Kelsey POV:

Before I left the territory forever, I had to go to one place.

I drove my car down the gravel path toward Moonlight Lake. The old suspension groaned over the bumps, a sound that echoed the tightening vice in my chest. This was where Bennett and I had first shifted together. It was where we had promised to lead the pack side by side.

I parked the car and walked toward the water. The scent of damp earth and pine needles usually calmed my wolf, but today, it smelled wrong. It smelled like betrayal.

I froze.

Two figures were standing by the water's edge.

Bennett and Aria.

He was draping his jacket over her shoulders. His movements were gentle, careful—a tenderness that had been absent from our marriage for years.

Aria leaned into him, giggling. The sound grated on my sensitive hearing like claws on a chalkboard.

"Alpha, you are so good to me," she cooed, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. "Unlike how cold you were with her."

Bennett didn't correct her. He didn't defend me. He just pulled her closer.

"The past is the past," he murmured, his voice low. "You are the future."

I felt bile rise in my throat. I stepped back into the shadows of the tree line, intending to leave. But then I saw it.

The Unity Tree.

It was a massive oak where every Alpha and Luna pair carved their initials before the mating ceremony. It was sacred. Bennett and I had carved "B + K" there five years ago. He had told me then, *This mark is permanent, just like my love for you.*

I walked closer, my eyes locking onto the bark.

The carving was gone.

In its place was a jagged, ugly mess. My initial, the "K", had been aggressively scraped out with a knife. Over the scarred wood, fresh carvings bled amber sap.

"B + A".

And below it, a crude drawing of a pup.

My breath hitched. It felt like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it burst.

*He let her do this.* He let a stranger deface our history.

My inner wolf howled, a sound of pure, shattering grief. I stepped out of the shadows.

"Is nothing sacred to you?" I asked, my voice trembling with rage.

Bennett and Aria spun around. Bennett looked surprised, but Aria... Aria smiled.

"Oh, look who it is," Aria said, stepping away from Bennett with a smirk. "Coming to say goodbye to your little tree?"

"You had no right," I spat, walking toward the oak.

"I have every right," Aria countered. "I am carrying his heir. You are just a ghost haunting this pack."

I looked at the tree. The sight of that "A" next to his "B" was an insult to the Moon Goddess herself.

I picked up a sharp rock from the ground.

"What are you doing?" Bennett demanded, stepping forward.

I ignored him. I slammed the rock into the bark, scraping furiously at the fresh carving. I wanted it gone. I wanted *him* gone. I drove the stone into the wood, chipping away his initial, then hers, then the remnants of mine.

I was erasing us.

"Stop it!" Aria shrieked. "Alpha, stop her!"

"Kelsey, put the rock down!" Bennett roared, using his Alpha voice. The command vibrated in the air, pressing against my mind.

My hand faltered, fighting the compulsion, but I didn't stop. I scraped until my knuckles bled, mixing with the tree sap.

Aria rushed at me. "That's mine! He's mine!"

She grabbed my arm, digging her nails into my fresh wounds from the party. The pain flared, hot and sharp.

"Let go!" I shouted.

She pulled a ring from her pocket—a ring Bennett had given her. "Take it! Look at it! He gave me the pledge ring! You can finally let go, you barren waste!"

The insult snapped the last thread of my control.

I didn't think. My wolf reacted. I shoved her. Hard.

"Get away from me!"

Aria stumbled back. Her heels caught on a root. Her arms flailed, and with a high-pitched scream, she fell backward into the freezing water of Moonlight Lake.

*Splash.*

"Aria!" Bennett roared.

He didn't look at me. He didn't ask if I was okay. He dove into the water, ruining his expensive shoes in the mud, scrambling to reach her.

I stood there, panting, the bloody rock still in my hand.

I took a step back, tripping over the same root. My head slammed into the trunk of the Unity Tree.

Black spots danced in my vision. Pain exploded in my skull.

Through the haze, I saw Bennett dragging a coughing, sputtering Aria onto the bank. He held her like she was made of glass.

He looked up at me. His eyes were glowing with the fury of a wolf protecting its mate. But I was his mate. Or I used to be.

"Beta!" Bennett yelled into the air, his voice carrying over the territory. "Get warriors down here!"

He glared at me, his lip curling in disgust.

"Get her out of my sight," he snarled, pointing a shaking finger at me. "I don't want to see her face. She is no longer my mate. She is a threat to my pack."

Two warriors emerged from the woods. They grabbed my arms roughly.

I was dizzy. Blood trickled down my forehead, blinding one eye.

Bennett turned his back on me, focusing entirely on warming Aria up.

As the darkness took me, the last thing I saw was his back. The back I used to wash in the shower. The back I used to cling to.

He didn't look back.

Kelsey POV

I woke to the sharp sting of antiseptic clashing with the earthy scent of old sage.

My head throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache, like a second heartbeat hammering against my skull. I blinked, trying to focus on the sterile white ceiling of the Pack Infirmary.

I was alone.

Usually, if a Luna is injured, the Alpha never leaves her side. He paces. He growls at nurses. He holds her hand until her eyelids flutter open.

But the chair beside my bed stood starkly empty. No jacket draped over the back. No lingering scent of pine and rain.

I tried to sit up, but vertigo tilted the world on its axis.

"Easy, child."

It was Martha, the head Healer. She was an elderly Omega with kind eyes and hands that always carried the soothing aroma of lavender. She gently pushed me back down against the pillows.

"You have a concussion," she whispered. "And you lost blood."

"Where is he?" I asked, my voice cracking like dry parchment. I hated myself for asking.

Martha looked away, refusing to meet my gaze. She busied herself with changing the IV bag, fiddling with the plastic tubing. "The Alpha... he is with Aria. She was in shock from the cold water. He hasn't left her room."

The confirmation hit me harder than the tree trunk had. He was comforting the woman who provoked me, while I lay here bleeding.

"He marked her, Martha," I whispered, the words tasting like ash. "He really did it."

Martha sighed, her face tightening with disapproval. "I know. The whole pack knows. It is... against our ways. To mark another while the first mate lives? It is cruel."

"He said I wasn't his mate anymore," I said, staring blankly at the wall. "He rejected me in everything but the formal words."

"Kelsey?"

The door swung open. It wasn't Bennett.

It was my parents.

My mother rushed to the bed, tears streaming down her face. My father, a stoic warrior who rarely showed emotion, looked like he wanted to tear the throat out of a god.

"Oh, my baby," Mom sobbed, stroking my hair. "We heard what happened at the lake. That... that monster."

"We are leaving," Dad said, his voice low and vibrating with suppressed rage. "I don't care about Pack Law. I don't care about loyalty. Bennett has dishonored you. We are taking you out of here."

I looked at them. They were my blood. My real support.

"I'm going to Paris," I told them. My voice was weak, but the decision was iron in my spine. "I have a contact. The Night Walkers."

Dad nodded, grim affirmation setting his jaw. "We know. We will help you get to the airport. But first... we have to get through today."

"What's today?" I asked.

Martha looked uncomfortable, shifting her weight. "The Alpha... he has ordered a gathering. A 'Welcome Ceremony' for Aria. He wants to officially introduce her as the Luna-elect."

"And he expects me to be there?" I laughed, a dry, humorless sound that scraped my throat.

"He sent a command," Dad growled. "He said all ranked members must witness the transition of power. If you don't go, he threatened to freeze your family's assets before you can leave."

He was holding my family hostage to humiliate me one last time.

"I'll go," I said. I swung my legs off the bed. The room tilted, but I grabbed my father's arm to anchor myself. "I'll go. And I will show him that he cannot break me."

*

Two hours later, I stood in the Pack Gathering Hall.

I wore a simple black dress—mourning attire for a celebration. I wore no jewelry. My face was pale, the bandage on my forehead stark white against my skin.

Bennett stood on the dais. Aria was next to him, wearing a white gown that looked less like a formal dress and more like a mockery of a wedding gown. She wore the Luna's necklace—my necklace.

Bennett looked at me. For a second, his eyes flickered to the bandage on my head. Was that guilt?

No. He looked away, turning his smile to Aria.

"Pack of the Blood Moon!" Bennett announced, his voice booming through the hall. "Today, we embrace the future. Aria carries the next generation of our strength!"

The pack cheered, but it was hollow. Many warriors looked at the floor, unable to meet their Alpha's eyes. They knew this was wrong.

Aria beamed, waving like a queen. She stepped forward to speak.

"I promise to be the mother this pack deserves," she said, her eyes locking on mine with predatory triumph. "Strong. Fertile. Loyal."

My mother squeezed my hand so hard her knuckles turned white.

"It's okay, Mom," I whispered. "Let them have their play. It's a tragedy, not a romance."

Bennett stepped forward to place a ceremonial wreath on Aria's head.

Just as he raised his hands, a siren wailed.

It was a sound that chilled every wolf to the bone. The perimeter alarm.

*Roooaaaarrrr!*

The howl didn't come from a pack wolf. It was dissonant, wild, hungry.

"Rogues!" Beta Mark shouted, bursting through the doors. "Breach at the North Gate! There are dozens of them!"

Chaos erupted.

Bennett dropped the wreath. His Alpha instincts kicked in.

"Warriors! To me!" he bellowed.

But his first move wasn't to lead the charge. It wasn't to check on the pack's safety.

He turned and tackled Aria, covering her body with his, shielding her from the imaginary threat in the hall.

"Get her to the safe room!" he screamed at his Gamma. "Protect the heir at all costs!"

He didn't even look in my direction.

I stood still in the middle of the panic, an island in the storm. My father stepped in front of me, growling, ready to rip apart any rogue that came near.

I watched Bennett dragging Aria away. And in that moment, amidst the sirens and the screaming, I felt the final shackle snap.

I turned to my father.

"Let's go," I said. "Now."