The champagne stain on my gown had dried into a stiff yellow patch.

I peeled the silk off in the dressing room of the Blackthorne estate and let it drop to the floor. Then I stood in front of the mirror in my slip, staring at the moonstone resting against my throat.

My mother's necklace. I had worn it every day for seven years.

Seven years of waiting for Ronan to choose me.

I used to think the Moon Goddess had picked us, and that a fated bond would win in the end. I thought that if I was patient enough, he would finally love me all the way.

I laughed at my reflection. The bond had never made him loyal. It only made him sure of me.

I opened the closet.

Diamonds. Designer gowns. Handbags still in their dust covers. Ronan's gifts filled almost the entire walk-in, and not one of them was something I would have picked for myself.

I packed my mother's jewelry box, three sweaters I had bought with my own money, and my old sketchbooks.

Everything else I left behind.

I was zipping the suitcase when the front door opened downstairs.

---

"Bri? You home?"

Ronan's voice carried up the staircase. Then came a second set of footsteps, lighter and quicker.

I walked down with the suitcase bumping behind me.

Vanessa stood in the foyer hugging a huge bouquet of white roses. My silver ribbon was still tied around her wrist.

"Brielle!" She smiled like we were old friends. "I hope it's okay. Could I stay here for a few days?"

I turned to Ronan. "What is this?"

"She just got back to the pack." He set her bag down by the stairs. "She doesn't have a safe place to sleep yet. I need you to be understanding."

"Why does she need to stay in our home?"

"We have twelve bedrooms." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Don't make this into a thing."

Vanessa hugged the roses tighter. "I've been scared of thunderstorms since I was little. Remember, Ronan? I only feel safe if I'm close to you."

He didn't even pause. "Margaret," he called to the housekeeper. "Make up the room next to the master suite."

Margaret glanced at me before she nodded.

Nobody looked at the suitcase in my hand.

---

Dinner was quiet until Vanessa came out of the kitchen carrying a tall glass.

"Fresh-squeezed." She held it out to me with both hands. "I made it myself. I really want us to be friends, Brielle."

Orange juice. Again.

I kept my hands in my lap. "I'm allergic to citrus."

Ronan's fork clinked against his plate. "Brielle. She's trying. You don't have to punish her for what happened at the ceremony."

"I'm not punishing anyone. I'm telling you I'm allergic."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't..." Vanessa leaned closer, and her wrist tipped.

The juice splashed across my arm.

It was cold at first. Then it burned.

Red welts rose on my skin almost at once. My chest went tight, like someone had wrapped a belt around my ribs and pulled.

Vanessa gasped and stumbled back. "Ronan! I'm sorry, she scared me, she moved so fast..."

He was on his feet and at her side in a heartbeat. "Hey. Hey, it's okay. It was an accident."

Then he frowned at me over her shoulder. "Was that necessary? You frightened her."

I gripped the edge of the table. The room tilted. My throat made a thin, whistling sound when I tried to speak.

Ronan's frown faded.

"Bri?"

The front door banged open.

"Where is she?" Harper's voice. Then she was beside me, digging into my purse. "Where's your pen, Bri? Where..."

She found the injector and jammed it into my thigh. The sting was nothing next to the pressure in my chest.

"Call the Pack Healer!" Harper shouted at Margaret. "Now!"

Air crept back into my lungs one thin thread at a time.

Ronan reached for me. "Let me carry you to the infirmary."

I flinched away from his hands.

"Seven years, Ronan." My voice came out like sandpaper. "How can you remember everything about her and forget the one thing that could kill me?"

His face went pale. "Brielle, I..."

"Ronan." Vanessa pressed a hand to her chest and swayed. "I'm so dizzy. I think the shock..."

He turned. Of course he turned. His arm was around her waist before she finished the sentence.

I watched his back.

I didn't say another word.

Harper did. "You absolute coward," she hissed at him.

He didn't answer her either.

---

The Healer left after midnight. My arm was wrapped in gauze, and my lungs had finally stopped burning.

I went upstairs for the last of my things.

The door to the master bedroom was open.

My photos were gone from the dresser. In their place stood a framed picture of Vanessa and Ronan at sixteen, laughing on the lake dock.

And Vanessa was lying in my bed, wearing my pale blue silk robe.

"Oh." She propped herself up on one elbow. "I'm just borrowing it. My clothes are still in the wash."

Ronan came out of the bathroom drying his hands. He saw me and sighed.

"Bri, it's late. Just take one of the guest rooms tonight. We'll sort it out tomorrow."

I didn't argue.

I crossed to the nightstand and picked up the only photo she hadn't moved. Ronan and me, seven years ago, on the night he first called me his mate. I was nineteen, and I was looking at him like he had hung the moon.

I tucked it into my suitcase.

Ronan stepped in front of the door. "How long are you going to keep this up?"

"Keep what up?"

"This. The sulking. The suitcase." He folded his arms. "You're my mate. You'll always come back."

I looked up at him for a long time.

Then I smiled. It surprised even me.

"That's what you keep counting on, isn't it?"

He blinked.

I stepped around him and walked out.

---

Harper's car was idling at the gate. She popped the trunk without a word and hugged me so hard my bandaged arm ached.

We were halfway down the drive when my phone chimed.

**PACK COUNCIL REGISTRY:** *The pending bond registration between Brielle and Ronan of Blackthorne has been formally withdrawn.*

I read it twice.

Then the tears came, hot and silent, sliding down my face.

Harper reached over and squeezed my hand.

I didn't look back at the house.

---

Ronan found the bracelet an hour later.

It was sitting on the dresser where Brielle's photos used to be. A thin silver band engraved with the Blackthorne crest. The mate-candidate bracelet his father had given her. She had never once taken it off.

Something cold slid down his spine.

He dialed her number.

*The number you have dialed is not available.*

He tried again. Same flat voice.

Vanessa's arms slipped around his waist from behind. Her cheek pressed against his back.

"She'll come back in a few days," she murmured. "She always does."

Ronan stared at the bracelet in his palm.

"Yeah," he said at last. "She always does."

---

Across town, in Harper's spare room, I opened the Pack Council portal one last time.

My finger hovered over the button, then pressed it.

**Formal Rejection Ceremony – Confirmed. Tomorrow, 10:00 a.m. Moon Temple.**

Below it, one more line appeared.

*Both parties are required to attend.*

The message came at dawn.

I was sitting on the edge of a narrow bed in a private inn on the Silvercrest border. The radiator was ticking. My bandaged arm itched.

**Ronan:** *Come home. We're redoing the Luna blessing dinner tonight. Wear the blue dress.*

No apology. No question about my throat, or whether I could breathe.

I turned the phone face down and reached for my coat.

---

The Council's border sanctuary was small. It had one stone altar, one moon window, and one old priestess with a cane.

"You understand what you're asking for, child?" She studied my file through thick glasses. "A rejection isn't a breakup. The bond fights back. The wolf spirit fights back."

"I understand."

"Do you?" She tapped the page. "Seven years ago you were badly injured. Your wolf barely pulled through. A backlash could hit you twice as hard." Her voice softened. "Bring a healer. Bring your friend. Bring someone."

"If I wait, I'll lose my nerve."

"Pain is not nerve, Brielle."

"No." I folded my hands to keep them still. "Pain is one night. I've already done seven years of the other thing. I'd rather hurt once."

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded and lit the first candle.

---

The doors slammed open before she lit the second.

Ronan strode in with frost on his collar and a velvet box in his hand. He was breathing hard, like he'd run from the car.

"There you are." He snapped the box open. "I've been calling all morning."

A necklace sat on black velvet. It was a rope of moon diamonds with a teardrop stone in the middle. The stone was pale violet.

"For you," he said. "To make up for the ceremony. All of it."

I stared at the teardrop.

Three days ago, Vanessa had touched her collarbone at the reception and laughed. The same rope of diamonds. The same teardrop. Only hers was pink.

"Did you buy hers first?"

His fingers went still on the box.

"What?"

"Vanessa's necklace. Same jeweler, same design. Did you buy hers first, and then remember me?"

His jaw worked. Then he snapped the lid shut. "Why do you always have to compare? I bring you a gift and you turn it into a trial."

I didn't argue.

"I canceled our mating registration, Ronan."

He blinked once. Then he laughed, low and easy, like I'd told a joke he'd heard before.

"So that's the game." He stepped close and his arm slid around my waist, warm and certain. "You want me to beg a little. Fine. I'll beg."

"It's not a game."

"Bri." His forehead nearly touched mine. "You're my fated mate. You can't just walk away."

For seven years, that voice had worked on me.

I put my palm flat on his chest and pushed. Gently. He moved more easily than I expected.

"Being chosen by the Moon Goddess doesn't mean I have to accept being humiliated by you."

Something flickered in his eyes. It wasn't anger. It was smaller and younger than that.

"Then tell me what you want." His voice dropped. "A house? A title? Tell me and it's done."

"I want to be free."

His phone rang.

The sound bounced off the stone walls. We both looked down at the screen.

*Nessa.*

He hesitated. One second. Two.

Then he answered.

"Hey. Hey, slow down." His shoulders curved forward, the way they never did for me. "Another nightmare? No, you're safe. I'm right here. Breathe with me."

The priestess's cane creaked against the floor.

I stood there and listened.

Seven years ago, I had woken in the infirmary with stitches across my ribs. Ronan had been kneeling by my bed and gripping my hand so hard it hurt. *Whatever happens,* he'd sworn, *I'll choose you first. Every time.*

Now he couldn't even give me a goodbye without her in it.

"I'll be home soon, Nessa," he murmured. "I promise."

I walked to the altar.

The last silver ribbon was still knotted around my wrist. It was the fated-bond ribbon the elders had tied on me at nineteen. I worked the knot loose with my teeth. It slid off into my palm, light as nothing.

Ronan lowered the phone. "Brielle? What are you doing?"

I faced him.

"Ronan Blackthorne, I reject you as my fated mate."

The candle flames bent sideways.

Then the bond yanked.

It felt like a hook buried under my sternum, ripped out through my ribs. I doubled over and grabbed the altar. A sound tore out of me that I didn't recognize.

Across the room, Ronan's knees hit the stone. The phone skidded away from him. His eyes flared gold, then bright gold, then wild.

"Brielle." He crawled forward and fisted my skirt. His hand was shaking. "Take it back."

I had never heard him afraid before.

"Take it back. Please."

The priestess raised her cane. "Speak it again, child, if you mean it."

I straightened one inch at a time. Sweat ran into my eyes.

"Ronan Blackthorne." My voice was hoarse but clear. "I reject you as my fated mate."

Moonlight poured through the window, white and cold. Something inside my chest went *snap*, like a harp string cut clean.

Ronan threw back his head and howled.

He lunged for me. Two sanctuary guards caught him by the arms and dragged him back.

"I'll change!" He fought against their grip. "I'll send her away. Today, right now. Bri, I'll throw her out of the house, I swear it..."

I shook my head.

"You had seven years to choose me."

I turned and took the first step down from the altar.

The floor tipped. My wolf howled somewhere deep inside me, and my legs simply quit.

I fell.

I never hit the stone.

Arms caught me. They were hard and steady, like they'd been waiting there. A black wool coat brushed my cheek. It smelled of pine and cold rain.

I looked up into silver-gray eyes.

The air in the sanctuary changed. Alpha power rolled through the room, heavy and quiet. The guards dropped their gazes. Even the priestess bowed her head.

Ronan went still.

Then his lip peeled back from his teeth. "Kieran Ashford. Get your hands off my mate!"

Kieran didn't look at him. He looked at me, at my bloodless lips and my shaking hands.

"She isn't your mate anymore."

*Kieran.*

My whole body locked. Seven years ago, under a full moon, I had held this man's hand and promised to leave with him.

And then I never came.

His voice dropped so only I could hear.

"Seven years, Brielle. And somehow, you still ended up running into my arms."

Ronan stared at us. I watched it land on his face, slow and ugly.

"You know him." He tore free of one guard and grabbed Kieran's shoulder. "How the hell do you know him? What is he to you?"

Kieran shrugged off the hand like it was a fallen leaf. He slid off his coat and settled it around my shoulders. It was still warm from his body.

"Can you stand?" he asked me quietly. "Or do you want to come with me?"

My eyes burned. I didn't trust my voice.

I nodded.

He lifted me like I weighed nothing and walked toward the doors.

"Brielle!" Ronan's shout cracked behind us. Boots pounded the stone. "Brielle, don't you dare..."

The guards closed ranks at the threshold. His fists slammed against their shields.

The car was black and already running. Kieran set me in the passenger seat. Then he leaned across me and pulled the seatbelt over my chest. He clicked it into place with careful fingers.

He didn't pull back.

"Do you remember," he said softly, "what you promised me the night before you chose him?"

The blood drained from my face.

Kieran watched it happen. A bitter smile touched the corner of his mouth.

"Because I never forgot."