Ellery POV:

The acetylene torch hissed, a blue tongue of fire licking the crucible.

I stood in the basement workshop. The platinum ring-the Luna's Ring, a symbol of eternal servitude-sat in the ceramic bowl.

"Goodbye," I whispered.

I turned up the heat.

Gold wept. Diamonds sank into the molten sludge. The meteorite shard cracked with a satisfying pop.

I poured the slag into a mold. It cooled into a deformed, ugly lump. I put it in a velvet box.

Upstairs, I walked into the study. Empty.

I placed the box on his desk.

Then, the bookshelf. Dante's Inferno. The hidden door clicked.

The Panic Room. The brain of the pack.

The walls pulsed with blue runes. My art. My soul.

I placed my hands on the central console.

Welcome, Weaver.

"I'm sorry," I told the magic.

I didn't destroy it. That would trigger alarms. Instead, I introduced a cancer.

I rewrote the source code.

If Ellery leaves the territory, initiate Protocol Zero.

Protocol Zero wasn't an explosion. It was a unraveling. Privacy shields fail first. Then alarms. Then the physical barriers dissolve. Twelve hours of decay.

I poured my energy into the stone until my knees shook. The runes flashed violet, then settled back to blue.

The time bomb was ticking.

The front door slammed upstairs.

"Ellery!" Brendan's voice boomed. "Server's down! Financial data is glitching!"

Liar.

I monitored those servers. They were fine. He just wanted me close while he... managed his affairs.

I went upstairs. Brendan stood in the hall, looking agitated but smelling of deception.

"Fix it," he said, gripping my shoulders. "You're the only one I trust with the tech. You're the anchor of this pack."

An anchor is just a weight you drag along the bottom so you don't drift.

"I'll work on it," I said.

"Good girl." He kissed my forehead. Dry lips. "I have to go back to the office. Damage control."

"Okay."

He wasn't going to the office. He was going to Kiya.

"I'm not an anchor, Brendan," I whispered as the door closed. "I'm the storm."

I went to the bedroom and packed a duffel. Cash. ID. Potion.

And a notebook.

Rule 1: Humans do not growl.

Rule 2: Humans cannot hear a heartbeat from across the room.

Rule 3: Humans cry.

Tomorrow was the Fourth of July. Independence Day.

Fitting.

Ellery POV:

Fireworks tore the sky apart in red, white, and blue.

The Gala was in full swing on the lawn. Waiters, champagne, the elite of the werewolf world pretending to be civilized.

I stood on the balcony in a beige dress. Camouflage. Just like Brendan liked.

The crowd parted.

Kiya arrived.

She wasn't wearing beige. She was in white, a Grecian gown that clung to her. She held her stomach like it was a trophy.

A slap in the face to every werewolf tradition.

Brendan moved toward her. He didn't look ashamed. He looked... proud.

I turned away and slipped down to the lake.

The boat house was dark and quiet. I stepped inside to breathe.

Voices on the dock.

"She looked like a ghost up there," Kiya sneered. "A beige ghost."

"Keep it down," Brendan hissed. No bite in his tone.

"Why? Everyone knows, Brendan. She's a Barren She-Wolf. A genetic dead end."

The word Barren cut like a serrated knife.

"She is useful, Kiya," Brendan said.

"Useful? She's a glorified alarm system! I am carrying your son. Your Alpha Heir. She is... what? A broken toy?"

"She is the facade," Brendan said wearily. "We need her for the Council. We need her for the wards. She is a necessary inconvenience. Once the pup is born... I'll move her to the North Wing. You take the master suite."

My wolf didn't growl. She let out a death rattle.

Right there in the dark, she laid her head on her paws and gave up.

He rejected us, she whispered. With truth.

I pulled out my phone.

To: Evans

Message: Tonight.

I dropped the phone in the trash.

I walked out, staying downwind.

I watched Brendan place his hand on Kiya's stomach. He looked reverent.

I touched my own flat, scarred stomach.

"Goodbye, Brendan."

Ellery POV:

I sat in my car across from the maternity clinic, knuckles white on the wheel.

I shouldn't be here. I should be gone. But I needed the final nail in the coffin.

The glass doors slid open.

Brendan walked out, looking powerful in his suit. Then Kiya, glowing with pregnancy hormones.

They waited for the valet.

Kiya pointed at her shoe.

I held my breath.

Brendan Wiggins, the Alpha who forced the Council to rewrite trade laws, dropped to one knee.

He tied her sneaker. Gently. Reverently.

Air left my lungs.

In ten years, he had never tied my shoe. Even when my spine was healing and I couldn't bend, he called a nurse. "Alphas do not kneel," he'd said.

But he knelt for her.

My phone buzzed on the seat. A message from Kiya.

He says the heartbeat sounds like thunder. Stronger than any pup in history. Too bad you'll never know what that sounds like, you empty shell.

I didn't cry. The salt was gone.

He hadn't just rejected me as a mate. He rejected my worth as a living being.

Brendan opened the car door for her, hand protecting her head.

That was it. The image I would take to the grave.

I drove.

I didn't look back.