The motel room smelled like mildew and cheap disinfectant. I'd been here two weeks, paying cash for a place that didn't ask questions. The wallpaper peeled in the corners, and the mattress sagged in the middle, but it was mine. No one could find me here.

I pressed my hand against my lower abdomen, where a flutter of life had begun to make itself known. Brady's pup. Our pup.

The cramping started that morning—sharp, twisting pains that doubled me over as I stood at the tiny kitchenette. At first, I told myself it was nothing. Stress. Hunger. Anything but what my wolf was whispering in the back of my mind.

*Something's wrong.*

By afternoon, I was on the bathroom floor, tile cold against my cheek, watching red bloom across white porcelain. The pain was everywhere—physical, yes, but deeper than that. Soul-deep. The kind of agony that comes when your body knows it can't sustain life without the other half of your bond.

I had severed the mate connection. Cut the thread that tied me to Brady. And now my body was paying the price.

"No," I whispered, my voice breaking. "Please, no."

But the Moon Goddess didn't answer. She never did when you needed her most.

Hours later—or maybe minutes, time had lost all meaning—I wrapped the remains in a soft cloth. My hands shook so badly I could barely tie the corners together. I found a small wooden box in the motel office's lost and found, something left behind by a guest who would never come back for it.

The woods behind the motel were dense and dark, even in daylight. I walked until my legs gave out, then dug with my bare hands until the earth accepted my offering. I buried the box beneath a young oak tree, its branches still reaching toward the sky with hope I no longer possessed.

I wept until no sound came out. Until my throat was raw and my eyes were swollen shut. Until my wolf curled up in the darkest corner of my mind and refused to surface.

That night, I burned the emerald dress. The one Brady said made my eyes look like forest pools. I watched the fabric blacken and curl, smoke rising toward the stained ceiling of my motel room. When it was nothing but ashes, I swept them into the trash.

The old Celeste died with that dress. With that pup. With every foolish dream I'd carried in my heart.

---

Six months passed like a slow-moving river—relentless, cold, carrying me forward whether I wanted to go or not.

I found work in a neutral territory town, waiting tables at a diner that served both humans and wolves. The owner didn't care that I was Rogue as long as I showed up on time and didn't cause trouble. I kept my head down, my scent suppressed, my wolf buried so deep she barely existed anymore.

The local pack hospital was one of the few that accepted Rogues, though they charged triple the normal rate. I went once a month to pick up suppressants—pills that masked my scent and kept other wolves from sensing what I was. From sensing the emptiness where a mate bond should have been.

I was leaving the pharmacy, tucking the brown paper bag into my purse, when I collided with someone in the hallway.

The scent hit me first. Pine and leather, now buried under layers of that sickly-sweet herbal smell. My wolf surged forward with a violence that nearly brought me to my knees, recognition and rage tangling together.

Brady.

He had Natasha in his arms, her head lolling against his shoulder, one hand pressed dramatically to her forehead. She looked pale and delicate, the perfect picture of feminine fragility.

Our eyes met. For one heartbeat, the severed bond flared to life—a phantom pain, like touching a limb that was no longer there. I saw shock flash across his face, then something harder. Colder.

"Celeste?" His voice was sharp, accusatory. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I stepped back, my spine hitting the wall. "I could ask you the same thing."

"Natasha fainted. I'm getting her help." He shifted her weight, and she made a small, pitiful sound. "Unlike some people, I don't abandon those who need me."

The words landed like physical blows.

"I need to go," I said, moving to step around him.

His hand shot out, gripping my wrist. Not gentle. Not the way he used to touch me. "You left without a word. Disappeared like a coward. Do you have any idea what you put everyone through?"

"Let go of me."

"You look like a beggar." His eyes raked over my worn jeans, my faded t-shirt. "Is this what you wanted? To throw everything away and live like this?"

Natasha stirred in his arms, her lashes fluttering. "Brady? Where are we?"

"Shh, I've got you." His voice transformed, becoming soft and tender. The voice he used to use with me. "You're safe. I'm here."

He looked back at me, and his expression was full of contempt. "Natasha is fragile. She needs someone who won't run away when things get hard. Someone loyal."

"Loyal." I tasted the word, bitter on my tongue. "You want to talk to me about loyalty?"

"You always pretended to be so strong," he continued, as if I hadn't spoken. "But the moment I needed you to understand, to be patient, you bailed. Natasha would never—"

"Natasha," I interrupted, my voice deadly quiet, "has you exactly where she wants you."

I yanked my wrist free and walked away. My hands were shaking, my vision blurred with unshed tears, but I kept walking.

Behind me, I heard Natasha's voice, sweet and concerned. "Who was that, Brady?"

"No one," he said. "No one important."

I pushed through the hospital doors and into the parking lot. The autumn air was crisp, carrying the scent of dying leaves.

My wolf finally spoke, her voice raw and broken.

*We are better off dead than bound to him.*

I pressed my hand against my chest, where the phantom bond still ached.

"I know," I whispered. "I know."

The shrine wasn't much—just a flat stone I'd found near the hospital grounds, tucked between two oak trees where the morning light filtered through just right. I'd placed the moonstone there three months ago, a pale blue crystal that caught the sun and threw rainbows across the moss. It was all I had left to honor what I'd lost.

I knelt before it, my fingers brushing the cool surface of the stone. The hospital loomed behind me, sterile and cold, but here in this small pocket of woods, I could breathe.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, like I did every week. "I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you."

The wind rustled through the leaves, carrying the scent of approaching rain. My wolf stirred, uneasy. I should have listened to her.

Footsteps crunched on fallen leaves behind me. Light, deliberate. I didn't need to turn around to know who it was—that sickly-sweet herbal scent preceded her like a warning.

"What a quaint little spot," Natasha said, her voice dripping false sweetness. "I didn't know you were the sentimental type."

I stood slowly, positioning myself between her and the shrine. "You shouldn't be here."

"Oh, I was just taking a walk. Brady's filling out paperwork." She stepped closer, her honey-colored hair catching the light. "He worries so much about me. It's exhausting sometimes, having someone care that deeply."

My jaw clenched. She wanted a reaction. I wouldn't give her one.

Her gaze drifted past me to the moonstone, and something ugly flickered across her delicate features. "What's this? Some kind of memorial?"

"Leave," I said, my voice low. "Now."

She moved faster than I expected, darting around me with practiced grace. Before I could react, she was at the shrine, her hand reaching for the moonstone.

"Natasha, don't—"

Her fingers closed around the crystal. She lifted it, tilting her head as if examining it. "It's pretty. Was this for the pup you lost?" Her eyes met mine, cold and calculating. "The one that died because you were too weak to keep it alive?"

My blood turned to ice.

"Oops." She opened her hand.

The moonstone tumbled through the air, spinning, catching the light one last time before it struck the rocks below. The sound of it shattering was like a gunshot in the quiet woods—sharp, final, irreversible.

I stared at the scattered pieces, glittering like tears against the dark stone.

Natasha leaned in close, her breath hot against my ear. "Weak pups aren't meant to survive," she whispered. "Just like weak she-wolves aren't meant to keep their mates."

Something inside me snapped.

The world went red. My wolf surged forward with a violence that made my bones ache, tearing through the careful walls I'd built to contain her. Heat flooded my veins. My vision sharpened, colors becoming almost painfully vivid. I felt my eyes shift, burning amber replacing brown.

Natasha's smirk faltered. "What—"

I moved.

My hand shot out, claws extending with a sound like knives being drawn. I caught her across the face, feeling skin and flesh part beneath my nails. The strike was pure instinct, pure rage, three months of grief and humiliation channeled into a single motion.

Natasha screamed—high, piercing, theatrical. She stumbled backward, hand pressed to her face, blood seeping between her fingers. The scent of it filled the air, copper and fear.

"You bitch!" she shrieked. "You scarred me!"

I stood there, chest heaving, claws still extended. My wolf wanted more. Wanted to tear, to rend, to make her pay for every cruel word, every stolen moment, every piece of my life she'd destroyed.

Footsteps thundered toward us. Voices shouting. A crowd gathering at the edge of the clearing.

Brady burst through the trees, his face pale with shock. His eyes went from Natasha's bleeding face to my glowing amber eyes, and something hardened in his expression.

"Celeste, what the hell did you do?"

He moved toward me, his hand raised. Not to comfort. To strike.

I didn't flinch. Let him. Let him show everyone what he really was.

His hand came down—

And stopped.

The air itself seemed to thicken, pressing down on all of us with crushing weight. An aura rolled through the clearing like a physical force, making my knees buckle. Around us, wolves dropped into submission, heads bowed, unable to resist the command in that presence.

Brady froze mid-strike, his wrist caught in a grip that made him gasp.

A man stepped out of the shadows near the hospital wing. Tall, broad-shouldered, with silver-streaked dark hair and eyes like molten steel. The power radiating from him was suffocating, absolute. Alpha. Not just any Alpha—one who commanded without question.

His voice was thunder given form. "Touch her, and you lose the hand."

Alpha Cassius Campbell had arrived.