"Beta Marcus, I want to reject Alpha Kai and leave this pack forever. Please draft the rejection papers for me."

Marcus's face darkened with worry. His voice was careful, almost fearful.

"Elena, your bond wasn't simple to form. I watched you nearly die three times before your wolf accepted him. Think carefully before you destroy what the Moon Goddess gave you."

I had been Alpha Kai's mate for three years—and his greatest disappointment for just as long.

A month ago, I collapsed during a pack ceremony. My body was shutting down from severe anemia, my wolf so weak she could barely keep me breathing. The pack doctor made seventeen calls to my mate that night, begging him to come to the hospital because shared the same rare AB-negative blood type.

But Kai never answered.

That night, while I was dying alone on a cold hospital bed, my mate was in our bedroom with Sophia, my adopted sister.

Through the mate bond, I felt every moment of passion that should have been mine given to her.

The pack doctor found a traveling healer with compatible blood just in time. But I had already lost so much that my wolf retreated so deep inside me, I thought she was gone forever.

At that moment, everything I had believed in—three years of hoping he could learn to love me died along with the blood pooling beneath me.

I finally woke up from my pathetic dream. And this time, I was ready to disappear for good.

"I've made up my mind," I told Marcus. "And Kai won't fight it. He's been waiting for an excuse to get rid of me since our mating ceremony."

I had always known the truth—not once in three years had my mate looked at me with anything but duty.

But I had loved him since we were children. When the pack elders announced our engagement, I sobbed with happiness, thinking my cursed life had finally found its purpose.

How stupid I had been.

That evening, I returned to the pack house and found Kai in the garden, his large hands carefully cutting white roses.

He had always despised gardening. During our first month as mates, when I planted moonflowers by our bedroom window, he ripped them out the next morning. He said their scent gave him headaches.

But when Sophia mentioned she loved white roses, he enrolled in a gardening course behind my back.

Tonight, he looked up when I approached. "You're late again. Didn't the council meeting end an hour ago?"

Even in dirt-stained clothes, Kai's powerful frame and sharp features made him breathtaking.

I forced my voice to stay calm. "The new pack members needed extra guidance. Their integration is taking longer than expected."

Kai didn't question it. To him, I was always busy with meaningless tasks—perfect cover for why he could ignore his unwanted mate.

"The roses are almost ready. I'm making a bouquet for dinner tonight."

I sat down on the stone bench, watching him work with such gentle care. The sight made my chest cave in with familiar agony.

White roses were Sophia's favorite flower. I was deathly allergic to them.

During our mating ceremony, when the pack decorated our altar with white roses, I had broken out in hives so severe that my face swelled shut. Everyone thought it was nerves. Kai never once asked if I was okay.

Three years of living together, and he still chose flowers that could literally kill me.

If he had paid attention to me even once, he would have remembered watching me nearly suffocate that day.

Kai noticed my silence. "Elena? Why do you look like you're about to cry?"

The irony was too much. I pulled two documents from my bag with trembling hands.

"Before dinner, there are two papers I need you to sign."

Kai hated mixing pack business with personal time. "What's so urgent it can't wait until tomorrow's meeting?"

Before he could reach for the papers, his phone buzzed.

He tried to hide the screen, but I saw the name that lit up his face like sunshine.

Sophia.

Without a word of apology, he stood and walked to the far end of the garden to take her call.

His sudden movement knocked over the glass vase holding his perfect roses. It shattered across the stone path, sending sharp pieces flying.

One shard sliced deep into my wrist, and blood began dripping steadily onto the white petals scattered around my feet.

Kai didn't notice. He was too busy laughing at whatever Sophia was saying, his voice soft and loving in a way he had never spoken to me.

Twenty-five minutes later, he hung up and grabbed his jacket from the garden chair.

"Emergency at Sophia's apartment. Her heating broke and she's terrified to stay alone in the cold. I need to go fix it."

I held up my bleeding wrist. "You haven't signed the papers yet."

He glanced at me with obvious annoyance. Without reading a single word, he flipped to the last pages and scrawled his signature on both documents.

"There. Happy now? Can I go take care of someone who actually needs me?"

I stared at his careless signatures, one rejecting our mate bond, the other transferring his Alpha rights back to me and nodded silently. "Yes. Go to her."

As if staying near me for one more second would poison him, Kai rushed away without a backward glance.

Watching him run to comfort Sophia while I bled alone in his garden, I let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob.

If he had cared about me at all, he would have noticed I was injured.

If he had cared about me at all, he would have read what he was signing.

But Kai had always belonged to Sophia—my adopted sister and everything I could never be.

I was born three months premature, my lungs barely developed, my wolf so weak she could hardly manifest. The doctors told my parents I probably wouldn't live to see my tenth birthday.

They were desperate. Our pack needed a strong heir, someone who could lead when they were gone.

So when I turned five, they adopted Sophia from the Blue Moon Orphanage. She was perfect, healthy, strong and beautiful.

They raised us as sisters, but I always knew the truth. Sophia was their real daughter in every way that mattered. I was just the mistake they had to live with.

When the time came for me to take a mate, they chose Kai—the strongest Alpha in the region. Our union would strengthen both packs, and I would finally be useful for something.

But Kai and Sophia had fallen in love during training sessions. The night before our mating ceremony, I heard them talking in the hallway.

"This is killing me," Sophia had whispered, crying. "I can't watch you mate with her."

"It's just politics," Kai had replied. "You know you're the only one I love. Elena... she's just a duty. A weak little thing who can barely shift. This means nothing, my heart belongs to you. Always."

I had pressed myself against the wall, my weak wolf whimpering in my chest as I listened to my future mate promise his love to my sister.

But I had been so desperate, so pathetic, that I convinced myself things would change, I had been mistaken.

Now, with tears streaming down my face, I pulled out a journal. I had kept a journal of every time they broke my heart, promising myself that when it reached one hundred, I would find the strength to set them free.

Tonight was number ninety-nine.

Tomorrow, when Kai discovered what he had signed, would be one hundred.

I carefully gathered the scattered roses, ignoring how the thorns cut my palms and how the pollen made my throat close up. With my own blood mixing with the flowers, I arranged them in a new vase and placed it on our kitchen table.

My final gift to the man who had never wanted me.

With shaking hands, I picked up my phone and dialed the number I hadn't used in three years.

"Alpha Damon... it's Elena. The rejection cooling-off period ends in thirty days. Please, come take me somewhere I can finally breathe."

His voice came sharp and urgent through the phone. "Elena, you're not playing games with me, are you? After three years of silence, you're finally calling?"

I stayed quiet, gripping the phone tighter.

"I've been waiting for you to realize what that bastard really is. You chose duty over happiness once—now you're suddenly ready to choose yourself? What finally broke you?"

Alpha Damon. The mate the Moon Goddess had originally chosen for me before pack politics interfered. The man I'd rejected to fulfill my parents' arrangement with Kai.

He'd waited three years for this call. Three years of sending letters I never answered, flowers I never acknowledged, protection from shadows I never saw.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I wasn't thinking clearly. Forget I….."

"Don't." His voice turned deadly serious. "Don't you dare take it back, Elena. You chose to call me this time. Don't think about running back to him again."

"I'm giving you thirty days," he warned. "Handle that worthless mate of yours. After that, I'm coming to take what should have been mine from the beginning."

Damon didn't give me a chance to refuse. With a click, the line went dead after that promise.

I ended the call and stepped backward, only to feel something sharp pierce through my bare foot.

"Ah!" I gasped, looking down to see blood pooling around a jagged piece of glass.

It was our wedding photograph—the one that used to sit on the mantle. Shattered completely, with my face split down the middle by a crack that made me look broken in half.

"Oops... sorry Elena. I didn't mean to knock that over."

I turned around to find Sophia standing in the doorway, wide-eyed and innocent. She was wearing my silk nightgown—the one Kai had bought me for our first anniversary.

"I was looking for you to show you something, and I accidentally bumped the table. You're not hurt, are you?"

Blood was seeping between my toes, staining the white marble floor, but I just shook my head. "It's fine. Just a scratch."

Kai's heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs, and he rushed past me without a glance, going straight to Sophia.

"I heard glass breaking. Are you okay?" His hands immediately began checking her arms, her face, searching for any injury with the kind of desperate care he had never shown me.

"I'm perfectly fine," Sophia assured him, then looked at me with fake concern. "But Elena stepped on the glass. Look, she's bleeding."

Only then did Kai's eyes flick down to my foot, and even then, his expression held more annoyance than worry. "Be more careful. We can't have you tracking blood through the house."

He didn't offer to help clean the wound. He didn't ask if I needed medical attention. He just looked inconvenienced by my pain.

"Actually," Sophia said, clasping her hands together with false hesitation, "there's something I wanted to talk to both of you about. But seeing Elena hurt... maybe this isn't the right time?"

"What is it?" Kai asked immediately, his full attention on her.

Sophia bit her lip in that way that made her look vulnerable and beautiful. "Well, I wanted to show Elena what I made with the fabric I found in the storage room. I thought it might make her happy, but now I'm worried she'll be upset..."

My blood turned to ice. "What fabric?"

She disappeared for a moment and returned carrying something white and flowing. My breath caught in my throat.

It was my wedding dress.

She had cut it into pieces and sewn it into a flowing summer dress that would look stunning on her tall, graceful frame.

"I found this gorgeous material just sitting in storage, collecting dust," she said with bright enthusiasm. "It seemed like such a waste! So I made myself something pretty for the pack gathering next week. You don't mind, do you Elena? You never wear it anyway."

The dress I had saved for years to buy. The dress I had worn when I promised to love Kai forever. The dress I had planned to be buried in someday, because it was the only day he had ever looked at me with something that might have been tenderness.

Cut up. Destroyed. Remade for my sister.

"It's... it's fine," I whispered, because what else could I say? That I sometimes went to the closet just to touch the fabric and remember the one perfect day of my life?

Kai was looking at Sophia with pure adoration. "You're so creative. It looks beautiful on you."

The knife in my chest twisted deeper.

"Oh good!" Sophia clapped her hands together. "I was so worried. You're always so understanding, Elena. Which brings me to my other request..."

She turned to Kai with pleading eyes. "My apartment is being fumigated for the next month. The chemicals are too strong for me to stay there, and hotels make me nervous. I was hoping... could I stay here? Just temporarily?"

"Of course," Kai said immediately, without even glancing at me. "Stay as long as you need."

"You're so generous," Sophia beamed. "But Elena's room gets the most morning sunlight, and you know how the cold affects my joints. Would it be too much to ask... could I use her room? Just until the fumigation is done?"

My room. The one place in this house that was supposed to be mine.

Kai finally looked at me, but his expression was expectant, not apologetic. "That works out perfectly. Sophia, You'll have to move to the basement."

I stood frozen in the hallway for what felt like hours. The words echoed in my mind, not even a question. Not even a moment's hesitation. Just an immediate decision to displace me for her comfort.

I packed my belongings in silence, each item a reminder of how little I had ever truly belonged in this house. Three years of trying to belong, reduced to so little.

The basement room was cold and damp, with stone walls that seemed to mock my new status in this house. I stared at the bare walls, wondering how I had fallen so far from the woman who once had a real room upstairs.

But there was one thing that still belonged to me - the picture frames lining the walls of our... Kai's house. Three years of memories captured in silver frames, moments when I had foolishly believed we were building something real together.

I climbed the stairs to find Sophia sitting at our kitchen table, my kitchen table, wearing one of Kai's oversized shirts. She looked perfectly at home, her long legs curled underneath her as she sipped coffee from my favorite mug.

"Hi, Elena," she said brightly, as if we were old friends having a pleasant chat. "I hope you are well. I know the basement can be a bit... rustic."

Kai emerged from the kitchen carrying a plate of perfectly scrambled eggs and fresh fruit. He set it down in front of Sophia with such gentle care that my heart clenched.

I couldn't bear to look at them anymore.

I walked slowly, my injured foot still throbbing from the glass incident. The main hallway was lined with our wedding photos, vacation pictures, and formal pack portraits. All of them showed me trying so hard to look like I belonged beside Kai, while he looked like he was enduring some unpleasant duty.

I started with the largest frame - our official mating ceremony portrait. As I lifted it from the wall, my hands shook with more than just the weight. The heavy frame slipped from my trembling fingers.

"Careful!" I gasped, trying to catch it, but my weak wolf reflexes failed me. The frame crashed to the marble floor, glass exploding in all directions.

I lunged forward, trying to save the photograph itself, but my foot landed wrong on the scattered glass. Sharp pain shot through my leg as I tumbled forward, my knee slamming hard against the broken frame. More glass embedded itself in my palms as I tried to break my fall.

Blood began pooling beneath me, mixing with the shattered glass and the torn photograph of what used to be my wedding day.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kai's voice boomed from the stairway.

I looked up at him through tears, my hands and knees bleeding, surrounded by the destroyed remnants of our fake happiness. "I was just... removing the pictures. I thought Sophia wouldn't want to see them."

Kai's face darkened with annoyance. "This is exactly why I need you to focus. Stop being clumsy and useless. We have the Alpha Council meeting tonight, and I need you to be prepared."

"Prepared for what?" I whispered, still sitting in the glass.

"You're my secretary for the evening. The other Alphas will expect to see some level of competence from my staff." He looked down at me with disgust. "Clean this mess up and get yourself together. The meeting starts in two hours."

I nodded, carefully pulling glass shards from my palms. "What should I wear?"

"Doesn't matter. Just look professional." He turned to leave, then paused. "Actually, Sophia will need your formal Luna dress. The one with the silver embroidery. She's attending as my plus-one."

My heart stopped. "My Luna dress?"

"It's the only one appropriate for a formal pack gathering. She can't attend in casual clothes." His tone suggested I was being unreasonable for even questioning it.

That dress had taken me six months to save for. It was the most beautiful thing I owned, custom-made with silver thread that caught the light like moonbeams. I had worn it to exactly three events, and each time I felt like I finally looked worthy of standing beside an Alpha.

"Of course," I managed to say. "I'll have it ready for her."

Kai nodded and walked away, leaving me bleeding alone in the hallway.

An hour later, I stood outside Sophia's door - my former room - holding the dress bag. She opened the door looking radiant, her hair already styled in elegant waves.

"Oh, Elena! You look..." She paused, taking in my bandaged hands and the simple black dress I'd chosen. "Well, you look like you tried. Is that my dress?"

My dress, I wanted to scream. Instead, I handed over the bag. "It should fit you perfectly."

She held it up against herself in the mirror. The silver embroidery caught the light, making her skin glow. On her tall, graceful frame, it looked like it had been made for her.

"It's gorgeous! I'll take such good care of it." She smiled at me with false sweetness. "You don't mind, do you? I know how much you love pretty things."

I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

Two hours later, we arrived at the Alpha Council meeting. The grand hall was filled with the most powerful wolves in the region. Five Alphas sat at the head table, their Lunas beside them in elegant gowns and glittering jewelry.

Kai strode in confidently, Sophia on his arm in my silver dress. She looked every inch the Luna she was pretending to be.

I followed behind them, invisible in my simple black dress.

"Alpha Kai," the Council Leader announced. "Please, take your seat at the head table."

Kai guided Sophia to the Luna's chair without hesitation. She settled into it gracefully, smiling at the other Lunas as if she belonged there.

I stood awkwardly near the back, unsure where I was supposed to sit.

"And your secretary can sit at the staff table," the Council Leader added, pointing to a small table in the corner where the other Alphas' assistants sat.

The staff table. Not even close to the main gathering.

As I walked toward my designated spot, I heard one of the Lunas whisper to Sophia, "What a lovely dress. The silver embroidery is exquisite."

"Thank you," Sophia replied smoothly. "It's a family heirloom."

Kai and Sophia took their seats while I stayed behind them, standing like a forgotten shadow.

The meeting began with formal introductions, but I could barely focus. A strange metallic taste was filling my mouth, and my hands had started trembling uncontrollably. The bandages on my palms were seeping through, dark red stains spreading across the white gauze.

I tried to ignore it, pulling out my notepad to record the meeting minutes. But when I lifted my pen, my vision blurred so severely that I couldn't make out the words on the page.

Then the scent hit me—something sharp and medicinal that made my wolf recoil in terror deep inside my chest.

My blood turned to ice.

Wolfsbane.