Eliana POV:

Dawn was breaking, painting the sky in bruises of purple and grey.

I had packed everything I owned into two suitcases. My car was waiting at the back gate.

But there was one last thing I had to do.

I walked to the edge of the forest, to the Sacred Oak. It was a massive tree, centuries old, where pack lovers carved their initials. It was a superstition: carve your names, and the Moon Goddess blesses the union.

Years ago, when I was sixteen and stupidly in love, I had carved J.L. + E.C. into the rough bark.

I stood before it now. The letters were weathered but deep.

I pulled a small knife from my pocket. The handle was leather, but the blade... the blade was pure silver.

Silver is poison to us. It burns the skin like acid. But it was the only thing that could kill the magic of the carving.

I gripped the knife. My hand sizzled where my skin brushed the metal guard. I hissed in pain but didn't let go.

I started to scrape.

Scrape.

Wood chips flew.

Scrape.

"What are you doing?"

I didn't turn. I knew the voice. Jax. And the giggle behind him—Catalina.

"Erasing a mistake," I said, gouging the wood. The 'J' was gone.

Jax grabbed my wrist. "Stop it! That's silver! You're hurting yourself!"

"Let go!" I screamed, slashing the knife through the air.

He recoiled, shocked by my aggression.

We were standing near the edge of the bog, a muddy patch of land that separated the sacred grounds from the wild forest.

Catalina stepped forward. "She's crazy, Jax. Look at her eyes."

I looked at them. Really looked at them. A boy who thought he was a god, and a girl who would sell her soul for a crown.

"I'm leaving," I said. "I removed you from my emergency contacts. I blocked your number. I am done."

"You can't leave," Jax said, his voice dropping to that dangerous Alpha pitch. "I forbid it."

"Try and stop me."

Catalina saw an opening. She didn't push me this time. She stomped on my bad foot, grinding her heel into my toes.

Reflexively, I jerked back. My bad knee buckled.

I fell backward, sliding down the embankment.

I landed with a wet, squelching thud in the bog. The mud was thick, smelling of rot and decay. It coated my hair, my face, my clothes. It was cold and filthy.

I looked up. They were standing on the high ground, looking down at me.

Jax looked at me covered in filth. He wrinkled his nose.

"Look at yourself, Eliana," he sneered. "You belong in the mud. Stay there and cool off. I don't want a dirty mate."

He turned around. He took Catalina's hand. And he walked away.

He left me in the swamp.

I lay there for a moment, letting the cold seep into my skin. The mud felt heavy, like a grave.

But then, I felt it.

A drumbeat in my chest.

Get up.

The voice in my head wasn't mine. It was ancient. It was regal.

Get. Up.

I dug my fingers into the mud. I pushed myself up. My knee screamed, but I ignored it. I crawled up the bank, clawing at the roots of the Sacred Oak.

I stood up, dripping with slime.

I looked at the tree. The initials were destroyed. Only a jagged scar remained on the bark.

I looked at my hand. The silver burn was blistering, red and angry.

"Good," I whispered.

I limped toward my car. I didn't look back at the Pack House. I didn't look back at the life I was leaving.

I started the engine. As I drove through the gates, leaving the Iron Claw territory, I felt a snap in my chest.

It wasn't painful.

It felt like a chain breaking.

Goodbye, Jax, I thought. Pray we never meet again. Because the next time you see me, I won't be the girl in the mud.

I hit the gas, speeding toward New York, toward the unknown, toward the wolf that was waiting to be born.

Eliana POV:

The doctor at the urgent care clinic was a human. He didn't understand why I refused the painkillers that would dull my senses. He didn't know that for a wolf, pain is sometimes the only thing that keeps the beast inside from going insane.

"You need surgery, Miss Carter," he said, looking at the X-rays of my knee. "And weeks of bed rest. Flying is out of the question. The pressure changes..."

"Wrap it," I interrupted, my voice flat. "I have a flight to catch in three hours."

He argued, but I signed the waiver. I limped out of the clinic with a heavy brace strapped to my leg and a pair of crutches.

I had one last stop.

The Pack House loomed in the distance, a fortress of stone and timber that had been my prison. I didn't go to the main entrance. I went to the side garden, where I knew the current Luna, Jax's mother, would be tending to her night-blooming jasmine.

Luna Maria was a kind woman, but weak. She had spent her life bowing to her husband, the Alpha, and she had taught her son that women were meant to be decorative.

She gasped when she saw me hobbling toward her.

"Eliana? Oh, child, what happened to you? Jax said you fell..."

"Jax lied," I said. I didn't have the energy to soften the blow.

I reached into my pocket. The velvet box felt heavy, like it contained a dying star. I pulled out the Moonstone ring—the heirloom that was supposed to be mine when I officially became the Luna.

I held it out to her.

"Take it," I said.

Maria's eyes widened. She dropped her gardening shears. "Eliana, you can't be serious. This is the promise ring. Returning it means..."

"It means I am done," I said. "I am done being a punching bag for your son. I am done being a placeholder until he decides I'm 'tame' enough."

"But the bond..." she whispered, her hands trembling as she took the box. "You are Fated. You cannot run from the Moon Goddess."

"Watch me."

I turned around. My knee throbbed with every step, a rhythmic reminder of my resolve.

"Eliana! Wait! Let me call Jax!" she cried out.

"Don't bother," I said without looking back. "He's busy protecting his mistress from imaginary Rogues."

I tossed the keys to the pack-issued sedan onto the gravel driveway. It was a final severance of material ties.

My father was waiting for me at O'Hare Airport. He looked older, his shoulders slumped under the weight of his own decision. He had requested a transfer to the New York branch years ago, but the Alpha had denied it. Now, with Elder Sal's intervention, we were fleeing like refugees.

"Are you sure, Ellie?" he asked as he handed me my boarding pass. "Once we leave the territory, the pack link... it will hurt."

"I'm sure, Dad."

We boarded the plane. I took the window seat. As the engines roared to life, I pressed my forehead against the cool plastic.

The plane taxied and then surged forward. Gravity pushed me back into the seat.

As we lifted off, climbing through the clouds, I felt it.

The Pack Link is like a hum in the back of your mind, a constant sense of belonging, of thousands of voices murmuring in the distance. It ties you to the land, to the Alpha.

As we crossed the boundary line of the Iron Claw territory, the hum snapped.

It felt like a rubber band breaking against raw skin.

I gasped, clutching my chest. The silence that followed was sudden and terrifying. I was no longer a pack member. I was a Rogue in the eyes of the law, until I reached New York.

I looked down at the shrinking city of Chicago. Somewhere down there, Jax was probably sleeping, wrapped in silk sheets, thinking he had won.

He thought I was just a girl who would come crawling back.

I closed my eyes, and for the first time in years, the wolf inside me didn't whimper. She curled up, waiting.

Sleep well, Jax, I thought. Because when I come back, I won't be the girl you broke. I will be the nightmare you created.