Growls exploded around me. I couldn’t see, but I could feel them circling, closing in.

“Drake!” I screamed. “Please—!”

He roared, furious, desperate. “Stop! I said stop! I’ll choose!”

The wolves snapped closer. Claws brushed my leg.

“Who?” Jakobi asked, amused. “Her? Or the pregnant one?”

My chest tightened.

For a second… I waited.

I still waited.

His voice came out strained. “I—”

Then Chiara cried, choking, “Drake… please save me… our pup… I can’t… I can’t die…”

Everything went quiet. Even the wolves seemed to pause.

And then—

“Chiara.”

Just one word.And that was it. Something inside me broke so quietly I almost didn’t notice.

The wolves lunged.

Pain exploded as teeth tore into my flesh, claws ripping, my body dragged and thrown like I wasn’t even human. I screamed until my voice disappeared.

Then they pulled me out only to throw me back again.

And again.

I lost count.

By the time they dragged me out for the last time, I couldn’t even move. I could barely breathe.

“Are you trying to kill her?” Drake shouted, his voice breaking. “She won’t survive this!”

Jakobi laughed softly. “You chose this. Don’t look at me like that.”

I was thrown onto the ground. My body felt numb, heavy, like it wasn’t mine anymore.

“Second game,” Jakobi said casually. “Let’s make this more interesting.”

Something was dragged. Metal scraping.

“A silver whip. Ninety-nine lashes. Alpha Thornhill… choose again. Who takes it this time?”

Drake didn’t answer right away. His breathing was rough, uneven.

My lungs burned. I coughed, choking on blood, my whole body shaking. I couldn’t even lift my head anymore.

So this is it…? Is this how I end

The next second, his answer came.

“Chiara.”

Chiara broke into tears, clutching her chest and looking at me like she’d been saved from death itself. “Chloe already suffered so much. I… I don’t know what to say! I didn’t mean for things to turn out like this.”

I didn’t look at her. I looked at him. Drake. “Why…?” My voice barely came out. “Why is it always her? Tell me, Drake, just once, tell me why.”

He didn’t answer.

The whip came down before I could hear anything else. A sharp crack split the air and pain exploded across my back. I gasped, my body jerking forward, my fingers digging into the rough ground.

Stones cut into my skin and blood smeared under my nails. “One.” Another strike. “Two.” I bit my lip, but the sound still slipped out. “Three…” The pain kept building, tearing me apart piece by piece.

“Drake…” I choked out, my voice shaking. “Does it hurt you at all watching this? Or am I just nothing now?”

No answer.

By the time it reached fifty, I couldn’t think straight. My back was soaked, blood dripping down my sides. “Fifty-five!” someone called out. My vision blurred. My body swayed.

“Stop!” Drake roared, “I said stop hitting her! Can’t you hear me? That’s enough, she can’t take it anymore!” Chains rattled as he broke free, rushing toward me.

For a second I thought, I really thought… But then—

“Drake!” Chiara screamed, “My stomach!! It hurts… something’s wrong! I think I’m losing our babies— please, help me…”

Everything froze. I felt it. That hesitation. Drake stopped. Grabbed her. “What’s wrong? Talk to me. Are you in pain? Don’t scare me like this… breathe, okay? I’m here.”

I laughed weakly.

It came out broken. So this is it… right? Another whip came down. I coughed, blood spilling from my mouth.

“Chloe!” Drake shouted. His voice sounded far away now.

Jakobi laughed, slow and cruel. “Alpha Thornhill, this is getting interesting. I’ve got a medical team ready, but you can only save one. Think carefully… are you choosing her again? Or do you finally want to change your answer?”

Another strike. Another. I couldn’t hear properly anymore. Everything rang. I forced my eyes open. I saw Drake and Jakobi talking, mouths moving, but I couldn’t hear the words. Then Jakobi nodded.

Drake picked Chiara up, held her close, and turned away. He walked off without even looking back. Not once. A laugh slipped out of me, weak and shaking.

“Ha… so this is it…” Ninety-nine lashes, and somehow none of them hurt as much as that moment.

The sky turned red as the sun set, like the world was bleeding with me. Something soft landed on me, a white seabird, its feathers turning red instantly.

“Drake…” I whispered, “Your fate… your bond… all those things you said… they meant nothing, didn’t they?” I tried to breathe but it hurts. Everything hurts. “If there’s another life… I won’t love you again.”

Then darkness swallowed everything.

I don’t know how long it has been. When I woke again, there were sirens, people shouting, hands moving around me. They said I was lucky. They said I survived. I didn’t feel lucky.

At the hospital, they treated my wounds and told me to stay, but I refused. What was the point? I went back to the glass house alone.

The place he built for me, every detail made just to make me smile. Now it didn’t feel like mine anymore. Chiara had only been there for two months, but she was everywhere. Her clothes, her scent, her things filling spaces that used to be mine.

My dressing room was a mess, my music room filled with her stuff like I’d never existed. Even the wooden carving I made for him, the one he once held like it meant everything, was lying on the floor, crooked and forgotten. I stared at it for a long time. Did he really cry back then… or was that fake too?

Outside, the sky was completely dark. A whole day and night had passed, and he never came back. Of course he didn’t. He was with her.

I smiled a little, but it felt empty. I wiped the blood from my lips slowly, then took out the papers I prepared and placed them inside the mailbox at the front of the glass house.

The first thing I grabbed was the test report from that cursed bouquet Chiara gave me yesterday.

I opened it slowly, my fingers trembling, and my chest ached like someone had slammed a fist into it.

The bouquet wasn’t just flowers. It was packed with intoxicating spices. The rogue wolf and the shadow lynx went berserk because of that. It wasn’t an accident. It was planned. Deliberate. And he never noticed, never questioned, never even blinked while I almost died.

I clutched the second item, my hands shaking so hard the papers crumpled. It was my medical report from the hospital.

The miscarriage. My child. My baby. All because he chose Chiara. Again. Just like that night with the rogue wolves, when I was thrown into their cage, my body battered, freezing, suffocating, and he… he saved her instead of me.

He made me suffer through the silver whips for her apology show, and he let me bleed, thrash, nearly die, while she watched. And now I knew—he’d done it twice. Twice he’d indirectly killed a child I carried for him.

And the third thing… my chest tightened when I held the broken diamond ring. The one he picked himself in Africa five years ago, polished until it shined a million times.

A half-year of patience, a symbol of his devotion, he said. He said he’d love me forever, that I was the only one. That ring had meant everything. And now, it was nothing. He left it to remind me what love could look like when it was fake.

I whispered to myself, almost laughing bitterly, “Drake, it was you… it was all you.”

The helicopter’s roar cut through the sky and I squinted up, seeing a familiar face poking its head out.

“Aren’t you leaving, Alice?” Alaric called.

I hesitated a moment, then forced a smile through the burning pain in my chest. “Do you have a lighter, Alaric?”

He whistled and tossed a box down. “That’s all I got.”

“Good enough,” I said, gripping the match box tight. My fingers shook so badly, I thought I might drop it.

Step by step, I walked toward the glass house. Every step burned in my legs, every breath in my chest was heavy with memories of what once felt like home. The walls had seen laughter, music, warmth, and now… they’d see fire.

I thought about Drake. About his hands on me, soft and warm, the alpha that claimed me. About the nights I thought we shared something sacred. My throat hurt. My eyes burned. My heart felt like it had been hollowed out. And yet… I had to do this.

I held up the match, my other hand pressed to my neck where his mark had been. The imprint burned under my fingers. Pain shot through me, sharp and deep, and I gritted my teeth.

I whispered to the shadows of that glass house, to the ghosts of the life I lost, “I am Luna Chloe Brightman. I reject you, Alpha Drake Thornhill. I sever the bond. You are no longer mine.”

The pain hit like a wave, electric, burning through my veins. I grabbed the mark and pulled. It screamed in my mind. My body convulsed, but I held on.

I felt him inside me, the bond snapping, tearing apart. My lungs burned, my tears mixed with blood and sweat, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Not anymore.

I struck the match.

And I threw it at the glass house.

The flames erupted immediately, roaring higher than I thought possible. I could see the windows shattering, the roof collapsing, and the rooms where my laughter had once lived now swallowed by fire. The scent of smoke and burning wood stung my nose, and my heart twisted. Every memory of him, every promise, every lie… everything vanished into the flames.

Alaric’s voice came from behind me, steady and calm. “Are you okay, Chloe?”

I nodded, but my lips barely moved. “I’m fine. I’m free now.”

He didn’t argue. He knew better.

I glanced back once at the burning house.

And I felt it. The emptiness. The cold, crushing void.

But I kept moving. Step by step, toward the helicopter. I climbed aboard, the engine shaking the night, the wind whipping my hair, the flames behind me like a warning to anyone who thought they could ever hold me again.

“This is it. Goodbye, Drake. Goodbye, everything you ever promised.”

The helicopter lifted into the sky, cutting through the darkness toward the ocean, and I let the wind carry away the last pieces of what he thought he owned.

I was gone.