Then I removed the bond ring from my finger and walked into his chamber.

I entered the combination to his ironwood chest.

Tessa’s birth moon.

The lock opened instantly.

Inside lay a leather-bound album, preserved with care. Each page bore silent witness to the years he had shared with her.

Gerald claimed to leave the territory three times a year on council business. Now I knew the truth. Every journey had been taken at Tessa’s side, across distant ranges and foreign lands. From the age of thirty-five to fifty-five. Twenty years.

My hands shook as I turned to one image.

They stood locked in an embrace beneath a golden coastal sun. Her form was strong and radiant, untouched by age. His fur was threaded with gray, yet his posture remained powerful, his presence unmistakably Alpha. The way they looked at each other was not mere affection.

It was devotion.

Earlier images had faded with time. In the first, they were young, reckless, standing beneath an ancient star watch tower, fingers entwined as the first falling star burned across the heavens.

Below it, in Gerald’s familiar hand, were the words:

“I once missed a meteor’s descent. I swear never to miss the one who loves the stars.”

From black fur to white, they had never lost each other again.

The happiest moment of my life rose unbidden in my memory. The night Gerald asked me to be his mate.

On the high grasslands beneath a sky ablaze with stars, he placed a ring upon my finger and promised loyalty until death.

Only now did I understand.

It was never meant for me.

Tessa loved the stars.

Those vows had never been mine to keep.

Pain tore through my chest as if something long dead had finally been cut free. I closed the album and let the tears fall, unrestrained, striking the floor like scattered beads.

I had pursued Gerald for three long years before he agreed to bond with me.

My parents had warned me. They said his heart lay elsewhere. I believed that if I loved him deeply enough, he would one day return that love.

But a bond forced into being is never sweet.

After thirty winters, I had tasted its bitterness in full.

I had tended his meals, raised our cubs, cared for our grandson, never resting, never asking.

Once, I had been young and radiant. Now I was worn, heavy with years. Meanwhile, he and the woman he loved seemed untouched by time, still proud, still luminous.

More than ten winters ago, he began forgetting our bonding nights, ignoring my birth moons, leaving me alone in the healer’s den with nothing but a cold message sent by raven.

I told myself that if I counted sixty-six disappointments, I would leave.

This was the sixty-sixth.

I placed the bond ring and the signed dissolution parchment into his ironwood chest.

Then I turned away and lifted the rune-stone.

“Gerald,” I said steadily, “do you still wish to acquire my holdings in the Mortimer territory?”

“So,” Gerald said, his low voice lifting in clear surprise, “did I hear that correctly? You are offering me your share of the Mortimer territory?”

I did not answer.

A brief chuckle rolled from his chest, deep and steady.

“In that case, I accept. But I never take without giving. How about this, Victoria? Bind yourself to me under a long oath.”

I stiffened.

“You always spoke of wandering beyond the mountain lines,” he continued smoothly. “It so happens I have invested in a great traveling conclave, a gathering that moves from pack to pack. I still lack the one who will stand at its center and speak.”

“I am no longer young,” I said instinctively. “My form, my presence…”

“Enough,” Gerald cut in without impatience. “Fifty-five winters is not the end of anything. You were once the most luminous voice to rise from the High Academies. That has not changed.”

He did not ask what I had endured.

As if my path were already decided, his tone left no space for refusal.

“Forget Gerald,” he said. “Look forward. I will come for you when I return.”

Some things never changed. He was still as commanding as he had been in his youth.

After a long pause, I exhaled slowly.

“Very well,” I said. “I accept, Edmund.”

For the first time in decades, my life was beginning on my own terms.

Gerald did not return to the lodge that night.

At dawn, his call came through the rune-stone.

“Bring the morning meal to the council hall,” he ordered. “Prepare enough for two. We have a guest.”

He never trusted food prepared by others. For thirty winters, even when I was fevered or sleepless, I rose before sunrise to cook for him.

When I entered his chamber at the hall, I stopped short.

Tessa stood there.

She wore a pale-gold mantle, her posture elegant and composed. At her feet lay my favorite hide-canvas, torn apart and scattered across the stone floor.

In its place stood a new moonstone carving.

My mind went blank.

“Who did this?” I demanded, heat surging up my spine. “That was my work.”

Tessa’s eyes widened, her hand rising in feigned alarm.

“Oh, I thought it was nothing of value,” she said softly. “It looked crude. I replaced it with one of mine. Forgive me, Victoria.”

That canvas was the only piece Gerald and I had ever crafted together during the journey we once called sacred.

Gerald did not even look up from the scrolls in his hand. He crossed the room and took the food vessel from me.

“It does not matter,” he said dismissively. “That old thing had no worth. This place finally feels refined.”

As he passed me, his shoulder struck mine.

I fell.

Broken frame shards cut into my palm. Blood spilled instantly, sharp pain flashing white through my vision.

I tried to rise.

Then I saw it.

A pale silk garment, discarded carelessly in the corner.

My chest tightened, breath catching painfully.

Gerald noticed none of it.

When Tessa’s eyes shimmered and she said softly, “Gerald, there were ground nuts in the porridge. You know I cannot tolerate them. I could have died,” his expression darkened at once.

Without hesitation, he hurled the vessel into the fire pit.

Then he looked down at me on the floor with open disdain.

“Stop acting weak. Clean up that ugly thing. And never use ground nuts again.”

He took Tessa by the hand and left.

That night, at her celebration feast, I watched him shield her from the crowd, refusing to let her carry even the smallest satchel.

“Your hands shape beauty,” he said fondly. “They should never be burdened.”

I returned home and treated my wound myself.

Then I gathered every gift Gerald had ever given me.

Each feast, each turning of the moon, everything came in pairs.

Only then did I understand.

Nothing had ever been meant solely for me.

By the time the sun dipped low, I hurried to collect my grandson, Henry.

As he emerged with the other pups, laughter rose nearby.

“Is that your grandmother?” someone jeered.

Henry flushed crimson.

“No,” he shouted. “She is just our caretaker.”

Then he lifted a carved-image scroll.

“This is my grandmother. She is a great sculptor.”

It was Tessa.

I felt nothing.

On the ride home, Henry stayed silent.

When we stopped, he whispered, “Grandmother, are you angry?”

I looked at him calmly.

“Henry,” I said, “if you wish for another grandmother, I will help you have one.”

I handed him to the pack nanny and rode off without looking back.

When I returned to the territory, exhaustion clinging to my bones, the first thing I saw was my old harp lying in the grass outside the lodge, abandoned like refuse.

Inside, Arthur stood near the doorway, hauling in several heavy travel chests.

“Mother,” he said flatly, not meeting my eyes, “Aunt Tessa will be staying with us for a time. She dislikes noise, so I cleared out your music room and turned it into a carving chamber for her.”

I looked at him, truly looked.

In that moment, I understood that I no longer belonged here. I was not family, not welcome. I was only a remnant, something unsightly left behind, lingering where it should not.

That harp had been Arthur’s gift to me on his eighth naming day. He had traded away all his winter tokens for it.

He used to sit beside me in the sunlit room, small fingers brushing the strings, laughing as he leaned against my arm and said, “I love Mother the most.”

That child was gone.

I swallowed the pain rising in my chest and forced a thin smile.

“So this is how you treat your mother now.”

Unease flickered across his face, brief and awkward. Before he could answer, soft footsteps approached.

Gerald stepped into the yard with Tessa beside him. His expression mirrored Arthur’s, distant and cold as he looked straight at me.

“Tessa fears the dark,” he said. “Your chamber receives the most sunlight. Move out and let her take it.”

I lowered my eyes and nodded.

“Alright. I will clear my things.”

They had expected resistance. Tears, perhaps. My calm acceptance unsettled him, and surprise tightened his features.

“Victoria…”

“Oh, you are so kind,” Tessa said quickly, smiling sweetly. “Let us live peacefully together during this time.”

I did not respond. I turned and went upstairs.

In the chamber, I dragged out one heavy pack after another. Each item carried years of quiet endurance, of giving without return.

When I tossed three decades of memories into the refuse cart, Gerald followed me out, frowning.

“Why are you discarding so much?”

“Things I no longer need.”

He hesitated, then reached into one pack and froze.

“These are the gifts I gave you.”

I smiled faintly.

“Old things should have been thrown away long ago.”

His jaw tightened.

“You used to treasure them.”

Yes. Once, anything from him had made me glow with foolish joy. I had sworn to keep each gift forever.

But forever was too heavy for a heart worn thin by betrayal.

I passed him without stopping.

“There is someone new in the lodge now,” I said quietly. “You never liked crowds.”

He seemed about to explain that Tessa’s stay was temporary, but I was already loading the last pack onto my mount.

He exhaled sharply.

“There is a feast tonight. You have not attended one in years. Come along with Tessa.”

He had not brought me to a gathering in a long time. Not since my body changed, not since I no longer suited his image.

At the feast, Gerald and Tessa dismounted first.

The host greeted them warmly. “Alpha Mortimer, your mate is as radiant as ever.”

Gerald did not correct him. He took Tessa’s hand naturally.

“Thank you.”

“And this lady is…?”

Only then did he glance at me, briefly, before looking away.

“Our aide.”

I stood still.

Though I expected it, the words still tore through me.

I lifted my chin and entered the feast hall with what dignity I had left.

Tessa clung to Gerald’s arm as they moved through the firelit gathering, graceful and inseparable, like a true bonded pair.

I remained apart, watching as though from another world.

Then, without warning, a sharp pain ripped through my injured right calf, burning and sudden, stealing the breath from my lungs.