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.