m hopeless in the kitchen. At home it’s always my boyfriend who cooks´” I stopped listening. I turned to Damien. One word at a time. “I don’t like her.” “Damien. Fire her.”

The smile on Nadia’s face went rigid. She hadn’t expected me to strike like that. Her eyes flew instinctively to Damien. Damien paused. “Alright. Whatever you say.” Nadia stiffened. “Mr. Voss´” Damien used the excuse of getting her a cab to walk her out. He was gone for two hours. Every dish I’d spent all day making had gone cold. I threw it all in the trash. By the time Damien came back, I’d just closed out of the Reddit thread. My eyes went straight to his collar. Rumpled. And on it ！ faint, but unmistakable ！ a smear of lipstick. Ten minutes ago, the comment had updated. [His fianc└e showed up out of nowhere and dragged him back. Even tried to have me fired. But so what? He played along to her face, and then spent the whole ride back coaxing me.] [We hooked up in the car. He walked back in with his collar a mess ！ and a little bit of my lipstick on it, oops~] Every detail matched. Damien crossed the room to hold me. I shoved him back hard. “Don’t touch me.” Nausea surged up my throat. I pressed a hand over my mouth and ran for the bathroom. Damien followed, rubbing my back. “Did you eat something bad?” Her perfume clung to him, drifting into my lungs in slow waves. Nothing came up. I straightened and walked back out. Damien poured me a glass of hot water. I didn’t take it. I just looked at him, exhausted. “Is Nadia really just your assistant?” The moment the words left my mouth, Damien’s brow creased. “Of course. She’s just my assistant.” I finally laughed. I pulled up the thread and held the screen out to him. “Then what is this?” “An assistant is worth skipping Christmas for? Worth pushing back our engagement?” Damien stared at the comment for a long time. I waited. I thought he’d say something ！ anything. But all he did was frown. “She’s just a girl being dramatic, posting for attention. Don’t take it to heart.” Posting for attention. Nadia said Damien memorized everything she liked. That he cooked for her. That he customized the passenger seat of his car for her alone. That he even delayed our engagement for her. That was just for attention? “Damien,” I said. “Do you know I like spicy food?” He looked at me, clearly lost. Like he couldn’t understand why I was asking something like that. He said nothing. I let out a short, bitter laugh. He didn’t know. Which was why every meal between us had always been mild. Which was why I never knew he could cook ！ because he had never once cooked for me. And the passenger seat ！ last time I visited, I’d brought a small dashboard ornament, something I wanted to put there. Damien refused without hesitation. He said he didn’t like clutter in the car. Apparently that rule had exceptions. Just none for me. Damien looked at my red-rimmed eyes and softened his voice. “Mia. Don’t worry about her.” “After the holidays, I’ll let her go. Once everything’s in order ！ we’ll get engaged. I promise.” For Nadia, Damien had given up Christmas with his family. For Nadia, he had pushed back my engagement. I had told myself he was just busy. Said yes to everything he asked. And Nadia had told the internet that Damien was only with me out of obligation. If that was all I was to him ！ an obligation ！ then he didn’t need to carry it anymore. I didn’t want the engagement either.

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During a narcotics bust, my mom was taken hostage while protecting a civilian. The bastards livestreamed the whole thing on the dark web. “Ten minutes! If I don’t walk out of here, I’ll slit her throat!” I frantically dialed Nolan’s number. He was my mom’s protégé, the rookie she’d personally trained and promoted to detective. He was also the closest officer to the scene, the only one who could reach her in time. He finally picked up. My voice came out raw. “Nolan, get to the address I sent you! You’re the only one who can save my mom right now!” “Is this your new trick to get my attention? I’m so sick of your constant jealousy.” He laughed, cutting me off. A dog barked in the background, followed by a cloyingly sweet female voice. “Nolan, you’re using way too much doggie shampoo!” “I just talked to Captain Monroe yesterday. She filed her retirement paperwork. She’s not in any danger. Stop making things up and grow up, Harper.” He hung up. The countdown hit thirty seconds. I called again and again. He blocked me. My phone buzzed with a text from Stella: Your boyfriend’s helping me give my baby a bath. Don’t worry, we’re just friends. No need to keep checking up on him. The attached photo showed her and Nolan laughing, covered in soap suds, bathing a golden retriever. They looked like a couple in a goddamn laundry detergent commercial. On my screen, the livestream showed my mother’s throat being sliced open. She collapsed, eyes wide, staring directly at the camera. My phone slipped from my hand. Something inside me died with her. ……………………… The police brought my mother’s body back. At the funeral, one of her old colleagues came up to me. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Captain Monroe was the finest officer this department has ever seen. She solved countless cases, and she was protecting the city. She’s a hero.” His voice cracked. He hesitated, like he wanted to say more but couldn’t. I knew what he was thinking. Everyone at the precinct knew my fiancé, Nolan had refused to respond to the emergency call because he was too busy keeping his girl best friend company. I stood in front of the headstone but didn’t cry. I just gripped the badge in my hand until my palm bled. The pain kept me standing. It reminded me I couldn’t break down. My phone vibrated. A text from an unknown number. I’m sorry for your loss. I know what happened. I’ll make sure justice is served. I scrolled through my messages. Nothing from Nolan. I pulled up his contact and called him, hoping he’d at least come to say goodbye to the woman who’d raised him in the force. Once. Twice. Three times. All of them went straight to voicemail. My mom had loved Nolan like a son. She’d taught him everything she knew, pulled every string to get him promoted to detective. He’d been a good protégé. He’d been a good boyfriend. Then Stella came back to Chicago, and everything changed. He started canceling on me. He missed my birthday. He wasn’t there when our dog of eight years was poisoned and died. Even wasn’t there when my mother was in danger. And now, at her funeral, he still wasn’t here. His text finally came through after the funeral ended. Harper, stop being so childish. You’re exhausting me. Stella is my best friend. We’re JUST FRIENDS. There’s no reason for you to be jealous of her. I took two days off to take her hiking. The signal’s bad up in the mountains, so don’t blow up my phone unless it’s an emergency. Those two messages shattered whatever hope I’d had left. I threw my umbrella aside and tilted my face up to the rain. It hit my skin like tiny blades. The pain finally made the tears come. I blocked Nolan on everything. Don’t worry. I’ll never bother you again. When I got home, I locked myself in my room and dialed a number I hadn’t called in years. He picked up immediately. He didn’t speak, just breathed steadily on the other end. I took a deep breath. “This is Harper Monroe.” His voice was low and controlled. “I know. I’m here.” “I want to finish what my mom started. I want to take down the people who killed her. I’m asking for your approval to reinstate me.” There was a long silence. I could picture him frowning, weighing his options. “Those criminals work for the Blackwood Cartel. Your mother died trying to take them down. I can’t let you risk your life too. And besides—” I cut him off. “I already passed the internal assessment. I’m the best candidate for this operation.” “My dad died when I was a kid. My mom raised me alone. She died with her eyes open, Chief Thorne. I can’t let the people who killed her walk free.” He sighed heavily. “Does Nolan know?” “He doesn’t. And he doesn’t need to.” “Fine. Send me your report. I’ll make the arrangements. The undercover operation starts in two days. Use that time to handle your personal affairs.” He paused. “Come back safe. For your mother’s sake. And for the people who actually care about you.” “I will.” I hung up and started packing. I was selling everything I owned, including every gift Nolan had ever given me. While cleaning out my desk, I found a framed photo of us. In the picture, sunlight streamed through the windows. I had my arms wrapped around him from behind, my chin resting on top of his head. We’d looked so happy. Now it just made me sick. I pulled the photo out of the frame, tore his half off, and threw it in the trash. That’s when I heard a key turning in the lock.

The door swung open. Stella walked in with her arm draped around Nolan’s waist. She was practically hanging off him, her chest pressed against his arm. The moment Stella spotted the grand piano in the corner, she squealed with excitement. “Babe, there it is! I played it last time I was here and the sound was incredible. It photographs so well too! You promised you’d give it to me, remember?” Nolan saw me standing in the living room. His smile faltered for a second. “Harper. Perfect timing. I need to talk to you about something. Stella loves this piano, so I’m having it moved to her place. You haven’t played it in forever anyway. It’s just collecting dust.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My mom had spent her entire life savings on that piano. And he wanted to give it away? Without even asking me? “What did you just say? My mom left that to me. It’s mine. I dare you to touch it.” Stella made a theatrical gasp. Her eyes landed on the trash can. She bent down, plucked out the torn photo with two fingers, and dangled it in front of Nolan’s face. “Babe, looks like we really pissed off your ball and chain. She even tore up your picture! When did she grow the balls to disrespect you like this?” “We need to get that piano out of here fast before she smashes it in one of her tantrums.” Nolan’s face darkened. “Harper! Are you done with this bullshit? First you lied about your mom being in danger, and now this? How old are you?” “That piano is leaving today whether you like it or not. Your useless wrist can’t even play it anymore!” I was shaking with rage. “Nolan! Have you forgotten how my wrist got ruined? I took a knife for you! The tendon was severed! That’s why I’m like this!” Stella clicked her tongue and put on a patronizing expression. “Harper, you can’t say it like that. Nolan appreciates what you did, but the fact is, you really can’t use the piano anymore.” “Nolan’s my best friend. What’s his is mine. If he wants to give it to me, that’s totally normal.” “Besides, we’ve known each other for years. We don’t keep score like that.” Nolan looked at Stella with pure adoration. “Exactly. It’s just a piano. My best friend wants it. Can’t you be a little more generous? Why are you secretly tearing up photos and throwing tantrums?” I laughed bitterly and screamed at her. “Nolan, my mom is dead! And you’re calling me unreasonable?” “Are you even human? My mom was taken hostage by criminals. You were the closest officer. You were the only one in the entire department who could save her! And what were you doing?” I pointed at Stella, who looked absolutely delighted. “You were giving her dog a bath!” “My mom loved you! She was your mentor! Why didn’t you save her?” “You didn’t even come to her funeral!” Nolan’s voice turned vicious. “Enough! You’re still acting? You keep saying your mom is dead. Who curses their own mother like this? I never knew you were this disgusting.” Stella’s voice was sickeningly innocent, but she was smirking. “Harper, are you still holding a grudge? It was just a dog bath. It’s not that deep.” “Nolan and I are best friends. We don’t play those stupid games you do.” She ran her hand over the piano lid and turned to Nolan. “Babe, I really do love this piano.” She slapped his ass playfully, right in front of me. Nolan’s face flushed. “Of course you can have it. We’re ride-or-die. I’d give you the moon if you asked for it.” He turned to me, his voice cold. “The piano is being moved today. As of right now, you’re not allowed to touch it.” He pulled out his phone and called a moving company right in front of me. I grabbed everything within reach and hurled it at them. A makeup case hit Stella in the head. Nolan lost it. He stormed over and slapped me across the face. I stumbled backward and crashed into the piano bench. Instinctively, I put my hand out to catch myself. My old wrist injury exploded with pain. I heard something crack. Tears sprang to my eyes. Nolan hesitated for a second, then reached for me. I recoiled like he was contaminated. “Don’t touch me. You’re filthy.” Nolan pulled his hand back. His face twisted with anger. “You want to be difficult? Fine. I’ll have them tear the whole thing apart!” Stella touched her forehead and pouted. “Babe, look, she made me bleed. Don’t you think she owes me some kind of compensation?” “How about this? I’ll convince Nolan not to destroy the piano. Just give it to me as an apology and we’ll call it even.” “Get out! Both of you get the fuck out!” Rage took over. I grabbed the piano bench and hurled it at them. It crashed to the floor with a deafening bang. Stella immediately ducked behind Nolan. I stood in front of the piano, my eyes burning red. “If anyone touches this piano, I’ll kill them!” “Harper! You’ve lost your goddamn mind!” Nolan was furious. He shoved me hard. He loomed over me, disgust written all over his face. “Look at yourself! You’re acting like a psycho! No wonder your mom didn’t want you. If she really is dead, you probably drove her to it. You deserve this!” “Today, I’m going to teach you a lesson on her behalf!” How dare he bring up my mother? I put every ounce of strength I had into the slap I gave him. My hand went numb from the impact. “Shut your fucking mouth! You don’t get to talk about my mom!” Nolan’s face snapped to the side. His eyes filled with disbelief. Stella shrieked. “Harper, how could you hit him? I wouldn’t even hurt a hair on Nolan’s head!” The movers arrived at the door. Nolan’s face was stone. “That one. Take it away.” “No!” The movers looked at me blocking the piano and hesitated. “Um, she doesn’t seem to agree. Are you sure about this?” Nolan sneered and pulled out a thick stack of cash from his wallet. “Triple your rate. Don’t listen to a word the lunatic says.” Stella immediately chimed in, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. “Guys, don’t mind her. She’s my best friend’s girlfriend. She’s, uh, got some issues.” She tapped her temple and gave them a knowing look. “Alright then.” The lead mover looked at me with pity and waved to his crew. “Boys, let’s get to work.” “No! Please don’t! You can’t!” I tried to stop them, but Nolan grabbed me from behind. Between the injuries and the sleepless nights, I had no strength left to fight back. Nolan held me in place while putting on a sickeningly sweet voice. “Baby, just relax. The doctor said seeing this piano triggers you. We’re moving it for your own good.” The movers carried the piano out the door and down the hall until it disappeared. Nolan let go of me. There wasn’t an ounce of warmth in his eyes. I felt numb. I stared at him through blurred vision and screamed, “Nolan! We’re done! It’s over!” He didn’t even look back. He took Stella’s hand and walked away. “Fine! You want to break up? Don’t come crawling back!”

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Every wolf in the Iron-Fang pack says I’m not the same Luna anymore. I no longer slipped out of bed before dawn to brew Valerius his morning herbal. And no longer press the creases from his Alpha command uniform before each council. Seven days passed like this. On the seventh night, Valerius returned, shrugged off his mantle, and looked at me. I was reading the healing grimoire. “What’s wrong with you lately?” After seven days of silence, that was the first thing he said to me. His voice carried the chill of deep water — controlled, distant, not a thread of warmth in it. I looked up and studied his face in the candlelight. He was striking in the way that powerful wolf often are. The she-wolves of the pack said Valerius needed only to stand in a room to attract everyone’s attention. I had believed that once. But this life, I had reborn, and I was not going to make the same mistakes again. In my last life, every she-wolf in the territory envied me, said my ancestors must have pleased the Moon Goddess for me to be fated to a man like Valerius. He was the Alpha of the Iron-Fang Pack and commander of the Lycan Council, gifted with both power and a presence. Being his Luna was supposed to be a blessing beyond measure. I had believed that completely, and I entered this palace. On our mating night, he said, “The pack and the Council will always come before everything else.” “I have no time for sentiment, and no energy for a mate’s expectations. If you understand that, stay and do something useful.” I nodded, my face still warm, and told him I understood that he should focus on protecting the pack, and I would hold the palace together for him. I had meant every word and I kept every one of them. He had no time for the palace, so I ran it — every supply ledger, every Elder negotiation, every pack ceremony. When I caught a fever I brewed my own herb and heal myself. When a rogue’s blade caught my side during a border escort, I bound the wound myself and said nothing. And when wolfsbane poisoning began destroying me from the inside, and I was vomiting blood through the nights, I still said nothing. I handled everything alone rather than diverting his attention from those critical matters. He swept the Council clean of corruption at thirty. He stood above every rival by thirty-five. At forty, he was granted a title no wolf had held in two centuries. At the feast celebrating that title, a beta raised a cup and asked how he regarded the mate who had stood behind his rise. Valerius turned his goblet and said, “We have mated for many years, but I have never felt anything for her beyond that bond. ” “My devotion belongs to this territory and the wolves under my protection. Sentiment is smoke. The pack endures.” The hall applauded. They called it the answer of a true Alpha — selfless, uncompromising. Then he rushed to the next border campaign and never came back to the packhouse. He didn’t know when the wolfsbane eroded my body. Even when I died in the eastern wing, undiscovered for three days until a servant passed by. I watched my own burial from above as a fading spirit, without ceremony. I saw Valerius receive the news in his war tent, acknowledge it with a single quiet sound. I spent an entire life learning that we were never meant for the same path. He was a revered Alpha, respected by the pack. But being his mate was too much to bear. His heart belonged entirely to the pack; there was no room left for me. So when I woke to find myself back three years after our mating bond, the first thing I did was make up my mind to sever the bond. The second was to write a application to the Moonshadow Enclave, the ancient healer’s valley sealed from pack politics by old protective magic. Their reply was due in two days. “Nothing in particular,” I said, closing my grimoire. “I had time, so I read.” His brow furrowed. “What use do you have for that?” His tone carried no malice. In his mind, my purpose was to manage the palace and stay out of the way. Outside the window, two of the night-watch she-wolves were murmuring. “Seven days and the Luna hasn’t once gone to the gate. She used to pace until her feet ached when the Alpha ran late.” “Her birthday was last week. She had prepared. The candles burned to nothing and the Alpha never came.” “He keeps her too cold for too long…” Valerius glanced toward the window, then turned back. “I don’t observe birthday, the time is better spent on Council reports.” He drew two scrolls from his sleeve and set them on the table. “The Alpha King is hosting a Moon Gathering tomorrow night. You will attend with me. Resume your normal routines beginning tomorrow — this ends here.” I looked at the scrolls — gold-pressed parchment stamped with the Alpha King’s seal, the kind of invitation mated pairs across the territory would fight for. A month ago, I would have been unable to sleep from excitement. Now I only felt the exhaustion. “I am not going,” I said. Valerius went completely still. He looked at me with a flicker of surprise. In three years of mating, I had never once said no to him.

“Why not?” he asked. I stood up and said I was tired and needed to rest. I turned toward the bed. Valerius stepped in front of me and blocked my path. “Get changed. The Gathering doesn’t end for another half hour. We’re going now.” I looked at him and thought of all the times I had simply turned around and done whatever he said. He was already reaching for my cloak. Before I could say another word, he had it around my shoulders and was steering me out the door. An hour later we were on the river road heading home, the Gathering behind us. He spent the return ride reviewing a sealed dispatch by lamplight. I watched the dark trees pass outside the window. Then the horses screamed. Rogues hit the carriage from both sides, half-shifted and fast. The frame lurched violently. I grabbed the door frame and held on. I saw Valerius shift into his wolf form, straight to the strongbox bolted beneath the seat, the one holding the territorial defense maps. He wrapped both arms around it and drove his shoulder through the carriage roof. The door buckled. I went with it. When I came to, I was in the mud at the edge of the road. Valerius stood nearby, strongbox secure under his arm, scanning the tree line. Unharmed. He had not looked for me once. I got up, checked my limbs, and walked to the nearest pack clinic. The healer was cleaning my wound when Valerius told me through the mind link that urgent Council matters required his return to the palace. I was used to this. Then she said, “A letter arrived for you from a messenger-wolf just now. I left it on the pillow.” I broke the seal with one hand. It was from the Moonshadow Enclave. Exceptional aptitude. Accepted unconditionally. Report at your earliest convenience. My fingers began to tremble and my tears fell onto the parchment. I folded the letter and pressed it against my chest. All I needed now was to reject him. Then I could leave. In the days that followed, I stayed alone in the pack clinic. The healers on duty would chat among themselves during quiet hours. About the she-wolf in the next room whose mate hadn’t left her bedside once. About a warrior who had crossed half the territory just to find a rare herb for his mate’s recovery. I listened in silence. My leg was heavy with injury, but my heart felt strangely light. The day I was discharged, I walked out on a crutch and went straight to the market district. I bought what I needed for the journey to the Moonshadow Enclave. It was midday when I finished. I stepped into a nearby tavern and had barely found a seat when the door opened and Valerius walked in. He was not alone. The woman beside him was Isolde, the pack’s only female Gamma and Lead Strategist. She her hair pinned high, and when she smiled her eyes caught the light in a way that made the whole room notice her. Something pricked at my chest. Isolde. In my first life, that name had haunted me like a curse. Many she-wolves admired Valerius, but he kept everyone at a distance. His eyes were always on the pack business, nothing else. Isolde was clever enough to know that. She never spoke of feelings. She only ever spoke of strategy. “Alpha, I believe this defensive formation has a flaw worth addressing…” “Alpha, I’d like to go over the border map with you one more time…” “Alpha, would you look over this report before I submit it to the Council…” Under the cover of pack duty, she positioned herself beside him naturally, sharing his table, his late nights, his attention. In my first life, the hours Isolde spent with Valerius, even the exchange of a glance, all of it far outnumbered anything I had ever shared with my own mate. In the past, seeing this would have stolen my appetite entirely. Now I simply turned back to the menu in my hands, calm and unbothered. Then Isolde’s sharp eyes swept the room and landed on me. “Is that… the Luna?”

Isolde spotted me first and waved, pulling Valerius over with her. “What a coincidence,” she said warmly. “Valerius and I just finished going over the strategy. I’m treating him to lunch as thanks for his guidance. Don’t misunderstand, Luna.” Her words were perfectly polite. Her eyes were not. Valerius gave me a brief nod, sat down, and opened the report he had brought. He didn’t ask about my wound. He didn’t ask about anything. I looked at him for a moment, then looked away. “I’m not misunderstanding anything,” I said. “Order what you like.” Isolde blinked. That clearly wasn’t the reaction she expected. She glanced at Valerius. He still hadn’t looked up. Just then, a server came through carrying a large pot of boiling broth. The floor near our table was slick from the morning wash. His foot slipped, and the pot tilted, straight toward Isolde. Valerius moved instantly. He grabbed me and yanked me forward. The scalding liquid hit my back. The pain tore through me, burning through fabric, searing into skin. But Valerius was already reaching for Isolde, grabbing her hands and turning them over to check every finger. “Did it burn you?” His voice was urgent in a way I had never heard directed at me. “Your hands draw every map the Council uses. You cannot afford even a small injury.” Isolde’s eyes went glassy. “Just a few drops,” she whispered. “I’m fine…” “I’ll get burn salve,” Valerius said, already standing, already walking toward the door without a backward glance. I stayed bent over the table, my back on fire, but I made no sound. The server was pale with panic. I asked him quietly if there was herb in the back. There was. I took it and made my way to the storage room behind the kitchen. I sat on a wooden crate and worked the herb across the burns myself, one slow touch at a time, breathing through the pain. The door opened and Isolde walked in. She looked at the raw, blistered skin on my back and laughed. “Does it hurt?” she asked. “He pushed you without thinking twice. You burned so I wouldn’t have to, and he left without checking your wound.” I said nothing. “I’ve never understood you, Sera.” She stepped closer. “Valerius has no feelings for you. Why are you still holding on to his Luna?” I pulled my shirt back into place and turned to face her. “And you?” I said. “You know perfectly well he has no feelings for you either. You’re a Gamma, Isolde. You have real rank and real ability.” “But instead of using that mind for this pack, you spend it scheming over him. I feel sorry for the Council that they have someone like you in their ranks.” Her face went cold. Before I could move past her, she reached into her jacket and pulled out a rolled piece of parchment — one of the reports Valerius had been reviewing. She struck a flint. The edge caught fire immediately. “Help! Someone help!” she screamed, stumbling backward. “The Luna is burning the defense maps!” She shoved the burning parchment into my hands and threw herself against the far wall, crying out. The flame bit into my palms. I dropped it and moved to stamp it out, but Isolde lunged forward and shoved me hard into the stone wall behind me. The back of my head cracked against stone. Everything went black. When I woke, I was in the pack clinic again. I opened my eyes and saw Valerius standing at the foot of the bed. His face was like carved ice. “Sera,” he said, and his voice was colder than I had ever heard it. “I pulled you in front of that pot because Isolde is a ranked Council officer. She is essential to this pack. I thought you, as Luna, would understand that some things are bigger than personal feelings.” “Even if you resented it, you should have come to me. But you dared to burn a border report? Do you have any idea how many lives depend on those maps? That was Council intelligence!” “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“I didn’t do it,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Isolde burned it herself.” “You didn’t?” Valerius let out a cold laugh. His eyes were full of disappointment and something darker. “That defense report was three months of Isolde’s work. It’s her career, her future. You think she would destroy that just to frame you? Sera, I knew you were jealous, but I never thought you would go this far.” His words hit like blows. He would rather believe a lie than trust his own mate. Just then, heavy footsteps echoed up the stairs. A squad of pack enforcers entered the room, their expressions grim. “Alpha Valerius,” The lead enforcer said. “We received a report that someone deliberately destroyed sealed Council intelligence with intent to compromise pack security.” “The suspect is your mate, Sera. This matter concerns territorial safety. By law, she must be taken into custody for interrogation.” I stared at Valerius in disbelief. Compromising pack security? Isolde hadn’t just framed me for burning a map, she had accused me of treason. “Take her,” the enforcer said, gesturing to his men. One of them stepped forward with silver chains. “Wait,” Valerius said sharply. The enforcer paused. “Alpha?” “The original maps are still archived in the Council vault,” Valerius said, his tone hard as iron. “The loss is not irreparable. My mate is ignorant and acted out of jealousy, but she has no ability or motive to betray this pack.” “I will stake my position on this. Whatever punishment you deem fit, I will bear it. Demotion, suspension, confinement — I accept it all. But you will not take her.” The enforcer hesitated. “This is irregular, Alpha. The law—” “I am the Alpha,” Valerius said, his voice carrying the weight of command. “She stays. I will punish her on my own.” The enforcer exchanged glances with his men. Finally, he nodded. “But there will be consequences for this, Alpha. The Council will not overlook it.” “I understand,” Valerius said coldly. “You may go.” The enforcers filed out, their boots heavy on the wooden floor. The room fell silent. I looked at Valerius. For a moment — just a moment — something warm flickered in my chest. He had protected me. “Why?” I asked, my voice shaking. “You think I’m guilty. You hate what I did. Why would you stake your position to keep me out of their hands?” Valerius looked at me without warmth. “The detention cells are damp and filthy,” he said. “If you went in there, you would come out broken even if you survived.” “My mother’s health has worsened. She will only take the medicinal broth when you prepare it. No one else can make it the way she tolerates. ” The warmth in my chest died instantly. “And there are countless other matters in the palace that require your attention. Right now, no one else can manage them as efficiently as you do.” He paused, then added, “So you need to stay alive.That’s why I kept you here.” I stared at him and suddenly I understood that Isolde had been right. He didn’t keep me because I was his mate. He kept me because I was useful. I started laughing. It came out broken and bitter, and once I started I couldn’t stop. Valerius’s brow furrowed. “Are you insane?” “If someone better came along,” I said through the laughter, my voice shaking, “someone more obedient, more capable, better at your palace, would you replace me?” Valerius was silent for a moment. Then he straightened his collar and answered with the honesty. “If such a person existed,” he said, “and caused no disruption to my work, then yes. I would consider it.”

I laughed even harder, until my stomach cramped and the burns on my back split open again. Valerius looked at me with cold distaste, as if I were irrational as he suspected. He turned away, walked to where Isolde stood by the door, and offered her his arm. She leaned into him with tears still wet on her face. They left together. The carriage rolled away into the distance. I returned to the small guest house on the palace grounds alone. By nightfall I was burning with fever. Two days passed. Valerius did not come. On the third afternoon, the door opened. Isolde walked in, several older she-wolves following behind her. Her hand was wrapped in excessive white bandages, and she wore a victorious smile. “I’m surprised,” she said, settling into the main chair. “Even under suspicion of treason, Valerius still protected you from the cells. It seems you do have some small worth to him after all.” “Worth?” I said quietly. “You heard what he said. He just needs someone to prepare his mother’s medicine.” “Does that matter?” Isolde leaned forward. “As long as you hold that Luna title, I find you unbearable. Do you know what Valerius said to me recently, Sera? ” “He said you’ve become bitter and resentful lately. That seeing you makes him uncomfortable.” She stood suddenly and swept her hand across the small table. The medicine bowl shattered on the floor. “Since Valerius won’t handle you properly,” she said, “I will. Take her out.” The she-wolves moved forward and grabbed my arms before I could react. I was weak with fever, my body uncooperative. They dragged me out of the house and into the street. They brought me to the busiest market square in the territory, where everyone could see. Isolde positioned herself in the center and began to cry. “Look, everyone! This is our Luna! She burned sealed Council maps out of jealousy because Valerius values my work! ” “She even tried to scald my hands so I could never draw another map! And she walks free while loyal wolves suffer!” The crowd began to gather, their faces hard. “She burned defense maps? That’s treason!” “She attacked a Council Gamma?” Isolde held up her bandaged hand. “These hands serve the pack’s defense. She wanted to destroy them because she couldn’t bear that Valerius respected my abilities!” Someone threw a rotten vegetable. It hit my shoulder. Then stones. I tried to stay upright, but a heavy kick caught my ribs and I collapsed onto the cobblestones. I curled inward, trying to protect my head. More blows came. Fists, boots, things I couldn’t see. Then a boot came down hard on my right hand, the hand I needed for healing. Crack. The pain was so sharp the world went black. When I woke, I was lying on a bench in the Council Elder’s meeting hall. A healer was setting my hand in a wooden splint. “You’re fortunate,” he said quietly. “One of the Elders was passing through the square and saw what happened. He had you brought here.” He finished tying the splint and looked at me seriously. “Your small finger is fractured. One of your ribs is broken.” I stared at the splint for a long time without speaking. Then I pushed myself upright and walked to the great hall where the Council Elders heard grievances. “I am here to file charges against Gamma Isolde,” I said, my voice steady despite the pain. “For inciting public violence, orchestrating an assault, and causing severe bodily harm. I have witnesses.” Three days later, the Council brought Isolde in for judgment. The case was too public to ignore, too many witnesses to dismiss. Despite attempts from the palace to intervene, the Elders handed down their ruling. Twenty lashes. Six months suspension from her Gamma duties. Confined to quarters during that time. I stayed in the pack clinic for the remainder of the week, staring out the window as my body slowly knitted itself back together. Seven days later, I returned to the palace. I pushed open the door to my quarters and found the room in ruins. Shattered porcelain covered the floor. Valerius sat in the center of it all, his expression dark as a storm. He looked up the moment I entered. “You reported her to the Council?” His voice was flat and dangerous. “You had Isolde arrested?” I stepped over the broken pieces and said nothing. “I’m asking you a question!” Valerius shot to his feet and grabbed my shoulders so tight I felt my bones grinding together. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The Council’s annual strategy is next month — her entire career depends on it! You’ve destroyed her reputation and her future!”

He shook me so hard my vision blurred. My broken rib sent sharp pain through my chest with every movement. I pulled my right hand free and held it up between us. “Isolde came to the guest house,” I said. “She brought others with her and had me dragged into the market square. She told the crowd I was a traitor. They beat me. Someone stomped on my hand and broke the bones.” I looked at him steadily. “I’m a healer, Valerius. Do you have any idea what this hand means to me?” His eyes dropped to my hand. For just a moment, something flickered across his face. Then it was gone, replaced by cold stone. “You burned her work first,” he said. “You pushed her to that point. If you hadn’t been so spiteful, none of this would have happened.” He released me and stepped back. “Why couldn’t you have been reasonable about this? Why did you have to drag the Council Elders into it and humiliate this entire pack?” “Reasonable?” I said quietly. “You mean let her cripple my hand and say nothing? Let her walk free while I lose everything?” “I was trying to survive, Valerius. Not take revenge.” “Survive?” He let out a harsh laugh. “You’re still pretending this wasn’t about jealousy? You can’t stand that she’s more useful than you.” I looked at him and felt the exhaustion settle deep into my bones. I was so tired. Too tired to argue with someone who had already decided what he believed. “Think what you want,” I said. “The Elders made the arrest. The law passed the sentence. If you’re so powerful, go tear down their hall.” I turned and walked toward the inner room. “Stop.” Valerius pushed past me and went straight to the vanity. He yanked open the bottom drawer. Inside was a small carved wooden box. My mother’s box. The one that held her final gift to me — a moonstone amulet carved with protective runes, the only thing I had left of her. “What are you doing?” My voice came out sharp with panic. I lunged forward to stop him. Valerius was taller, stronger. He held the box high above my reach with one hand and opened it with the other. The moonstone amulet glinted in the dim light. “I know this is the one thing you care about,” he said coldly. “So hear me clearly, Sera. If you ever touch Isolde again — if you ever damage her career or mine — I will destroy it.” “Valerius, you bastard!” I threw myself at him, clawing for the amulet. “That was my mother’s! Give it back!” “Remember what I said.” He held the amulet as if he were about to drop it. I froze. My whole body began to shake. Tears spilled down my face before I could stop them. “Please,” I whispered. I sank to my knees. “Please don’t. I’m begging you. Don’t touch it.” A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face, as if he had finally found the lever that controlled me. “Then behave yourself,” he said. He turned toward the door, slipping the amulet into his pocket. Just then, a voice shouted from outside. “Alpha! Emergency! The northern river has breached the barrier — the Alpha King need you to the Council immediately!” Valerius’s expression changed. He moved toward the door without hesitation. I grabbed his sleeve. “Give me the amulet back. Now.” He was already thinking about the crisis, his mind elsewhere. He yanked his arm free with more force than he intended. “Let go!” The motion carried the full strength of an Alpha’s instinct. I was thrown backward. My body slammed into the sharp corner of the doorframe. The impact was immediate and brutal. My head cracked against the wood. Something warm began streaming down my face, covering my eyes in red. Valerius stopped. He turned and saw me on the floor, blood pouring from my forehead. His eyes widened slightly. His hand lifted, as if to help. “Alpha, please!” the voice called again from outside. His hand froze in midair. Then he lowered it, closed his fist around the amulet in his pocket, and turned away. “Clean yourself up,” he said without looking back. “Stop being dramatic.” Then he was gone. I heard his boots on the stone, heard the horse’s hooves strike the ground and fade into the storm. I sat on the cold floor and tasted copper in my mouth. I touched my face. My hand came away completely red. I started laughing. In the darkness, with thunder rolling overhead and rain hammering the roof, I sat alone and laughed until my throat was raw. This was the man I had loved for two lifetimes. And in that moment, the last thread of feeling I had for him, bled out with the blood on my face and died.

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Eight years ago, my brother poured Moonshade into my wine so the Heir Alpha could mark my sister at the bonding ceremony instead of me. I woke up tied to a rogue, broke his nose, and ran. I’m a wreck ，mud on my cheek, eight feral pups tearing around my legs, jerky between my teeth. “Little Wren —” Rowan’s eyes go red. “You hated pups. You were going to be the first female Beta on the Lycan King’s Council. What happened to you?” I keep chewing. Bend down. Yank two muddy little cubs out of the puddle. I whistle for the rest. Inside, pups. “Wren — sweetie —” Serena steps in front of me, tears already brimming. “It was Rowan who talked Father and Mother into the Moonshade. It was Damien who switched us at the bonding ceremony.” Damien Blackthorn just stands there holding her hand. Calm. Waiting for me to scream. Rowan’s voice goes flat. “The rogue was ugly, sure. But he took Serena in when she was lost in the wild. Treated her decent. You only had it bad for a little while, Wren. Don’t make a scene.” Eight years ago, Serena padded back to Silvercrest claiming to be the real Beta-blood. I shut her out at the territory line. That was my crime. These eight years were the lesson. “The rogue’s dead now, Wren. We came to bring you home.” Serena’s eyes drop to the pups. Her nose wrinkles. “But these mongrels are filthy. Low-blood. We can’t bring them. If they’ve been such a burden, let’s just put them down.” My head snaps up. Put them down? The girl swinging from the rafter is the Grand Gamma’s daughter. The brunette baring tiny milk-fangs is Alpha Harlan’s pup. The two boys tossing bone dice are Lycan princes from the Ironvale Kingdom. … “You’ll finally be free of them, Wren — aren’t you happy?” She dabs her eyes and beams. Her warriors fan out in a tight ring. Steel hisses out of every sheath. I scoop the smallest pup against my chest. This one cannot get a scratch. Alpha Calder’s bloodline has whelped one heir every five generations. The whole Calder pack would burn this kingdom for her. “What — you don’t want them dead?” Damien’s voice drops, Alpha Aura rolling off him in waves. “Wren Ashford. You really planning to drag eight stray mutts back into Silvercrest with you, into my wing of the pack house?” I clamp a hand over Alpha Harlan’s daughter’s mouth fast. Tiny demon’s got the sharpest tongue in three packs. “Are you embarrassed, Wren? Don’t be. Damien doesn’t mind that you’ve been touched by a rogue. He’ll still take you into his wing when we get home.” Like she’s offering me a Luna’s crown. It’s a leash. “I’m not coming back.” They all freeze. Rowan’s lip curls. “Eight years and that’s how you snarl at her? Forget every rule the Ashford pack ever drilled into you?” I forgot more than the rules. I forgot the snowy night Rowan walked Serena home with his arm around her, leaving me bleeding in the courtyard. Forgot Serena grinding my mate token under her heel while Damien watched, unflinching. Eight years is enough to bury all of it. “Move, Wren. Don’t tell me you got so attached to that rogue mutt you’ve been mourning him these eight years like a widow.” Damien smiles — cruel. Eyes dragging over the pups like vermin. “They’re not mine. You can’t touch them. You can’t afford to touch them.” A Heir Alpha. So what. The pups don’t even glance at him. “You’d disown your own litter to protect them?” Damien sneers. Fangs drop, claws extend mid-shift — and he lunges, claws driving straight at the smallest pup. “I can’t afford to?” My heart stops. I throw my arm out to block — Rowan’s hand cracks across my face so hard my wolf yelps inside my skull. “I thought a rogue forced a litter into you! Now I see you rolled over for him willingly — you disgrace every wolf carrying the Ashford scent!” Every pup in the clearing freezes. Blood roars in my ears. One slow breath. My heart sinks like a stone. “Damien. Breathe him in. Just one breath.” Little Eight wasn’t fast enough. Blood drips down his arm into the dirt — and the second the iron tang hits the air, every wolf flinches at once. Pure Lycan blood. Royal. Ancient. He buries his face against my neck. I tug his collar back and bare his shoulder. “No, look. Take a good look.” The crescent-and-fang birthmark of the Lycan bloodline burns silver against his skin. The mark only the Lycan King’s direct kin carry. Serena’s eyes go round as moons. But Damien’s claws stay raised, fangs still bared. “The Lycan King has no nephew.” “You can’t even scent pure Lycan blood when it’s bleeding right in front of you?!” Harlan’s daughter wrenches free, untrained Alpha aura crackling around her in a furious silver halo. “My father is Alpha Harlan! Lay a paw on us and my dad’s whole pack will tear Silvercrest apart before sunrise!” This time, Serena slaps her clean across the face. The borderlands go silent. Even the wind dies. Striking the daughter of an Alpha is a declaration of war. Serena lifts her chin. Smiles. “Are these all the little props you’ve prepared, Wren?”

I rip a strip off my sleeve, press it hard against Little Eight’s bleeding arm. “Serena. You just spilled pure Lycan blood. That’s a death sentence.” Rowan barely glances at me. “Lycan blood? Little Wren — your acting’s getting sloppy.” Serena lifts her chin like she just won a war. Loops her arm through Damien’s. Smug. Triumphant. I lock eyes with him across the clearing. Look at me. Really look at me. For one long second, he doesn’t blink. Then his face goes blank. “Wren. You’ve learned to lie.” I almost had him. Serena bites her lip — the fake, wounded little pout she’s spent eight years perfecting. “If word reaches the Lycan King, every wolf carrying the Ashford scent gets put down. Every single one. And she’d still do it — that’s how much she hates me.” Rowan and Damien’s brows snap together at once. “I’m right here. Don’t be scared.” Damien’s arm wraps around her, lips brushing her forehead. Soft. Tender. Sickening. Rowan’s rage finally cracks. “Eight years and you still haven’t learned? What do you want from us, Wren? Serena’s the real Ashford blood — you’re not. You don’t get to fight her. You don’t even get the right to resent her.” The words land like blades. Straight through the ribs. A tiny warm hand wraps around my freezing fingers. “They were rotten to you. Every wolf in three packs knows it.” Alpha Harlan’s daughter. My tiny demon. My tiny mercy. I force a smile down at her, then pull my face cold again. “Fifteen more minutes. Then you’ll know if I’m lying.” Fifteen minutes. That’s when the pup-runners come — pack escorts collecting their precious little charges. The same hour I usually kick off my boots and head home empty-handed. “Are you done stalling?!” Rowan’s hackles are up, fury bleeding red into his eyes. Serena slides forward, sweet as ever. “The Ashford pack can feed eight more mouths. If Wren wants to keep these strays alive… fine. Keep them.” Damien’s face flickers — annoyed. But he sighs, looking down at her with all the tender Heir Alpha softness in the world. “Whatever you want, Serena. I’m with you.” That settles Rowan too. I crush Little Eight tighter against me until my knuckles go white. “We’ll call them orphan strays. Beggar pups.” Serena smiles, gentle as poisoned milk. “But Wren — sweetie — you’re going into Damien’s wing of the Silvercrest pack house. You can’t stay tangled up with mongrels. Not one paw out of line.” She drifts close. Slow. Lazy. Eyes glittering with something ugly. “So just so you remember — every little life you save, we carve one cut into you.” The pups close ranks around me before her words even finish. “You three — enough!” “Wren is brilliant! Even my royal Lycan father praises her! This is how Silvercrest treats her?! I’m telling my father the second I get home — she’s coming back with me! No one gets to bully her!” “My mama’s still waiting for Wren to teach her the harp! Don’t you dare hurt her!” “Got the guts to wait fifteen minutes?! You’re using us to threaten her?! Cowards! When my dad gets here, none of you will have a paw left to stand on!” In a heartbeat, every one of them is pinned. Mouths gagged. Knees forced into the dirt. And then — Fifteen minutes hits. “Lady Wren!” A pack warrior bursts out of the treeline still half-shifted, fur and fangs receding mid-stride, eyes blown wide with fury. “Stand down! Who are you people?!” I look past his shoulder. No one else. My stomach drops. “You came alone?” His voice goes rough. Guarded. “Rogues are causing chaos at the borders. Alpha Calder ran out with the rest of the pack. He’s not back yet.” Rogues at the borders. Which means the Ironvale escort coming for the two Lycan princes can’t get through either. “Stop pretending.” Damien’s eyes are dark — something ugly and complicated churning in them. His voice drops, scrapes raw at the edges. “Wren. The rogue’s whelps — you love them that much? You’d bleed out for them? Move heaven and earth?”

The smile freezes on Serena’s lips. Her nails dig into Damien’s hand. He doesn’t react. She shoots me a glare — then her free hand flies to her mouth and she gasps at Garrick. “Boyd?! You’re supposed to be dead! No wonder Wren wouldn’t come home with us!” Damien’s eyes go bottomless cold. “Don’t stay here,” I snap at Garrick. “Ride for Alpha Calder. Or the Grand Gamma. Now.” Both of them wear the Lycan King’s personal mark on their shoulder. Every wolf in three kingdoms knows their scent on sight. Damien cannot mistake them for rogues. Garrick blinks. Turns to bolt — already shifting mid-stride to run for backup. Then Damien snaps. Before any of us can move, his fangs drop, his hand half-shifted into claws — and he lunges, slamming Garrick down before the shift can finish, claws driving straight for his throat. “Damien — stop! He’s a borderlands warrior!” He doesn’t hear me. Garrick rolls, dodging the first strike. But he’s outnumbered. Serena’s warriors swarm him — and a dozen blades sink into him at once. Hot blood sprays across my face. My mouth falls open. My mind goes white. “Don’t hurt him! He doesn’t deserve this!” Nobody believes me. They rip their swords back out. Garrick drops to one knee in the dirt, gritting through it. A warrior stomps his boot down on the back of Garrick’s neck and grinds his forehead into the ground. Damien withdraws his claws like he’s touched filth. “What borderlands warrior, Wren? He raised fangs at the Heir Alpha. He’s an assassin.” Serena’s smile blooms wider. The blade beside me lifts. Catches the cold light. “Better think fast, sweetie. These eight pups — you saving them, or not?” “I save them.” Eight cuts won’t kill me. These pups’ parents kept me alive these eight years. I owe them. The first four blades come down. Iron-thick blood floods the air. Every wolf in the clearing flinches. Rowan rips a sword from a warrior’s hand, veins bulging at his temple. “Wren! You’re STILL going to save them?!” Somewhere behind me, a tiny pup chokes on a sob. I’m drenched in cold sweat. Twitching. “I save them. And I’m not coming back.” Rowan snaps. Four more blades carve down across me. His voice is cold as winter iron. “That’s not your call. You haven’t paid what you owe Serena. You haven’t paid what you owe the Ashford line.” I swallow the scream. Plant my hands in the dirt. Slowly — slowly — push myself upright. My wolf is whimpering somewhere far away. Drowned under the pain. Serena watches and glows. “Rowan — look at her. Gods, she’s bleeding everywhere. She’s… she’s carrying a litter, isn’t she? Bringing a pregnant belly back home? What would Mother say? Oh, this is my fault. I shouldn’t have pushed her so hard.” I look down, dazed. It’s Little Eight’s blood. Pooled on my lap from where I’ve been clutching him. Damien’s head whips around. Two words grind out between his fangs. “Get rid of it.” The warriors seize my arms, wrench them behind me, drag me back — force my stomach exposed. A fist slams into me with the full weight of Heir Alpha strength. I choke on a muffled cry. Every organ inside me feels shifted out of place. Can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Can’t even shift — my wolf is too weak under the blood loss. “Lies — all of it — Lady Wren’s never been marked! Her neck is clean — where would a litter even come from?!” Garrick spits the words through a mouthful of blood, still defending me. Still. Serena slowly lays a hand on the neck of the pup nearest her. Her fingers curl. “I’m lying?” She catches the panic flaring in Garrick’s eyes and lets out a soft, mournful sigh. “If they’re not Wren’s pups… then why do you care so much, hmm?”

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