Kason POV:

The engine of my SUV roared, matching the turmoil inside my chest. I gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather creaked in protest. Beside me, in the passenger seat, Isabela was curled into a tight ball, her hands clutching her stomach, her face pale and slick with sweat.

The car smelled of her distress-a sour, chaotic scent that clogged my throat. It smelled like sickness. It smelled like guilt. But mostly, to my furious mind, it smelled like betrayal.

"Stop crying," I growled, swerving around a slow-moving sedan. "Tears won't change the fact that you tried to trap me."

"It hurts," she whimpered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the engine. "Kason, please... my wolf... she's fading."

"Your wolf is weak because you carry a rogue's spawn," I snapped, though a flicker of doubt pricked at my conscience. Her scent didn't have the milky sweetness of a normal pregnancy. It was sharp. Acrid. Like something rotting.

I pulled up to the Pack Clinic, screeching to a halt in the emergency bay. I didn't wait for an orderly. I got out, walked around, and yanked the passenger door open.

Isabela fell out, too weak to stand. I caught her before she hit the pavement, scooping her into my arms. She was terrifyingly light. Had she always been this thin?

"Help!" I roared, using my Alpha voice. The sound shattered the quiet night, commanding attention. "I need a doctor! Now!"

Two nurses rushed out with a gurney. I placed Isabela on it, my hands sticky with her cold sweat. As they wheeled her through the double doors, she reached out, his fingers brushing my sleeve.

"Kason..." she whispered, her eyes unfocused. "Don't let them... hurt me."

I stood there as the doors swung shut, cutting off her voice.

I paced the waiting room. The antiseptic smell of the hospital grated on my nerves. I needed to shift. I needed to run. My wolf was pacing inside my mind, agitated, scratching at the walls of my consciousness.

She is hurt, my wolf growled. Our mate is hurt.

She is not our mate, I snapped back mentally. Dalia is our mate. Isabela is just... a responsibility.

I walked toward the water cooler down the hall, needing to cool the fire in my blood. As I passed the nurses' station, voices drifted out from the break room. They were hushed, but my Alpha hearing picked them up clearly.

"Did you see her?" one nurse whispered. "Skin and bones. And the bruises on her arm... they look like finger marks."

"That was Alpha Kason who brought her in," another voice replied, dripping with disdain. "The 'Honorable' Alpha. Treating a pack member like that? It's disgraceful."

"I heard he keeps her in the basement," the first nurse said. "Like a prisoner. No wonder her wolf is fading. A wolf without a pack's love dies. He's killing her slowly."

I froze. My reflection in the hallway window stared back at me-haggard, angry, a monster.

He's killing her.

The words echoed in my head. I wanted to storm in there and silence them with an Alpha Command, but my feet wouldn't move. Shame, cold and heavy, settled in my gut.

The door to the examination room opened. Dr. Evans, the Pack Doctor, stepped out. He was an old wolf, gray-haired and stoic. He had delivered me. He had treated my father. He feared no one, not even an Alpha.

He walked up to me, pulling off his latex gloves with a snap. His expression was thunderous.

"Is it done?" I asked, my voice tight. "Did you remove the... problem?"

Dr. Evans stared at me for a long moment. Then, he stepped closer, invading my personal space in a way that would get any other wolf challenged.

"There is no baby, Alpha," he said, his voice low and dangerous.

My knees nearly buckled. "What?"

"It is acute appendicitis," Dr. Evans hissed. "It has ruptured. Poison is leaking into her body. If you had brought her ten minutes later, she would be dead."

The air left my lungs. Not pregnant. Dying.

"But... the scent," I stammered. "She smelled wrong."

"She smells of decay because her body is shutting down!" Dr. Evans shouted, losing his composure. "And do you know why her healing ability didn't stop it? Because she has no strength left. Her wolf is dormant, Kason. Crushed by stress. Crushed by you."

He poked a finger into my chest. "You are the Alpha. Your job is to protect. Instead, I am going in there to perform emergency surgery on a girl whose spirit is so broken she might not wake up."

He turned on his heel and marched back into the operating room.

I stood alone in the hallway. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.

Not pregnant, my wolf whined, a sound of pure misery. We hurt her.

I slid down the wall, putting my head in my hands. I felt a strange, phantom pain in my chest, as if a thread connecting me to something vital had just been pulled taut, threatening to snap.

Isabela POV:

The world came back in a haze of white ceilings and the steady beep-beep-beep of a monitor.

I blinked, my eyelids feeling heavy as lead. The sharp agony in my stomach was gone, replaced by a dull, throbbing ache and the tightness of bandages.

"You're awake."

I turned my head. Kason was sitting in the armchair next to the bed. He looked terrible. His shirt was rumpled, his eyes bloodshot. He was holding a cup of coffee that had long gone cold.

"Kason," I rasped. My throat felt like sandpaper.

He stood up quickly, pouring a glass of water from a pitcher on the bedside table. He held the straw to my lips. His hand was trembling.

"Drink," he said softly. Not a command. A plea.

I drank. The water was cool and soothing.

"It wasn't a baby," he said, setting the glass down. He didn't look at me. He looked at his hands. "It was your appendix. Dr. Evans fixed it."

"I know," I whispered. "I told you."

"I..." He stopped, his jaw working. Alphas didn't apologize. It wasn't in their nature. "I moved you to a VIP suite. You will stay here until you are healed. No basement."

"Thank you, Alpha," I said, closing my eyes. The title felt like a wall between us.

Three days later, I was discharged. But instead of taking me back to the Pack House, the car turned toward the city center.

"Where are we going?" I asked, looking out the window. I was wearing a soft cashmere sweater Kason had brought me. It smelled of the store, not of him.

"The Annual Pack Charity Auction," Kason said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. "You need fresh air. And... people have been talking. They need to see that the Oneal Pack takes care of its own."

Of course. It was about appearances. The rumors from the hospital must have spread.

We arrived at the grand hotel ballroom. It was filled with the elite of the werewolf world-Alphas, Betas, wealthy business partners. The air was thick with the scents of expensive cologne and power.

Dalia wasn't there. Kason had said she was "indisposed," though I suspected he had ordered her to stay away to avoid a scene.

"Stay close to me," Kason murmured, placing a hand on the small of my back. His touch burned, but not in the way Hadley's did. This was a brand of possession, not a spark of connection.

I nodded, my hand drifting to my neck. I wasn't wearing the Moonstone pendant. Dalia had that. Instead, I wore a simple string of freshwater pearls. They were my mother's, the only jewelry I had managed to hide from the "cleaning" of my room.

We sat at the front table. The auction began. Vintage wines, antique swords, vacations in the Alps. I stared blankly ahead, my mind miles away. In New York. With Hadley.

"And now," the auctioneer announced, "Lot 45. A rare, hand-carved wolf's tooth necklace. Donated by Alpha Kason Oneal."

My head snapped up.

A spotlight hit the glass case on stage. Inside, resting on black velvet, was a necklace made of a real timber wolf's tooth, bound in silver wire.

Kason had given that to me when I was sixteen. He had told me he found it in a souvenir shop. I had cherished it, wearing it under my shirt every day until Dalia came back and he demanded I stop wearing "trash."

"I didn't know you donated this," I said, my voice hollow.

"It was just clutter," Kason said, swirling his wine. "Dalia said it looked primitive."

"It was my favorite," I said quietly. "You told me it was a symbol of strength."

"I lied," he said, though his eyes didn't meet mine. "It was just a trinket."

"Bidding starts at five thousand dollars!" the auctioneer shouted.

"Six thousand!" a Beta from a neighboring pack called out.

"Seven thousand!"

I watched the numbers climb. That necklace represented the lie of my childhood. Kason had given it to me, taken it back, and was now selling it.

"It has no soul," I whispered, more to myself than him. "Just like this pack."

Kason froze. He looked at me, really looked at me. He saw the emptiness in my eyes. The adoration that used to be there was gone, replaced by a terrifying indifference.

Panic flashed across his face.

"Ten thousand!" Kason shouted, raising his paddle.

The room went silent. The auctioneer blinked. "Alpha Oneal? You are... bidding on your own item?"

"Twenty thousand!" Kason barked, his voice laced with Alpha power. "I am buying it back."

"Kason, stop," I said, embarrassed as heads turned. "It doesn't matter."

"It matters!" he hissed, turning to me. His eyes were wild. "It's yours. I gave it to you. Nobody else touches what is yours."

"Sold! To Alpha Oneal for twenty thousand dollars!"

He slumped back in his chair, breathing hard. He looked at me, expecting gratitude. Expecting the old Isabela to cry and thank him.

I just looked at the stage.

"You wasted your money, Kason," I said softly. "I don't wear collars anymore."

Isabela POV:

The auction had been a disaster. Kason had spent the rest of the night brooding, drinking too much scotch, while I sat in silence, counting the minutes.

The next morning, the Pack House was quiet. Kason had left early for a meeting with the Elders to explain the hospital incident. Dalia was out shopping, spending Kason's guilt money.

It was time.

My flight to New York was at 4:00 PM. It was currently noon.

I had already packed my small bag. It was hidden in the bushes near the back gate. But there was one thing I needed to do. A closure I needed for myself.

I walked up the grand staircase to the Alpha's office. The door was ajar.

I pushed it open. The room used to smell of old books and pine-Kason's scent. Now, it reeked of Dalia's synthetic rose perfume. It was everywhere, cloying and suffocating.

I walked to the desk. I wasn't looking to steal anything. I just wanted to leave a note. A resignation letter from the pack.

I reached for a pen, but my elbow knocked over a stack of leather-bound journals. They tumbled to the floor with a heavy thud.

I knelt to pick them up. One had fallen open. It was Kason's personal log, the one every Alpha kept to record pack business and private thoughts.

My eyes caught my own name. The ink was fresh, dated just two weeks ago.

April 14th.

The bond pulls at me. Every time I look at Isabela, my wolf howls. It wants to claim her. It wants to mark her.

My heart hammered. He felt it? He knew?

I read on.

But I cannot. The Oneal Pack needs a Luna with connections, with status. Dalia brings the Keith family fortune. Isabela brings nothing but a muddy history and a weak constitution.

My hands began to shake.

I have convinced myself Dalia is the one. I have to. The pull I feel for Isabela... I will suppress it. She smells like the forest, like home. But Dalia is the future.

Isabela is just a substitute. A placeholder for my wolf's instincts until I can fully bond with Dalia. I will keep her close, keep her in the basement if I have to, just to settle my wolf. But she will never be Luna.

Substitute.

The word burned itself into my retinas.

I wasn't just rejected. I was a tool. A biological pacifier to keep his wolf calm while he played politics with Dalia. He knew we were Mates. He knew it, and he chose money. He chose status.

"Brotherly love," I scoffed, a bitter laugh bubbling up in my throat. It sounded like a sob.

A tear slipped from my eye, landing on the page. It smeared the ink of the word Substitute, turning it into a dark, ugly blotch.

"Isabela?"

I jumped, slamming the book shut. But it wasn't Kason. It was just the wind blowing the balcony door open.

I stood up, placing the journal back on the desk. I didn't leave a note. This book said everything that needed to be said.

I heard the front door slam downstairs. Kason was back.

I scrambled into the small closet behind the bookshelf, pulling the door almost shut. Through the crack, I watched Kason stride into the room. He looked exhausted. He loosened his tie and threw himself into his chair.

His phone rang. He put it on speaker.

"Kason!" Dalia's voice whined through the room. "The people on the forum are being mean again! They're saying you bought that necklace because you still love that Omega trash!"

Kason rubbed his temples. "Dalia, not now. I have a headache."

"You need to issue a statement!" she shrieked. "Tell them she's nothing! Tell them she's just a servant!"

Kason looked at the closed journal on his desk. He reached out, his fingers brushing the leather cover. For a second, I thought he would defend me.

"Fine," he said, his voice dead. "I'll tell the press she's mentally unstable. That she's obsessed with me. That will stop the rumors."

"Good," Dalia purred. "I love you, baby."

"Yeah," Kason said. He hung up.

He didn't say "I love you" back.

I waited until his breathing evened out, until he turned his chair to look out the window. Then, silent as a ghost, I slipped out of the closet and out of the room.

He never turned around. He never sensed me.

Because in my heart, I had already left.