Selena POV:

I floated near the crystal chandelier, looking down at Silas on the velvet sofa.

His knuckles were bone-white where he gripped his whiskey glass, and the ice cubes within audibly cracked under the sudden, unnatural pressure of his hand.

I could feel the suffocating waves of his hatred radiating through the room, directed entirely at me.

Looking at his furious face, my mind was pulled back to the darkest day of my living life.

The day I destroyed his heart to save his life.

Eight years ago, it was not me who conspired with the violent, packless rogue wolves.

The true mastermind was Julian, the cruel and powerful Alpha of the rival Silver Crest Pack.

Julian had cornered me in the hospital where my mother lay dying of a mysterious spiritual illness.

She desperately needed a rare healing herb called the Moonflower to survive the night.

Julian held the only Moonflower in the entire region in his hand.

He leaned in close, inhaling the scent of wild berries and fresh snow from my skin. "You are scented too sweetly for a cur like him," he whispered, his eyes dark with a sick, possessive hunger.

He smiled like a demon and told me I had two choices.

I could watch my mother die and let Silas be executed by the pack council for a crime Julian had framed him for.

Or, I could confess to the crime myself, take the blame for dealing with rogues, and publicly reject my mate.

Julian admitted he was doing this to clear the path for his sister, Freya, who was obsessed with Silas. But the way his gaze assessed me, like a merchant appraising damaged goods, told me he wished to break me for his own perverse satisfaction.

He showed me the true cruelty of a high-ranking Alpha, crushing a bottom-tier Omega like a bug under his boot.

I had no choice but to nod, my tears falling silently as I signed the false confession.

Julian dropped the glowing Moonflower onto my lap and deliberately released his suffocating Alpha aura, forcing me to my knees to show his dominance.

At that exact moment, my mind-link snapped open.

Selena, please tell me this is a lie. Tell me you didn't do this!

Silas's voice echoed in my head, raw and broken, begging me to come back to him.

Julian stood over me, his eyes dark with warning, gesturing to the Moonflower.

I closed my eyes, forcing down the vomit rising in my throat, and opened the mental connection to my mate.

I pushed every ounce of cruelty I could muster into my voice.

"I, Selena, reject you, Silas, as my mate."

The words tore from my throat, and instantly, a pain worse than burning alive ripped through my chest.

It felt as if someone had reached into my ribcage and torn my soul in half with bare hands.

"You are a worthless, sniveling cur," I screamed into the link. "You do not deserve the dirt beneath my feet!"

Through the link, I heard Silas drop to the floor, his breathing turning into ragged, agonizing gasps.

He endured the brutal physical and spiritual torture of the severed bond.

When he finally spoke, his voice was completely dead, devoid of any light or hope.

"I, Silas, accept your rejection."

The invisible tether between us, already frayed, snapped with a finality that only a soul can hear. It did not shatter; it corroded, like a steel cable eaten through by acid, leaving only a silent, echoing void.

I stayed by my mother's hospital bed, feeding her the Moonflower, praying for a miracle.

But her weak body rejected the powerful medicine, and she took her last breath just as the sun rose.

I had lost everything in a single night.

I ran frantically to the borders of our territory, desperate to see Silas one last time before his exile.

I found him standing in the snow, his body trembling violently as he stood on the edge of his very first Shift.

His bones were breaking and reforming, his muscles expanding in the agonizing process of becoming a wolf.

I reached out to him, crying his name.

He turned his glowing, feral eyes toward me and laughed, a sound so full of venom it made me step back.

"Keep away from me, traitor," he snarled, his voice thick with a monstrous distortion. "The very sight of you sickens my wolf."

He turned his back on me, and Freya stepped out from the trees, wrapping her thick fur coat around his shaking shoulders.

They walked away into the freezing forest, never looking back.

I was left alone in the snow, shivering and empty, wondering—how long could a broken heart beat before it stopped forever?