No End in Sight

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I never understood why Joelle would love Alpha Roy. Not when he was so coldly ambitious, so wrapped up in power and alliances that I’d always thought he’d never have space in his heart for anyone but the Ironpeak Pack.

Until the night I found him in the old pack training grounds, sitting on a weathered park bench, waiting for me after a routine pack training. The full moon hung low over the pine trees, silver light gilding the broad lines of his shoulders, turning his dark eyes to molten gold when he looked up at me.

I couldn’t look away.

For five years I’d waited. I’d tended to his injuries after border skirmishes with rogues, I’d stood beside him at pack gatherings when he needed a chosen mate by his side, I’d turned down every other offer I’d ever gotten, all because he’d promised we’d have the marking ceremony once he secured his hold on the pack. He never said yes when I pressed him for a date. But he never said no, either. I’d clung to that, stupid as it was.

Then, five years to the day we first met, he came back from the Lycan royal assembly, and he told me the alliance with my family was finalized, and the marking ceremony would be held in a week.

I cried happy tears that night, my hands shaking as I packed away the silk dress I’d bought for the occasion. I’d just stepped out of my dressing room to get a glass of water when I heard their voices through the cracked study door. Low, intimate, the kind of tone I’d never gotten from him.

“Roy, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to mark Mila just to hide me. The old Alpha is dead, you’re Alpha now—you can just claim me as your Luna openly. No one would dare defy you,” Elliana said, her voice soft and breathless. My half-sister. The illegitimate daughter of the former Alpha, the woman who’d never worked a day in her life but still got every scrap of attention I’d ever craved.

Roy’s voice was gentle, the kind of gentle I’d only dreamed of hearing from him. “Elliana, I got into this for you. I left the rogue healing commune for you. If I don’t do this, the pack council will throw you and our unborn cub out of the pack. I won’t let that happen. This is just for show. Once the alliance is locked in, once the cub is born, everything will be fine. I only want you safe, Elliana. Only you.”

His alpha scent washed through the crack in the door, thick with vanilla and the wild jasmine that clung to Elliana’s skin—my wolf whined, the mate bond burning sharp and painful in my chest. I’d spent five years thinking his distant vanilla scent was just his natural signature, never realizing it was mixed with another’s because he’d been holding her close before I walked in.

I froze. The dress I’d clutched to my chest slipped from my fingers, pooling on the carpet like spilled water. The little carved wooden wolf keychain I carried for good luck, the one I’d made him the first year we met, rolled across the floor and stopped right outside the door.

Every year, on my birthday, he’d given me a silver charm inscribed with “Forever Safe.” I’d always thought it was for me. For Mila.

Elliana’s middle name was Elara. Everyone called her Ellie for short. But when they were alone, he called her Ellie, short for Elara. *Ellie. Safe for Ellie*.

Five years of waiting, five years of dreaming. One night, and the whole dream shattered like glass under a wolf’s paw.

The night before the marking ceremony, I left a note on my desk, left my identification and old wallet where the search parties would find them at the edge of Silver Lake. I walked into the cold water until it closed over my head.

I, Mila Richards, Omega of the Ironpeak Pack, reject you, Roy McDonald, Alpha of the Ironpeak Pack, as my mate.

The bond burned like fire as I sank, the cold seeping into my bones.

Roy, we have no future. This was never ours. For me, it’s always been just a waiting game that could never end.

From now on, we are forever apart.

The letter in my hand holds only four simple words: Two weeks from today, the Silver Lake boathouse.

This is my escape route, the plan I’ve laid for my fake death.

Tonight’s New Year’s pack gathering, and Alpha Roy McDonald has just returned home from the royal Lycan gala he attended after the coming of age ceremony, getting back well after midnight.

He carries a box of specialty pastries in one hand, sets it on my dining table, then gestures for me to sit. He picks one up himself and lifts it to my lips, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth—something I almost never see from him.

“Mila,” he says, his deep voice soft, “this is from the Lycan royal spread. I heard even the Lycan princesses swear by these. Try one.”

I smile and bite into it, nodding when I’m done.

“It’s really sweet.”

My heart is bitter enough to choke on.

Seeing I seem to enjoy it, he pulls a carved wooden luck charm shaped like a small howling wolf from his jacket pocket and holds it out to me.

“This year’s end charm. May you be safe and well, always.”

Safe and well. Elliana. The words tasted like her, just like every other year.

Five years. Five years of the same line, the same quiet promises that never meant anything for me.

Tears spill over before I can stop them. The sweet pastry in my throat swells, and I can’t force it down no matter how hard I try.

He blinks, surprised when he sees I’m crying, and leans forward. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head hard, swiping at my cheeks with the back of my hand. “Nothing. It’s just… in five years, this is the first time you’ve ever fed me anything. I’m just happy, that’s all.”

The first time. And it will be the last.

He sighs, and brushes a stray tear off my jaw with his calloused thumb. “We’ll be mated in a few weeks. From now on, I’ll take proper care of you. I’ll be a good Alpha to the pack, and a good mate to you.”

For one split second, my resolve wavers. His voice is warm, his alpha aura soft around me instead of its usual sharp, commanding edge, and I almost believe him.

Then he speaks again, and every warm feeling in my chest freezes solid.

“In a few days, I’m accompanying the Lycan King to the old sacred wolf grounds for the annual remembrance pack run. You don’t need to come along. Elliana specifically asked me to tell you to stay home and rest, so you can be in good shape for the marking ceremony, and soon… well.”

He trails off, but I know what he was going to say. Soon, so you can give me an heir. That was always Elliana’s dream, wasn’t it?

This remembrance run—Elliana, as the unmarked mistress of the Alpha, will be right there at his side. They sent me away just to give them more time alone, no secrets to hide for a whole week. I know it, and I don’t even fight it. I was always willing to play the part they gave me.

“Alright. Go on then,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “The night before the marking ceremony is the full moon pack feast. Can you ask the Lycan King to excuse you from court that night? Stay home with me, just for a few hours?”

His hand, still wrapped around the edge of the pastry box, stills. For a heartbeat, his jaw tightens. Then that same faint, polite smile slides back into place.

“Alright.”

The next morning, a royal messenger arrives at our door with an invitation. The Lycan King is hosting a celebration banquet that evening for Elliana, to congratulate her on her pregnancy.

Roy’s face freezes for half a second before he schools his features back to calm, and takes the invitation with a nod of thanks.

Watching him, I step forward and turn to the messenger—an older Delta with a limp, who’d been waiting for a tip— and ask, “Can you tell me how far along Princess Elliana is?”

He bows his head respectfully, keeping his eyes on the ground. “Almost two months, miss. The announcement went out this morning.”

My heart drops into my stomach. Two months. That was right after Roy went to the royal palace for the winter security briefing, the one he said would keep him overnight.

When he came home at dawn, I caught a faint whiff of jasmine on his collar—Elliana’s signature scent, the one that makes every alpha in the room turn their head. There was even a streak of her red lipstick on the cuff of his shirt.

A cold, hollow ache spreads through my entire chest.

Back then, he was still just a rising Gamma, working his way up through the royal ranks before he inherited the Alpha title from my father. He didn’t need a public mate back then.

None of this makes sense anymore, not the way I thought it did.

He inherited the Alpha position, and agreed to mark me as his public Luna… not because he loved me, not because we were fated. It was because he’d already broken the pack’s rules with Elliana, and I was just a convenient shield to hide her forbidden pregnancy from the whole pack.

I’ve always been nothing more than a pawn they could throw in front of the world to cover their sins.

My wolf whimpers, deep in the back of my mind, and I have to bite down on my tongue to keep from screaming.