Elena POV

The pain wasn't just a sensation; it was a predator, tearing me apart from the inside out.

"Don't push yet!" the young intern stammered, his hands shaking violently as he adjusted the screaming monitors. "The doctor... the doctor is coming."

"They aren't coming," I gritted out, the salt of sweat and tears stinging my eyes. "They're with her."

The door banged open. I surged with a pathetic flicker of hope, thinking maybe, just maybe, Damien had remembered me.

But it was just the Beta, Marcus. He looked ill at ease, holding a clipboard like a shield against the scene before him.

"The Alpha needs you to sign this," he said, studiously avoiding my gaze. "It's a liability waiver for the medical procedure. Since... since resources are split."

I laughed. It was a wet, ragged sound that scraped my throat. "Liability? I'm dying, and he's worried about a lawsuit?"

"He's worried about the heir," Marcus mumbled, his voice barely audible over the hum of the machines.

"Which one?" I spat.

Marcus didn't answer. He just held out the clipboard, his jaw tight.

I grabbed the pen. My hand was shaking so hard I could barely maintain my grip. But I didn't sign the waiver. Instead, I reached into my bag, which had been carelessly thrown onto the chair beside the bed.

I pulled out the envelope. The one I had prepared weeks ago.

"Give this to him," I gasped, shoving the envelope at Marcus.

"What is it?"

"The end," I whispered.

Another contraction hit, and my vision went white. Through the haze, I heard the commotion outside in the hallway-a sound that shattered my remaining heart.

"It's a boy!" someone cheered. "Victoria has a healthy boy!"

The sound of applause. Joy. Celebration.

While I lay in a cold room, bleeding onto industrial hospital sheets.

"Marcus," I grabbed the Beta's arm, my nails digging into his skin hard enough to draw blood. "Get a witness. Now."

He looked at me, really looked at me, and I saw the conflict warring with pity in his eyes. Finally, his wolf yielded. He nodded and pulled a terrified nurse forward.

"I, Elena Sterling, declare my bond with Alpha Damien severed," I rasped, the ancient words tasting like ash in my mouth. "I reject his protection. I reject his name. I reject his heart."

The air in the room seemed to snap audibly. A physical pressure released from my chest, leaving a gaping, hollow hole behind.

I signed the document. Elena Sterling. Not Luna. Not wife. Just me.

"It takes seven days to finalize," Marcus said quietly, taking the paper with trembling fingers. "You know the law."

"I won't be here in seven days," I said.

The intern shouted, "BP is crashing! She's hemorrhaging!"

The world started to go dark at the edges. The sounds of the celebration down the hall faded into a dull, mocking buzz.

I saw Damien in my mind's eye. Not the cold Alpha, but the man who once put a jacket over my shoulders by the lake. He had touched my hair then. He had smiled.

Why didn't you love me? I asked the ghost of him.

Then the darkness swallowed me whole.

When I woke up, the room was silent. The storm had passed.

I was alive.

But I felt lighter. Emptier.

I looked at the nurse. She was wiping blood from the floor.

"My baby?" I asked, my voice a broken whisper.

She stopped wiping. She didn't turn around.

"Beta Marcus took care of everything," she said. Her voice was flat, professional, detached.

I closed my eyes.

"Damien?" I asked.

"He's with the new heir," she said.

I nodded against the pillow.

"Good," I whispered. "Because he doesn't have a wife anymore."

I reached for the phone on the bedside table. My fingers were numb, but I dialed the number I had memorized a lifetime ago.

"Dad," I said when the line clicked open.

Silence stretched for a heartbeat before I finished.

"Come get me."

Elena POV

The private airstrip was bathed in the harsh, clinical light of halogen lamps. It felt sterile. Efficient.

It smelled of jet fuel and money.

My father's security team moved around me like a phalanx. They were imposing men in dark suits, their expressions unreadable, their presence a living fortress.

"Miss Sterling," the head of security, a man named Kane, said softly. He draped a heavy wool coat over my shoulders. "The medical team is on the plane. They are ready for you."

I sat in the wheelchair, feeling impossibly small. I felt like a porcelain doll that had been smashed against a wall and glued back together with the wrong pieces.

"Thank you," I said.

My father hadn't come himself-he was in Tokyo closing a deal-but his influence was everywhere. The plane was a Gulfstream, sleek and silver. It was a chariot waiting to carry me out of hell.

A young woman, an Omega with kind eyes, walked up to me. "I'm Sarah, your father's assistant. We have everything you need. Clothes, food... pain management."

She looked at me as if I were precious. As if I mattered. It was so foreign I almost flinched.

"I just want to sleep," I said.

"You will," she promised. "You're safe now."

We were moving toward the ramp when I heard it. The guttural roar of an engine.

A black SUV tore onto the tarmac, bypassing the outer security. It skidded to a halt fifty yards away, tires screeching against the pavement.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Damien.

The door opened.

But it wasn't Damien who stepped out first. It was Victoria's driver. And then, Damien.

He looked disheveled. He was wearing the same clothes from the hospital, stained and wrinkled. He looked around wildly, his eyes scanning the row of planes.

He was looking for me.

"Go," I told Kane, my voice trembling. "Get me on the plane."

"Wait," Sarah said, looking at the car. "Is that...?"

Damien's eyes swept over our group. For a terrifying second, his gaze landed on me.

But I was surrounded by guards. I was wrapped in a coat that wasn't mine. I was sitting in a wheelchair.

He didn't recognize me.

He looked right through me, searching for the Luna he knew. The woman who stood tall and took his abuse. He didn't see the broken thing in the chair.

Victoria leaned out of the car window. She shouted something at him, pointing impatiently at her watch.

Damien hesitated. He looked at the plane, then back at the car.

He got back in the car.

He turned his back. Again.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"He didn't see you," Sarah whispered.

"No," I said, my voice gaining strength. "He never did."

I reached into my pocket. I pulled out the copy of the separation agreement-the one I had kept for myself. The paper was crinkled, stained with a single drop of dried blood.

I didn't need it. I didn't need a piece of paper to tell me I was free.

I tore it in half. Then in quarters.

I threw the pieces onto the tarmac. The wind from the jet engines caught them, scattering the white confetti into the dark night.

"Let's go," I said.

Kane pushed the wheelchair up the ramp. I didn't look back at the black SUV. I didn't look back at the Pack lands that were now just fading lights in the distance.

The cabin door closed with a heavy thud, sealing out the noise, the cold, and the past.

As the plane taxied down the runway, I felt the vibration in my bones. We lifted off, the gravity pressing me into the seat.

I looked out the window as the ground fell away. The world below became small. Damien became small.

I placed a hand on my empty, aching stomach.

"I promise," I whispered to the clouds. "I will never be weak again."

The plane banked left, turning toward the mountains, toward Zurich, toward a future that belonged only to me.

I was Elena Sterling. And I was finally awake.

Damien POV

The digital numbers on the dashboard climbed past one hundred and twenty.

The world outside the window was a blur of black and grey, trees whipping past like skeletal fingers clawing at the glass. I didn't slow down. The vibration of the steering wheel in my hands was the only thing that felt real.

It was the only thing that drowned out the silence.

Seven days.

One hundred and sixty-eight hours since I had stood on that tarmac and watched a plane disappear into the clouds. I didn't know who was on it then. I just knew that when I turned back to the car, the air felt thinner.

"Damien, you're going to kill us!"

Victoria's voice shrieked through the car's Bluetooth system, shrill and distorted. I had forgotten I was on the phone with her. I had forgotten she existed for the last ten miles.

"The gala is in ruins," she continued, her voice pitching up an octave. "The florists sent lilies instead of moonflowers. And the council members are asking where the Luna is. You need to come back and fix this."

I stared at the road. The white lines were hypnotic. Dash. Dash. Dash.

"Damien? Are you listening to me?"

"I'm driving," I said. My voice sounded rusty, unused, like a machine left out in the rain.

"Well, pull over! This is a disaster. Everyone is whispering. They think you can't control your household. They think-"

I reached out and tapped the red icon on the screen.

The car went silent. The engine roared, filling the void, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough.

I gripped the leather wheel until my knuckles turned white and the seams bit into my palms. My chest felt like it had been hollowed out with a spoon. It was a physical ache, a dull, throbbing pressure right behind my sternum.

I told myself it was stress. It was the merger. It was the unruly pack elders.

But I knew it was the house.

The house was too quiet.

I had walked into the master bedroom last night. It smelled of antiseptic cleaner and Victoria's cloying perfume. But underneath that, faintly, was the scent of rain and vanilla. Elena's scent.

I had opened her closet. It was empty.

Not just empty. Scrubbed.

There were no stray hairs. No forgotten shoes. No dust bunnies. It was as if she had never lived there. As if the last three years were a hallucination I had conjured up.

I swerved around a semi-truck, ignoring the angry blare of the horn behind me. I didn't flinch.

Why did it matter? She was just Elena. Quiet, mousy Elena. The woman who signed papers and sat at the end of the table. The woman I married because my father told me to.

So why did I feel like I was bleeding out?

My phone buzzed again. Victoria.

I didn't answer.

I thought about the divorce papers. They were sitting on my desk, signed. I hadn't filed them yet. I told myself I was too busy.

The truth was, looking at her signature-that shaky, jagged script-made me feel sick.

Ahead, I saw a sign for the exit to the Pack lands. I should turn. I should go home, fix the flowers, soothe Victoria, play the Alpha.

I slammed on the brakes.

The car fishtailed violently, tires screaming against the asphalt, smoke rising in the headlights. I came to a shuddering stop on the shoulder, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

I couldn't go back there. Not to that empty house.

I hit the steering wheel with the heel of my hand. Once. Twice.

I needed to find her. I needed to scream at her for leaving. I needed to drag her back and tell her she couldn't just quit.

I put the car in reverse, spinning it around on the narrow highway with a spray of gravel.

I wasn't going home. I was going hunting.