I exhaled through my teeth and picked up the communicator again. The pack mind-link thread had blown up while I was dealing with the fallout, and I hadn't even glanced at it. When I opened it, every message was from Ciara. She had been updating the pack's inner circle on her injury, image after image, message after message. My jaw tightened as I scrolled through the crystal-images she had sent. They were carefully framed. Every single one featured her and me. I lingered on the worst of them: Ciara lying on the cot in the compound's Healing Hall, her face arranged in an expression of fragile suffering, while I stood over her looking every inch the concerned protector.

I ran a hand through my hair and dropped the communicator face-down on the desk.

Everything seemed to be spiraling out of my control, but none of it was my doing. Ciara needed me. My father had sworn a dying Moon Oath to her dying mother. I could not simply abandon that debt because of the ceremony. Neva should have understood how sacred the obligations of this pack were. She knew the life. She had always known the life.

Still, the guilt gnawed at me like a rat behind the walls. I had canceled our mating ceremony. Our Moon-Bound Union. For Ciara. And now Neva was furious, and the silence on the other end of that call had been the kind of silence that preceded war. Somewhere beneath my ribs, my wolf paced the length of its cage and would not lie down.

Maybe I could have handled it better. I should have called her first, spoken to her directly, asked for her understanding before making the decision. Or at the very least, I should have explained my reasons face to face instead of sending a message as if the union meant nothing. As if she meant nothing.

But what was done was done, and I had to deal with the fallout.

A knock on the study door pulled me from the spiral.

"Come in."

Ivar stepped through the heavy oak door with his usual measured calm, the kind of composure that had made him invaluable to me since we were pups running through the corridors of this very compound. He closed the door behind him without a sound, lowered himself into the chair across from my desk, and studied me with those sharp, patient eyes. The faint trace of gunmetal and dry pine resin settled into the room with him. If there was anyone in this world I could count on to help me make sense of this wreckage, it was him. My Beta. My brother in everything but blood.

"Dorian." His voice was low, almost gentle. "I heard what happened."

I leaned forward and pressed my knuckles against my temples.

"Yeah. Neva's furious."

Ivar raised an eyebrow, settling deeper into his chair, one ankle crossing over his knee with the ease of a wolf who had never lost a moment's sleep in his life.

"Furious at you for fulfilling your obligation?"

His words made me drag a hand down my face.

"I canceled the ceremony, Ivar. The Moon-Bound Union. She has every right to be upset."

He shook his head slowly, as though Neva's reaction was something he genuinely could not fathom.

"She might be upset, but you did what you had to do. Ciara was hurt. You're the Alpha. Your first responsibility is to the pack. That means ensuring every wolf under this roof is safe, especially when they're injured. Especially when they carry the weight of your father's oath."

"I know that." My voice came out rougher than I intended. "But Neva doesn't see it that way. She thinks I'm choosing Ciara over her."

Ivar's expression softened. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

"Dorian. You didn't choose Ciara over Neva. You chose the pack over everything. That is what being Alpha means. Neva knows that deep down, even if anger is blinding her right now."

I clenched my fists on the desk, the signet ring biting into my finger. Frustration coiled inside my chest like smoke with nowhere to go, and my wolf pressed against the underside of my skin, restless.

"I know she does. But it feels like I'm losing her, Ivar. I've been so consumed with the pack lately, with Ciara, with every crisis that walks through that door, that I haven't had a moment to breathe, let alone be with her."

"You're not neglecting her." Ivar's tone was firm, certain. "You carry responsibilities that most wolves will never understand. Neva is upset, sure. But she'll come around. You have always been there for her, and she knows that."

I didn't respond. I turned my head toward the window, where the lights of the eastern territory bled through the reinforced glass like distant fires. A part of me knew Ivar was right. Neva had always stood by me. Through the territory wars, through the funerals, through every blood-soaked night that came with this throne. But lately, something between us had shifted. I could feel the distance growing, a silence that had nothing to do with loyalty and everything to do with loneliness.

Ivar must have scented the turmoil behind my silence, the gunmetal-and-juniper of him sharpening as he caught the unease bleeding off my skin, because he pressed on.

"You're doing the right thing, Dorian. Ciara is part of this Pack. Your father's Moon Oath binds you to shelter her. That is sacred. That is a debt of honor, sworn under the Goddess herself. Neva will understand once the anger has passed and she can think clearly."

I turned back to him, doubt still heavy in my chest, my wolf restless beneath it.

"You really believe that?"

"I'm certain of it." A note of quiet confidence threaded through his voice. "Don't let this consume you. It's nothing. Neva is hurt right now, but she will realize you were fulfilling your duty. Nothing more."

I nodded slowly. I had been so tangled in guilt and frustration that doubt had started to poison everything, distorting my judgment about what this would mean for us. I was doing the right thing. I could not run two trails at once. What I did for Ciara was what any Alpha would have done. What my father would have expected of the one who took his place.

"I just don't want to lose Neva." The words came out barely above a whisper, and I hated how vulnerable they sounded in the stillness of that den.

"You won't." Ivar's voice carried the weight of absolute conviction. "Neva loves you. That's precisely why this is hitting her so hard. But she'll come around. The two of you have been bound together too long for a single incident to sever it."

I let out a long breath, and some of the iron tension in my chest began to loosen. Ivar was right. He was always right about these things.

"Thanks, Ivar. I needed to hear that."

He smiled, and there was a glint in his eyes that caught the lamplight, gold flickering low and gone.

"Anytime. That's what I'm here for."

I pushed myself up from the chair, feeling lighter than I had since the moment Neva's voice had gone cold across the mind-link. The talk with Ivar had helped, but I still had a great deal of damage to repair. The fracture between Neva and me was real, and no amount of reassurance from my Beta could mend it. Only I could do that. But at least now, the guilt was no longer drowning me.

"I'll talk to her later tonight. Give her time to cool down first."

"Smart. Neva has a soft spot for you, Dorian. Always has. Use that to your advantage."

We walked to the study door together, and for the first time in hours, I felt prepared to face whatever came next.

Ivar clapped a hand on my shoulder, his grip firm and familiar.

"You've got this. Just remember you're not alone in this."

"Thanks, Ivar."

He left, and the weight on my shoulders had lifted enough that I could breathe again. But now came the harder part. I had to find a way to make things right with Neva.

I crossed the eastern territory to the den Neva and I shared. It was our private ground, set apart from the pack estate, the one place where we were not the Alpha and his Intended but simply two people who had chosen each other. Or so I had believed.

When I opened the door, the den was dark. The kind of dark that had nothing to do with the hour and everything to do with absence.

"Neva?"

My voice echoed off the stone floors and died against the walls. No answer. And then my wolf went very still, because the air was wrong. I moved through the rooms, checking the kitchen, the sitting room, the bedchamber. Everything was in its place. Everything except the things that mattered. The frost-and-white-birch of her, the cold river-stone and that thread of moonflower that had lived in these walls for years, had thinned to almost nothing.

Instinct seized me, cold and sudden, and I walked to the closet. I pulled the doors open.

Empty. Every hanger bare. Every shelf cleared. Her boots, her coats, the small leather case where she kept her grandmother's moon-rosary. All of it, gone.

Neva had left me.

My legs gave out, and I sank to the floor of the closet, surrounded by nothing but the faint ghost of her scent and the hollow click of empty hangers swaying in the draft. Somewhere beneath my ribs my wolf threw back its head and made a sound I had never heard it make, a low keening that scraped at the inside of me with no name to give it. The silence pressed in from every side, absolute and merciless, and for the first time since I had become Alpha of the Nightveil Pack, I felt completely and utterly powerless.

I never thought packing could break a person. Every item I folded into the trunk felt like tearing a piece of my life with Dorian free from the bone. The life I had imagined would last until they laid me beneath the pack's burial ground.

I bit back tears when I stared at the empty closet. The hangers swayed gently, catching the faint light from the window like skeletal fingers waving goodbye. I couldn't believe this was happening. We were supposed to be bound for life. A sacred Moon Oath, sworn under the Moon Goddess and witnessed by the Pack. Instead, here I stood in a half-stripped den, shoving silk blouses into luggage like a woman fleeing a war zone. Deep inside me, my wolf paced the same small circle she'd worn into the ground, refusing to lie down. I pressed the heel of my palm against my eyes and wiped the tears away before they could fall. Now was not the moment to be weak. I was worth more than this.

My communicator vibrated against the dresser. Ivar. He seemed unfinished with his lecture from earlier, as though the first round hadn't been enough.

"Neva, please don't make any rash decisions. I'm sure Dorian will fix this. He's just dealing with a lot right now. Give him time to make it up to you."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes hard enough to feel the pull in my temples.

"Fix this? How could he?" My voice came out low and venomous, barely above a whisper. "Where was he, Ivar? He canceled without thinking twice. He didn't even think of me. And I'm supposed to understand him." I hissed the last word like it was poison on my tongue and pulled the communicator away from my ear, ignoring whatever he said next.

I shoved the last blouse into the suitcase, pressing it down with both hands, trying to crush the memory of the Moon-Bound Union that was supposed to happen today. I had dreamt of it for moons. Walking through the great hall of the Nightveil estate with the entire Pack watching. The candlelight. The oath. The ring of witnesses. Dorian's hand closing over mine as the elder spoke the vows that would bind us before the Moon Goddess and the Pack both.

But today, when it was supposed to happen, Dorian's eyes had gone to Ciara. Sweet, fragile Ciara Thornwood, who had feigned another heat-weakness during her training session. Collapsed on the training grounds like a porcelain doll with a cracked spine. I couldn't count how many times she had pulled this act, and I couldn't fathom how blind Dorian remained to the performance. Every time, the same script. The trembling lip, the wide doe eyes, the whispered "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause trouble." And every time, Dorian dropped everything. Dropped me.

"Damn them."

I zipped the suitcase with a vicious pull, grabbed the handle, and walked out. I told no one. Not even Elder Lavinia, who loved me more than anyone left in that estate. She would have stopped me, and I couldn't afford to be stopped. Not tonight.

The carriage I had summoned was already idling at the curb outside the estate's outer gate, its lamps cutting pale lines through the October dark. I rushed down the gravel path, stuffed my luggage into the back, and slid into the seat, telling the driver to go. No hesitation. No looking back.

I looked back.

The estate shrank behind me, its iron gates and grey-stone walls dissolving into the amber blur of passing lamplight. My heart sat like a stone behind my ribs. Every stretch of road we passed carried a memory. The corner den where Dorian had brought me hot tea the morning after our Moon Oath was announced. The clearing where he had walked beside me in silence, his hand warm against the small of my back, saying nothing because nothing needed to be said. I had fought for so long to make this work, to earn my place beside him, to prove that I was more than just a name in an old oath sworn between our fathers. But now I was done. I was taking back control, even if it carved me hollow. Somewhere beneath my ribs, my wolf went still at last, no longer pacing, only watching the gates disappear with me.

When I arrived at my old den in the lower territory, I stood on the path and stared at the building before going in. A narrow stone row-house with an iron stair that zigzagged up the front like a scar. I had lived here less than a year before moving into the estate, and it had felt like home then. Comforting but painful now, the way a childhood nest feels after a burial. I wished I could become the old Neva. The one full of hope. The one who still believed that Dorian Blackthorn's love was something she could hold in her hands.

I dragged the suitcase up three flights of stairs. Its weight felt lighter than whatever sat crushing my chest. When I reached the bedroom, the small space felt foreign, the air stale and cold, the bed stripped to a bare mattress. The den held no trace of blackthorn smoke or cold iron here, none of his scent at all, and the absence of it was its own quiet ache. But I welcomed the change. Anything was better than that estate tonight.