A wolf who kept the ledgers of his outer trading-post.

A secret.

My wounds weren't deep, so the pack healer kept me under watch for three days before letting me go. Everything was routine. Quiet. Uneventful. The private Healing Hall smelled of crushed herbs and old bloodline money, and the attendants moved with the careful hush of those who knew better than to ask whose name truly sat on the bill.

The cost passed through the Pack's holdings, and whatever remained was returned straight to Salveth's account.

Three days.

Not a single visit.

Not even a sending through the stone.

And then, on the day they released me, my crystal communicator rang.

"You're out already?" Salveth's voice came through, casual, almost mildly annoyed. "You could've at least given me word."

I held the communicator in silence.

"I've a council to sit today," he went on. "Can't come for you."

"…All right."

That was all I said.

I swallowed everything else. The questions that rose to my throat. The ones that used to matter.

I didn't ask where he was.

I didn't ask who he was with.

Instead, I opened the communicator and traced his location.

A den on the edge of Bloodmoor hunting grounds. One of those with discreet attendants and no eyes in the corridors.

I didn't need him to explain anything. I didn't need it confirmed.

Then, faintly, through the receiver, I caught a woman's voice.

"Come dry my hair, won't you?"

The line went dead almost instantly.

He cut it.

I stared at the stone for a moment, unmoving. Somewhere beneath my ribs, my wolf went very still, the way an animal goes still when it senses a thing it cannot name.

Not long after, two transfer marks surfaced.

1,314 moon-credits.

1,520 moon-credits.

The numbers hit me harder than anything else.

They weren't random.

They meant something. They always had.

1314 meant forever.

1520 meant I love you.

For years, I had wished for this. For him to send me those numbers, for something so simple and bound with meaning. I had imagined catching it on a screen, sharing it on the spirit network, just once, like everyone else. Just once, to show that I had something real.

But every time I raised it, he refused.

He didn't like attention.

He didn't want anyone asking questions.

He didn't want it known. An Alpha's private life was a liability, he said. Something rival packs could use.

And now… now that I had already decided to let him go, he sent them?

I didn't know if it was guilt. Or habit. Or something else entirely.

I opened his profile without thinking.

The moment it loaded, I froze.

His image had changed.

It was a couple portrait.

But not with me.

I didn't hesitate.

I returned both transfers at once.

A few seconds later, the stone buzzed again.

A string of question marks.

I didn't answer.

When I returned to the den-rooms, nothing had changed.

Everything was exactly as it had been the night of the gathering. The same boots by the door. The same coat thrown over the chair. The same faint trace lingering in the air, obsidian and cold ash, dried clove, old leather gone faintly bitter, the ghost of a world where rulings were made in back chambers and sealed with oaths that could never be unspoken.

Which meant one thing.

He hadn't been back.

Not once.

I stood there a moment, letting the silence settle around me. Then I drew a deep breath, pushed down the tight ache rising in my chest, and began to pack.

It didn't take long.

Piece by piece, the space began to empty.

Five years.

Five years of a life I had carefully built around him, taken apart in a few short hours.

Most of what I packed were things I had chosen myself.

Couple things.

Matching mugs. Clothes that paired. Small ornaments that hinted at something shared.

Salveth had never cared for any of it.

He never wore anything that might mark him as taken. Never used anything too plain to read. He said a wolf in his place couldn't afford to look soft. Couldn't give anyone a grip to hold.

I used to tease him about it.

Saying he carried himself like some deep-buried tracker, hiding his scent from the whole world.

Now I understood.

It was never a jest.

He simply never saw me as someone he needed to claim. No mark at the curve of my neck. No glow under the moon. Nothing.

I was halfway through packing when I heard the door open.

He came back.

"Selene, what's this about?" he snapped the moment he saw me. "I've been calling you. I told you to come out and eat. You didn't pick up, didn't reply."

I didn't look up at once.

The scent reached me first.

A woman's perfume.

Not mine.

Not even close. My wolf flattened low inside me, a quiet, wounded thing that did not howl, only turned its face away.

Without thinking, I lifted my hand slightly, holding him from coming any closer.

When I finally raised my eyes, they drifted to his neck.

Faint red marks.

Bite-bruises.

"Sorry," I said calmly, my voice steady. I smoothed a blouse flat against the lining of the case, pressing the crease until it was sharp enough to cut. "I've been busy. Didn't check the stone."

He frowned, his gaze sweeping the room.

Only then did he notice the cases. The bare shelves. The missing pieces.

"Don't tell me you've spent it tearing the rooms apart," he said, irritation creeping into his tone. "You just left the Healing Hall. You should be resting."

His eyes settled on a few unopened boxes I hadn't reached yet.

Inside were the couple things I'd bought not long ago. Still new. Still untouched.

"You don't want any of this?" he asked.

I bent down to pick one up.

Before I could even straighten, he reached out and took it from my hands.

"Fine, I'll throw them out for you," he said, almost impatiently. "But stop wasting moon-credits on useless things. What, do you think they grow on the trees?"

His tone was casual.

Indifferent.

Like none of this mattered.

Then, as if nothing had happened at all, he added, "Go change. I'll take you out to eat."

Like this was just another normal day.

Like nothing was ending.

Instead, I walked out to the balcony.

From there, I watched him.

He carried the boxes down and walked straight to the refuse pit behind the den, past the black obsidian carriage idling at the edge of the grounds where one of his sentinels sat waiting, engine low and growling.

No hesitation.

No second glance.

He tossed them in.

Just like that.

The same way he had thrown away our five years.

Effortlessly.

Like they meant nothing at all.

At the trading-post, a quiet place on neutral ground where the pack sometimes kept private tables, he ordered several dishes without asking.

Most of them were our usual favorites.

The kind we always shared.

The kind tied to memories. Late-night laughter, long runs under a low moon, lazy days where time seemed to slow and the world outside, with all its blood and obligation, couldn't reach us.

For a moment, it almost felt familiar.

Almost.

But then I saw it.

One more dish.

Bitter melon with scrambled eggs.

The one I hated the most.

He knew that.

He had always remembered.

Every little thing.

Until now.

My appetite disappeared completely, like something inside me had quietly snapped. The scent of the food, the low murmur from nearby tables, even the old hunting-song drifting from the den's far corner all felt distant. Somewhere beneath my ribs my wolf went still, the way she did when she could no longer make sense of him. I didn't feel like forcing myself anymore, didn't feel like pretending everything was normal.

"Excuse me," I called gently to the omega aide standing nearby, keeping my tone polite and controlled. "Could you take this dish off the table? I'll pay for it separately."

The aide hesitated for a second, clearly unsure, but before he could even reach for the plate, Salveth moved first. He dragged the dish back toward himself with a faint scoff, the obsidian-and-cold-ash of his scent sharpening with annoyance.

"Oh, come on," he said. "I miss a few days while you're in the Healing Hall and suddenly you're acting like a drama queen?" He let out a short, humorless laugh. "Maybe if you were actually paying attention to where you were going, you wouldn't have gotten run down in the first place."

The words landed harder than they should have.

Because I knew what it looked like when he cared.

I had seen it before.

There had been a time when fever took me in the dead of winter. He had panicked, lifted me onto his back, and carried me through freezing wind all the way to a moon-healer he trusted, his hands trembling, his voice breaking as he kept asking if I was still with him. I still remembered the way he cried that night, like losing me would destroy him. Back then he wasn't the Alpha yet. Back then his hands still shook for reasons that had nothing to do with blood.

And now?

Now he had been part of the thing that hurt me… and didn't even bother to come.

He knew I hated bitter melon. For five years, he had never once ordered it, never once brought anything remotely bitter to our table. He used to say even the smell made me frown too much.

And yet now, like we had gone back in time to when we had just met, like none of those years had ever existed, he casually ordered it again without a second thought.

I curled my lips into a faint, tired smile, the kind that didn't quite reach my eyes.

"I really hate bitter melon," I said softly. "I can't even stand the smell."

"Then don't eat it," he replied immediately, his tone sharp and impatient. "Simple."

The irritation in his voice wasn't even hidden. The silver lighter appeared in his hand, turning slow across his knuckles, each rotation catching the low light like a small, indifferent blade.

But I kept my expression calm, polite, like I had trained myself to be over the years.

"I think… we should—"

I didn't get to finish.

A woman's voice cut in smoothly from the side.

"Salveth, after all these years, you still remember I love bitter melon!"

I lifted my gaze.

She stood right beside our table, perfectly put together from head to toe. Flawless. Impeccable. Her posture straight, chin slightly lifted as she looked down at me with a faint, unmistakable trace of disdain. Jasmine and cold copper rolled off her in a wave, one finger resting on the pearl at her throat, light as a breath, as if confirming something only she needed to know.

Without waiting for any invitation, she stepped closer.

With an easy familiarity, she nudged Salveth slightly inward along the booth, then slipped into the seat right next to him, close enough that their shoulders brushed. The two sentinels at the bar didn't turn, but I could feel the room's attention tighten, the way it always did when the Alpha's table changed shape.

"Let me introduce myself," she said sweetly, her voice smooth like syrup. "I'm Salveth's girlfriend. Aurelia Caldris."

I didn't respond.

She leaned in even closer to him, her arm grazing his as if it were the most natural thing in the world, then slid a glance sideways at me, subtle, almost playful.

"Salveth," she said lightly, "aren't you going to introduce her? She's…"

Salveth's expression stiffened instantly.

It was clear he hadn't expected this.

His eyes flickered toward me, a brief flash of unease, almost panic, before he forced himself back into stillness. Beneath the surface I caught the faint hitch in his scent, obsidian and cold ash gone sharp for half a breath. The lighter went still in his hand.

For a second, I almost laughed.

"Selene Ashford," I said before he could speak, my tone calm and even. "I serve in Alpha Bloodmoor's outer den. The trading-post was full, so we're only sharing a table."

His head snapped toward me.

That flicker of panic vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by visible relief. He let out a breath, then nodded fast. The lighter resumed its slow rotation.

"Yeah, that's right," he said. "This is Selene. One of my pack's own."

Aurelia smiled slowly.

The kind of smile a wolf gives when it already has its quarry pinned beneath its paw.

"Then Selene must be very capable," she said, tilting her head slightly. "I've never seen Salveth sit at the same table with any she-wolf besides me."

Her tone was light, but every word carried weight.

Then she set her crystal communicator casually beside her wine glass, nudging it forward just enough to be seen. It looked accidental.

It wasn't.

I caught a glimpse of the surface.

Her image-glyph.

It matched Salveth's.

A bonded-pair portrait.

Even their colors today were coordinated. The same tones, the same palette, down to the smallest detail, the matching bands at their wrists. Everything deliberate, curated, costly. The kind of paired presentation that in this world meant more than affection. It meant claim. It meant territory.

Under the warm light of the trading-post, they looked perfect.

Like a portrait of an Alpha and his Luna.

I lowered my gaze, set my chopsticks down carefully, and stood.

I didn't want to stay.

Before I could take a step, Aurelia reached out and seized my wrist.

Her fingers were slender, her nails long and perfectly tended.

They dug into my skin just enough to hurt, just enough to leave a mark, but hidden from Salveth's line of sight. Jasmine and cold copper drifted off her, sweet on the surface, wrong underneath.

"Selene," she said softly, her voice laced with feigned concern, "leaving already? Did I say something wrong?"

Her eyes shimmered, almost as if she were genuinely sorry.

"Let me apologize, all right?"

I didn't have the patience for this.

Didn't have the energy to play along with someone wearing sweetness like a borrowed pelt.

I pulled my hand back sharply, breaking free of her grip. Low in my chest, my wolf bristled, a growl held just behind my teeth.

As I lowered my eyes to check my wrist, I saw it: thin red marks where her nails had dug in, one of them already beading with blood.

Before I could even process it, everything happened in an instant.

Aurelia suddenly lifted her own hand and swung it outward.

A loud smack rang through the trading-post.

A little pup standing nearby was struck across the face.

His cry broke out at once, sharp and piercing as he clutched his cheek, tears spilling as he sobbed without control. Two fingers hooked into the hem of his tunic, twisting the cloth tight, and he couldn't look up.

The whole room went still for a split second. The low music between songs. The clink of silver stopping at three separate tables. The kind of hush that in any pack-held den meant someone of standing was watching.

Aurelia's expression changed just as fast.

Her face turned pale, her eyes widening in exaggerated shock.

"Oh no!" she gasped, covering her mouth. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to! Sweetheart, are you all right?"

Salveth was already on his feet.

He crossed the room, apologizing again and again to the pup's parents, his voice urgent and sincere. Without hesitation he drew his communicator and sent a transfer of moon-credits, smoothing it over as quickly as he could. The Alpha tending to the lesser-ranked. Keeping the peace in a public den where the Bloodmoor name hung over every dealing like smoke that wouldn't clear.

Then the little pup suddenly pointed straight at me.

"It was her!" he cried between sobs. "She grabbed that lady's hand and made her hit me! She should say sorry!"

Every gaze in the trading-post shifted.

All at once.

Aurelia turned to me slowly, her eyes filling with hurt, her face trembling just enough to look real. Her fingers drifted to the pale stone at her throat again, holding it like a she-wolf afraid she'd be struck next.

"Selene…" she said softly, her voice fragile, "I don't know what I did to upset you."

She lowered her gaze slightly, as if holding back tears.

"If you have a quarrel with me, please… take it out on me. Don't drag innocent ones into it…"

Whispers began to spread.

Low voices. Judging. Speculating.

I could feel it.

The weight of every stare pressing against my back. In a place like this, where half the room owed something to the Bloodmoor name, the pack's opinion wasn't just opinion. It was verdict.

Salveth turned toward me, his expression darkening instantly. The air around him thickened, his Alpha aura pressing down cold across the table, and somewhere beneath my skin my own wolf flattened low under the force of it.

"What are you standing there for?" he snapped, his voice sharp and cold. "Apologize. Now."

His tone left no room for argument.

"Stop making a scene."

Like I was the problem.

Like I was the one who had shamed him.

Like I was the one who didn't belong.