Cain was being carried into the healer's treatment room just as the Alpha Council enforcers arrived at the pack house gates.

The two groups nearly crossed paths, but Cain only had eyes for Vivienne — draped over his chest, sobbing as if the world were ending. He didn't even notice the enforcers.

I stood at the far end of the second-floor corridor, watching them disappear behind the treatment room doors.

Then I turned and went back to my room.

The enforcer was already waiting inside. He spread the Mate Bond dissolution papers on the table and walked me through each clause, his tone clinical and professional.

I wiped the last trace of moisture from the corner of my eye, picked up the pen, and signed my name with a perfectly steady hand.

Seven years of a mate bond.

Ended by a single document.

So that was all it took.

The next day, I brought the papers to Cain's treatment room.

Before I even reached the door, voices leaked through.

"The Luna's heartless, isn't she? Cain nearly died in the sacred grounds, and she didn't show her face all night?"

"Look at Vivienne — stayed by his side the entire time. Changed his bandages, cleaned the blood, didn't sleep a wink. If you ask me, that's what a real Luna looks like…"

I kicked the door open.

The voices died instantly. I walked in, my boots sharp on the floor, and swept my gaze across their faces. One by one, they lowered their heads.

Vivienne was already positioned in front of Cain's bed, eyes swollen and red, her voice trembling.

"Luna, I followed him into the Alpha Trial of my own free will. If you still want someone to blame, then punish me… Please, don't torment him anymore. His wounds can't take any more…"

She bit her lip. Tears rolled down one after another.

On the bed, Cain's face was ashen — but the instant he looked at Vivienne, a flash of anguish crossed his eyes. He reached out and pulled her behind him, shielding her with an arm that was barely functional.

Then he looked up at me, his gaze cold as tempered ice.

"Wren, whatever problem you have, take it up with me. Vivienne passed the Moon Goddess's trial. She has every right to stay in this pack now."

"I won't let you hurt her again."

The way he said it — guarded, defensive — as if I were the one who'd forced my way into someone else's marriage.

Before, I would have thrown every last piece of evidence in his face without a second thought. Gone through it point by point until he couldn't deny who had hurt whom.

But now I simply walked to the bedside and tossed the papers in front of him.

"Sign."

Cain glanced down. Assuming it was a routine pack administrative document, he didn't even look up.

"Pack business can go through the Beta. But since you're here—"

He propped himself up slightly. A softness crept into his voice — something he had never once shown me.

"About Vivienne. I need to make some new arrangements. She'll take the Alpha suite — best exposure, closest to the treatment room. She's been through hell out there after you drove her out of the pack. Her health is wrecked. I'm going to take care of her recovery personally."

Personally.

Those words coming out of his mouth nearly made me think I was hallucinating.

Three years ago, a rogue wolf ambush hit my patrol on the northern border. A mutant rogue crushed my left leg — bone broke through skin, blood trailing behind me the whole way back.

The Beta carried me to the outpost and called Cain.

The pack healer said another thirty minutes and the leg would've been lost for good.

When the call connected, Cain's voice was as flat as if he were discussing the weather.

"You're the Luna. You should learn to handle these things yourself."

Then he hung up.

I bit down on a strip of leather and held on until I made it onto the treatment table. Held my own wound closed while the healer worked.

The wound got infected. The fever kept coming back. Recovery took three full months.

Cain never visited. Not once.

I'd told myself back then that it was just who he was. Cold by nature. Not that he didn't care — he just didn't know how to show it.

But now, here he was, eyes full of tenderness, talking about moving another woman into his room and nursing her back to health himself.

My silence must have meant something else to him. He frowned. "You don't agree? Let me be clear — this isn't up for discussion—"

"I agree."

I cut him off quietly.

"Just sign these papers, and I won't say another word."

That caught him off guard. He blinked, then picked up the documents. Barely glanced at them. Signed his name without hesitation and tossed them back.

"Done." He was already turning to look at Vivienne. "I hope you mean what you say. Leave her alone from now on."

I folded the papers, slipped them into my pocket, and walked toward the door.

At the threshold, I said softly:

"I hope you two are happy."

Cain was wiping Vivienne's tears. He didn't hear a word.

After the documents were sent out via pack courier, the Alpha Council's reply came quickly:

[Luna Wren, the Mate Bond dissolution has been officially processed. It will take full effect on the next full moon, in two weeks' time. Both marks will fade naturally under the moonlight.]

I read the message, and something that had been lodged tight in my chest finally started to loosen.

When I got back to the pack house, the hallway was in chaos.

Servants were hauling my belongings out of the Alpha suite — box after box, stacked in the corner of the corridor. At the same time, Vivienne's clothes and personal items were being carried in.

The butler approached me, choosing his words carefully. "Luna, which room would you prefer? The east guest room has good natural light. I can have it prepared right away—"

"Don't bother."

I glanced at the boxes.

The moonstone candleholder — I'd searched through markets in three different packs before I found it. I'd thought it would catch the moonlight perfectly from the bedside window.

The calming incense I'd blended for Cain — I kept the exact ratios written in a notebook, batch by batch, because he was a light sleeper and even a fraction too strong would give him headaches.

The photograph on the wall, taken at the sacred lake during our first year together. One of the rare times he'd smiled.

"Get rid of all of it."

The butler opened his mouth, then closed it. He turned and went to make the arrangements.

Over the next few days, I shut myself in the small room that had been hastily cleared for me. I packed my things and quietly contacted Elder Seline for updates on Kingsley Pack.

My parents had been the Alpha and Luna of Kingsley Pack.

After they died in the aftermath of a territory war, my mother's sister, Elder Seline, had taken over as interim leader.

She'd been waiting for me to come back and take the Alpha position. But I'd turned her down — I'd been set on being Cain's Luna.

The day Cain recovered enough to return to the pack house, Vivienne came with him.

I heard them arrive. Didn't even look up.

The next few days were the same. I avoided them completely, treated them like they didn't exist.

I thought I could quietly wait out the remaining time until the mate bond dissolved on its own.

Then one night, I was ripped from sleep.

Cain's voice came down through the darkness — low, barely containing his fury.

"Wren, someone put wolfsbane in Vivienne's food."

"She's been here a few days and you're already pulling this?"

"Did you think she wouldn't dare tell me? That you could get away with anything?"

Before he finished, a slender figure appeared in the doorway.

Vivienne stood wrapped in Cain's jacket, face pale, her voice so soft it barely carried — as though she were afraid of disturbing something fragile.

"Alpha… it's really fine. It was just a little wolfsbane. I can handle it. Compared to what Luna used to do to me, this is nothing… Please don't blame her…"

"Compared to what I used to do" — what had I ever done? I had never laid a finger on her.

But Cain's eyes went colder.

I shoved his hand off me.

"I didn't do it. The pack house has surveillance crystals. Check them yourself."

"The servant already confessed." Cain's voice held no warmth whatsoever. "You ordered it."

He threw a half-empty bottle of wolfsbane at my feet. "This is the same type of bottle you use for your herb blends. What's left to explain?"

"Now apologize to Vivienne."

I looked at him.

Then I looked at the woman behind him — head bowed, eyes glistening, every word calculated to perfection.

I let out a short laugh.

I grabbed the bottle of wolfsbane and splashed it directly at Vivienne, right in front of Cain.

Vivienne shrieked, clutching her arm. Where the liquid hit her skin, red welts bloomed instantly.

I met Cain's stunned gaze.

"If I wanted to hurt her, I wouldn't bother sneaking around."

Then I walked past his darkened expression without a second glance, grabbed my jacket, and left the pack house.

My friend Bianca cursed the moment she got my message. Twenty minutes later, she showed up at a tavern outside the territory with a handful of friends.

She slammed her hand on the table before she even sat down. "A wolfsbane frame-up? Seriously? Buy off one servant and suddenly it's your fault? How stupid does Cain have to be to fall for that?"

Mara, sitting next to her, took a long pull of her drink and scoffed. "Wren, you were the Alpha's daughter of Kingsley Pack. You had suitors lined up from the east coast to the west. Who the hell does Cain Ashford think he is?"

"Exactly!" another friend chimed in. "You'll be better off without him."

They went back and forth, ripping into him with gleeful abandon. The pressure in my chest finally eased a little. I raised my glass, clinked it against theirs, and drained it.

When Bianca saw some color return to my face, she slung an arm around my shoulder and steered me toward the back. "Come on. There's a sparring match tonight — some young warriors going at it. Better than sitting here stewing."

They swept me through the crowd. I'd barely found my footing on the viewing platform beside the fighting pit when —

A bucket of ice water crashed down on me from above.

The burn of wolfsbane detonated across my skin — scalp to limbs — like a thousand white-hot needles driving into every inch of my body at once.

Drenched, I stood frozen in place.

The wolfsbane — concentrated, vicious — drove my wolf into near-total collapse. I could barely sense her at all.

Bianca and the others lunged forward, but several Gamma-ranked warriors from Ashford Pack were already blocking their way.

One of them clamped his hand on my shoulder and forced me to the ground.

Then another bucket of wolfsbane ice water came crashing down.

The burn and the cold detonated at the same time. I couldn't even summon enough strength to curse — the words froze in my throat.

Bianca clawed at the warrior's hands. "Let her go! What the hell do you think you're doing? Who gave you the authority—"

"The Luna did something wrong." The warrior's tone was as calm as a weather report. "Alpha Cain's orders. This ends when she apologizes to Vivienne."

The Cain I knew had never used this kind of punishment on any pack member. He handled things with cold restraint. He wasn't even cruel to rogues.

And now he'd ordered his men to douse his Luna in wolfsbane ice water in public — just to force me to bow my head and apologize to that woman.

For what?

I hadn't done anything.

I clenched my jaw and fought, but with my wolf suppressed by the wolfsbane, my body was no different from a human's. The warrior's grip on my shoulders was iron. It didn't budge.

The wolfsbane water came at regular intervals. Burning and freezing, burning and freezing — my skin erupted in angry welts, and feeling drained from my limbs piece by piece.

My resistance grew weaker. Eventually, I couldn't even twitch.

In the end, I heard my own voice grinding out from between my teeth, shaking so badly it barely formed words.

"I'm sorry… I was wrong…"

The grip released. The warriors stepped back and calmly relayed the message.

I lay on the ground — gray-faced, wrung out, trembling without stop — like a rag that had been twisted dry and thrown aside.

The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Bianca rushing over, wrapping her jacket around me, screaming for the pack healer.

When I woke, I was in the treatment room.

My head was splitting. The wolfsbane burns still smoldered across my skin.

The moment I stirred, a cup of warm water appeared in front of me.

I stared at the hand holding it. Then I used every ounce of strength I had left and smashed the cup right back.

"Get out."

The cup shattered on the floor. Water splashed across Cain's sleeve. He wiped it off. His face showed nothing.

"So you do know what pain feels like, Wren?"

"After you threw wolfsbane on Vivienne, she burned with fever for an entire day and night. You know what Omega bodies are like — she nearly died. Did you ever stop to think about how she felt?"

I pushed myself up against the headboard, my voice raw. "If you're so worried about your Vivienne, what are you doing here?"

Before I could finish, my phone buzzed.

A message from Bianca, sharp and furious:

[Wren, someone used your name to contact Seline — trying to get Vivienne installed in a senior position at Kingsley Pack. Did you know about this?]

My head snapped up. I pinned Cain with my gaze.

"That was you."

"How dare you use my name to shove Vivienne into Kingsley Pack? That pack is what my parents left me. Seline has held it together all these years, waiting for me to come back. And you're handing it to an Omega?"

Cain didn't look the least bit surprised.

He frowned slightly, as if my phrasing displeased him.

"The scandal you caused got her blacklisted by every pack. She had nowhere to go. Giving her a safe place — what's wrong with that?"

A pause. His voice was flat.

"It's not like you're planning to go back and run Kingsley Pack anyway."

My nails dug into my palms.

Then he said one more thing.

"You gave up the Alpha position at Kingsley Pack yourself. You chose to bond with me and become Luna of Ashford Pack. That was your decision."

In that instant, every sound in my ears vanished.

So he'd always known.

Known what I'd given up for him. Known that the Kingsley Pack Alpha succession had been mine by right — that I'd handed it over with my own two hands, because I chose to stay by his side.

He knew how much I loved him.

And that was exactly why he could tear that love from my chest so casually now, and drive it back in like a blade.

I was quiet for a long time.

Long enough that Cain took it as agreement and started to get up.

"Fine."

My voice was level.

"But I have one condition."