Grandpa collapsed at dinner.

One moment he was laughing at something Marcus said, his hand steady around his water glass. The next, his face went gray. His fingers opened. The glass hit the floor and shattered, and he followed it down, chair scraping back, his body folding in on itself like something inside had just given up.

I was on my knees beside him before anyone else moved. "Grandpa. Grandpa, look at me."

His eyes found mine. Confused. Struggling. His hand came up and gripped my wrist with surprising strength, and I held on while the pack house erupted into noise around us—someone shouting for the healer, someone else calling an ambulance, Devin's voice cutting through it all with Alpha tone, commanding people to move, to give him space.

But Grandpa wasn't looking at Devin. He was looking at me.

"I'm here," I whispered. "I'm right here."

The ambulance came. I rode with him, my hand locked around his, watching his chest rise and fall in shallow, uneven rhythms. The paramedics worked around me. I didn't move. I couldn't. If I let go, something terrible would happen. I knew it the way you know things in nightmares.

Silverpine Medical Center smelled like antiseptic and fear. They took him through double doors I wasn't allowed past, and I stood in the corridor with my arms wrapped around myself, shaking. Someone draped a blanket over my shoulders. I didn't see who.

The doctor found me an hour later. She was young, tired, and she didn't waste time softening it.

"The damage is extensive. His heart is failing. We can make him comfortable, but we're talking weeks. Maybe less."

I heard the words. I understood them. I nodded.

She kept talking—something about treatment options, hospice care, advance directives—but the fluorescent lights were too bright and the floor was tilting and all I could think was: weeks.

Not months. Weeks.

They let me sit with him once he was stable. He was awake, propped up on pillows, an oxygen tube under his nose. He looked smaller than I'd ever seen him. Fragile. The word didn't fit him. Grandpa Brooks had been a Gamma. He'd bled for his pack. He'd raised me after my parents died and never once made me feel like a burden.

He reached for my hand. I took it.

"Rae," he said quietly. His voice was rough. "I need to see you marked."

I blinked. "Grandpa—"

"Before I go." His grip tightened. "I need to know you're taken care of. That someone chose you. Please."

My throat closed. I pressed my thumb against the inside of my opposite wrist, hard, and nodded. "Okay. I'll call Devin."

He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. "Good girl."

I stepped into the hallway and pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so badly it took three tries to pull up Devin's contact. I hit call. It rang four times before he picked up.

"Raegan? What's wrong?"

"Grandpa collapsed." My voice came out flat. Steady. I didn't recognize it. "We're at Silverpine Medical. The doctor says he has weeks. He wants—" I stopped. Swallowed. "He wants to see me marked. Before he dies."

Silence.

"Devin?"

"I'll be there," he said. "Give me twenty minutes."

He arrived in fifteen. I met him in the waiting area, and for a moment I let myself believe this was it. Ten years. He'd finally do it. He'd mark me, and Grandpa would see it, and everything would be okay.

Devin pulled me into a hug. I stood stiff in his arms, breathing in his scent—pine and earth, familiar and distant all at once.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

I did. He listened. His phone buzzed halfway through. He ignored it. It buzzed again. And again.

He pulled it out. Glanced at the screen. His jaw tightened.

"What is it?" I asked.

He hesitated. "Pearl. She's—her wolf is spiraling. She says she can't breathe."

I stared at him. "Devin. My grandfather is dying."

"I know." He rubbed his face. "I know, Rae. But she's—she's in a bad place right now. I just need to check on her. Make sure she's okay. I'll be back in an hour. I promise."

He kissed my forehead. He walked out through the sliding glass doors.

I stood there, blanket still around my shoulders, and watched him go.

One hour became two. Then three. I sat in a plastic chair outside Grandpa's room and stared at my phone. No texts. No calls. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A nurse walked past and gave me a sympathetic look.

My wolf, who had been whimpering softly in the back of my mind since Grandpa collapsed, went silent.

Not howling. Not whimpering.

Just—gone.

I picked up my phone at 12:14 a.m. My fingers didn't shake this time. I typed carefully, precisely, because the words mattered.

*I, Raegan Brooks, reject you, Devin Webb, Alpha of the Ironridge Pack, as my fated mate.*

I hit send.

The pain came three seconds later. It tore through my chest like claws, ripping at the bond that had been there for ten years. My bones ached. My ribs felt like they were caving in. I doubled over in the chair, gasping, pressing my fist against my sternum.

And then—underneath the pain, faint and cautious—I smelled it.

White jasmine.

It was coming from me. From my own skin.

My wolf stirred. Not gone. Not silent.

Breathing.

I stood up. The blanket fell to the floor. I walked down the corridor, past the nurses' station, through the sliding glass doors into the cold night air. I wrapped my arms around myself and stood there, shaking, the severed bond still ringing in my chest like an echo.

The scent hit me before I saw him.

Cedar and thunderstorm. Overwhelming. Safe.

I turned.

Collin Marshall stood beside the hospital entrance, massive and still. He didn't move toward me. Didn't speak. Just watched me with dark, unreadable eyes.

"You're free now," he said quietly.

I blinked. "What?"

"I've known for weeks." His voice was low, unhurried. "Your scent. White jasmine and rain. My wolf recognized you. I waited because you weren't free."

I stared at him. "I don't—"

"Your grandfather is dying," he said. "He wants to see you marked. I can do that."

My breath caught. "You're offering—"

"A contract." He stepped closer. Not touching. Just close enough that his scent wrapped around me like a shield. "My mark. Courthouse registration. Pack assets in a trust in your name. And a six-month dissolution clause. If you want out after that, you walk away. No questions."

I looked up at him. At this Lycan Prince who had been watching me, waiting for me, while I spent ten years begging for scraps from a man who couldn't even stay for an hour.

"Why?" I whispered.

"Because you're mine," Collin said simply. "And I take care of what's mine."

I should have asked more questions. I should have thought it through. But Grandpa was dying and my wolf was whispering yes, yes, yes, and I was so tired of waiting for someone to choose me.

"Okay," I said.

Collin's eyes flashed gold. "Okay."

He offered me his hand. I took it.

And for the first time in ten years, I didn't feel like I was holding on alone.

Sylvia showed up at the hospital at seven in the morning with two pack members I barely knew—Daniel and Claire, mid-ranked wolves who nodded at me without asking questions. I was grateful for that. I didn't have explanations yet. I wasn't sure I ever would.

"You don't have to do this," I told her.

Sylvia crossed her arms. "Yes, I do. You're not going back there."

She was right. I couldn't walk into that pack house. Not after last night. Not after the text. The bond-severance pain had faded to a dull, persistent ache in my ribs, like something bruised that hadn't healed yet. My wolf was still quiet, but she wasn't gone. I could feel her there, waiting.

I gave Sylvia the list. Clothes. Books. The photograph of Grandpa in his Gamma uniform. My mother's jewelry box. Everything else could stay.

"What if he tries to stop us?" Daniel asked.

I looked at him. "Tell him I invoked formal property rights. He can't refuse."

Sylvia's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Got it."

They left. I sat in the waiting room with a cup of coffee I wasn't drinking and watched the clock. Forty minutes, Sylvia had said. Maybe less if Devin wasn't there.

He was there.

Sylvia told me later, her voice tight with anger she was trying to control. They'd pulled up to the pack house and found Devin standing in the doorway, arms crossed, jaw working in that slow, deliberate way he did when he was lying to himself about something.

"She can't send people to take her things," he'd said. "She wants them, she comes herself."

Sylvia had stepped forward. "Raegan Brooks invokes her formal right as an unmated she-wolf to reclaim personal property from a pack residence. You want to refuse that in front of witnesses?"

Devin had stared at her. At the word *unmated*. His face had gone white, then red. But he'd stepped aside.

Forty minutes. They packed everything on the list, plus a few things Sylvia thought I'd want later—a sweater I'd left on the back of a chair, a mug I'd used every morning. Small things. The kinds of things you don't think about until they're gone.

Devin watched from the doorway the entire time. Didn't speak. Didn't move. Just stood there with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders rigid, watching them carry my life out in boxes.

When they were done, Sylvia had paused at the door. She'd looked back at him.

"She deserved better," Sylvia had said quietly. "You know that, right?"

Devin hadn't answered.

Sylvia brought the boxes to the hospital. I went through them in the waiting room, my hands shaking slightly as I opened the one with Grandpa's photograph. The frame was intact. I held it for a long moment, then set it carefully on the chair beside me.

"Thank you," I said.

Sylvia sat down next to me. "What happens now?"

I didn't answer. I didn't know yet.

My phone buzzed. A text from Marcus, Devin's Beta. Three words: *I'm sorry, Raegan.*

I stared at it. Didn't reply. What was there to say?

Two hours later, Sylvia's phone lit up. She glanced at it, frowned, then showed me the screen.

It was a message from another Ironridge wolf. A single sentence: *Devin just moved Pearl into the Luna suite.*

I read it twice. My hands went numb.

"He what?" Sylvia's voice was sharp.

I set the phone down carefully. "It's fine."

"It's not fine. Raegan—"

"It's fine," I repeated. My voice came out flat. Distant. "He made his choice."

Sylvia looked at me for a long moment, then pulled me into a hug. I stood stiff in her arms, the way I'd stood in Devin's arms last night. But this time, I didn't pull away. I let her hold me until the shaking stopped.

When she left, I sat alone in the waiting room and tried not to picture it. Devin ordering the suite scrubbed. My scent stripped from the sheets, the furniture, the air. Pearl standing in the doorway with that soft, wounded look she always wore, watching him erase me.

I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wrist. Hard.

My wolf stirred. Not speaking. Just—there.

I stood up. Collin was waiting in the corridor outside Grandpa's room, exactly where he'd said he would be. He looked up when I approached, his dark eyes steady.

"Ready?" he asked.

I nodded.

The clinic was private, tucked into a building I'd never noticed before on the edge of Silverpine's medical district. Collin's hand stayed at the small of my back as we walked in—not guiding, just present. The receptionist nodded at him without asking questions.

The room they brought us to was small and clinical. Examination table. Sink. A single window overlooking the parking lot. A healer waited inside, an older woman with silver hair and calm hands.

"This is a formal marking," she said. "It will establish the bond immediately. You'll feel it. Both of you. Are you ready?"

I looked at Collin. He was watching me, not the healer. Waiting.

"Yes," I said.

The healer stepped back. Collin moved closer. His scent wrapped around me—cedar and thunderstorm, overwhelming and safe. He lifted his hand, his fingers brushing the side of my neck, tilting my head slightly to expose the hollow of my throat.

"This will hurt," he said quietly. "But I'll be careful."

I gripped the edge of the examination table. "I know."

His eyes flashed gold. He leaned in.

The bite was deliberate. Precise. His teeth broke skin and the bond ignited—silver-bright, flooding my senses like lightning. I gasped. My fingers tightened on the table. The pain was sharp and immediate, but underneath it was something else. Warmth. Connection. The sense of something clicking into place that had been misaligned for years.

Collin pulled back slowly. His hand stayed at my neck, steadying me. I could feel his pulse against my skin, or maybe it was mine. I couldn't tell.

My wolf stirred. Not speaking. But present. Awake.

The healer stepped forward with gauze. "The mark will silver within the hour. Keep it clean. No shifting for twenty-four hours."

I nodded. I couldn't speak yet.

Collin's thumb brushed my jaw. "You okay?"

I looked up at him. At this Lycan Prince who had marked me without hesitation, without conditions, without making me beg.

"Yeah," I whispered. "I'm okay."

His mouth curved slightly. Not quite a smile. Something quieter.

"Good," he said.

We left the clinic together. The mark burned at my throat, silver beginning to trace the edges of the bite. I touched it carefully, feeling the heat of it under my fingers.

Collin's hand found mine. I didn't pull away.

For the first time in ten years, I wasn't holding on alone.