I brought my mate, Kurt, back from the aftermath of a collapsed mountain ridge and sent the young she-wolf I had raised for six years to join the trainee ranks. That was when the male who had always been cold and restrained finally snapped.

He took our infant son into the desert’s forbidden no-man’s-land.

“Tell me where Zelda is,” he said, his voice low and feral, “or I’ll bury him alive.”

“There are five mounds of sand here. You have five chances.”

Kurt placed our tiny son into a shallow pit. The scorching sand seared his tender skin the moment it touched him. His cry was thin and piercing.

My heart felt like it had been plunged into boiling oil.

Before I could beg, Kurt began to push sand over our child.

The first mound fell.

My mind flashed back to little Kurt staring at me with hostility.

“You’re the orphan my mother took in? Don’t think living in my den makes you worthy to be my future mate.”

The second mound.

When I was eighteen and prepared to leave for Rivergate Territory to train as a healer, Kurt had pounded on my door, eyes red, gripping me tightly.

“I won’t let you go. I won’t let you leave me for Rivergate.”

The third mound.

On my twentieth name-day, Kurt had knelt before me, a trembling ring of bonefire circling us.

“Yvonne Whitmore, you mean more to me than life.”

The fourth.

During a distant trade expedition, he’d been caught in a landslide. When he came home after six long moons, Zelda was with him.

From then on, he slipped from our bed each night to go to hers.

At first, they truly only slept.

Until the day his body returned carrying the lingering scent of wild roses. Her scent. It clung to him for days.

That was when I knew everything had changed.

Our son’s cries weakened into ragged, choking whimpers.

I begged, “He is your son, too.”

Kurt’s face remained carved from stone. “Without Keith, what use do I have for a son?”

As my baby was nearly swallowed by the burning sand, I broke.

I told Kurt where she was hiding.

He didn’t say a word. He just ran. Straight toward Zelda.

He never looked back.

When I pulled my son from the blistering pit, his tiny body was limp, his voice only faint groans of pain.

I called for the healer scouts with shaking hands, then lifted my communication stone and dialed another rune-coded frequency.

“I’ll join the organization,” I said. “I’m leaving the pack with my child in a week.”

……

The male who once bought a hundred starstones for our newborn son, Ethan Kurt, on the night he came into this world…

He had said, “Each year on his naming day, I will gift him a star. Our son will live a hundred years.”

Yet now, for Zelda’s sake, he was willing to bury that same child—barely a hundred days old—alive.

I tried to explain, desperate. “She wanted to go. It was her dream.”

“No,” Kurt murmured, something soft and deranged flickering in his eyes. “Her dream… is that I sleep soundly.”

“So she will never leave me.”

Staring at his unhinged expression, I knew I had no choice but to yield once more.

After Kurt left, the healers rushed us from the desert’s cursed sands to the clan’s infirmary.

Ethan’s life was not in immediate danger, but patches of his tender skin were burned raw and had begun to fester.

I held him in the healing cot, his feverish body curled tight, whimpering even in sleep.

My message stone vibrated. A rune lit up.

Kurt: I arranged the best healer. Ethan will recover. I will bring Zelda back later. As long as you do not shame her, you will remain my mate.

My fingers trembled as I stared at the glowing words.

Becoming Kurt’s mate had been my dream since I was a young girl.

When the Kurt family adopted me, he hated me at first. Cold and distant, he barely spoke. But whenever I was bullied in training grounds, he appeared—fists and claws flying—taking wounds for me without hesitation.

When I turned eighteen, he begged me not to leave for Rivergate Territory. He cornered me against the wall and kissed me.

My face burned under his kiss. When I gasped for air, he whispered into my ear, “Yvonne, I loved you from the moment I saw you.”

“I just lacked the courage to admit it.”

On my twentieth birthday, he lit starfire along eighteen mountaintops, turning the entire sky into a spectacle meant only for me.

When he proposed, he gifted me an island in the Moonlit Sea, making me feel like the most cherished she-wolf in existence.

“Yvonne, you are more important than my life.”

Back then, I believed such happiness would last forever.

But it lasted only until the end of our mating moon.

Kurt left on a trading expedition and was caught in a deadly quake. He was trapped beneath collapsed stone for ninety-nine hours—starving, delirious, surrounded by death. In that darkness, it was Zelda’s rose-scented presence he clung to.

Her parents shielded a narrow space with their bodies, using the last of their water to keep the two of them alive—sacrificing themselves so their children could survive.

Before drawing their final breath, they entrusted Zelda to Kurt.

Six moons later, he brought her home.

I had never imagined that this so-called debt of gratitude would become my lifelong torment.

I kissed the corner of my son’s eye. “I am sorry, little one. Mother let you suffer.”

“But I will not let anyone hurt you again.”

I unblocked the rune frequency and sent a message.

“I will join your organization. But I have one condition. I am taking my child with me.”

The voice that responded was low, amused. “Your child… he is only a few moons old, yes?”

The speaker was known only as the Ferryman—leader of a secretive global order of shadow-walkers and codebreakers. Once you entered, your former identity vanished.

Exactly what I needed.

I said, “You have connections across the clans. I want to leave within a week. Can you make that happen?”

“Of course,” he replied, a soft chuckle in his tone. “In one week, the Ferryman will personally see you across the border.”

Two days later, Ethan’s fever finally subsided, and I brought him back to our den.

Before leaving, I wanted to personally erase every trace of myself from this place.

For years, I had carefully preserved everything Kurt gave me—bone-carved trinkets, tokens from our journeys, memories I once held dear. Now they were easy to pack away.

I kept only my spirit tablet, a few cloaks, and Ethan’s essentials. Everything else I boxed up and asked the groundskeepers to collect.

Ethan played quietly on the fur-padded sofa, his tiny hands poking into the gaps between cushions. With a triumphant giggle, he held up his discovery.

It was Kurt’s ring.

Our mating ring, forged under the Bonefire of our vows.

Now it lay forgotten inside a sofa crack. Seeing it again, memories of our shattered bond flooded me.

When I first heard Kurt had been trapped in the earthquake that ravaged the distant ridge, I nearly lost Ethan from the shock.

With his life hanging by a thread, I fought with everything in me to keep our child safe.

Six moons later, Kurt returned. That very day, our child was lost.

I had reached out to pat Zelda’s head to welcome her into our home as family.

She suddenly snapped.

She slammed her arms into my stomach and shoved me hard to the ground.

The child I had fought so hard to protect was gone in an instant.

Kurt said she was suffering from trauma and begged me not to blame her—blame him instead.

But he had barely escaped death. How could I bring myself to blame him?

So I swallowed the grief alone.

After that, Kurt treated me better. Twice as gentle. Twice as attentive.

But I still noticed the change.

At first, he would jolt awake from nightmares, haunted by collapsing stone and the bodies he had crawled over to survive.

Later, after I drifted to sleep, he would slip quietly into Zelda’s room.

Only her scent in the darkness soothed him. He slept beside her, returning to me before dawn.

Eventually, he did not bother to hide it. He stayed there the whole night. And when I caught him leaving her room at sunrise, he simply greeted me with, “Good morning. Is breakfast ready?”

I pitied him for the torment he’d endured. And because I knew that at first they truly only slept, I endured it all.

Until one day, Kurt returned home with the scent of wild roses clinging to his skin.

Her scent.

It lingered for three days. Even though he slept in our bed those nights, it didn’t fade.

Zelda had grown. And everything between them had changed.

He would take her roadside wildflowers and craft them into everlasting bouquets… while throwing away the lilies I bought because they masked her rose fragrance.

He would keep me at the hearth for ten hours brewing tonic for him, only to pour it out when Zelda wrinkled her nose at the smell.

He left me alone on our anniversary just to sit by her side, afraid she felt lonely.

The dream was shattered. It was time to wake up.

The person who meant more to Kurt than life was no longer me. It was his little rose.

I no longer cared. In five days, I would vanish from his world without a trace.

A knock sounded at the door. I assumed it was the groundskeepers, but when I opened it, Kurt stood there.

His expression was dark, as if he had come to confront me.

But then his gaze fell on the sorted items on the floor. He froze.

“You’re throwing these away?” He picked up a bone-carved cup. “Isn’t this your favorite? You use it every day.”

His confusion cut through me like a blade.

It had been a matching pair of mate-bond cups, carved by our own hands. But because Zelda liked the set, Kurt had given her his.

The next morning, her cup shattered. After that, I never used mine again.

A full year passed. He never noticed.

“It is useless now, so I’m discarding it,” I said calmly, then shifted the topic. “Did Zelda find it?”

Kurt’s voice turned bitter cold. “You still have the nerve to bring up Zelda?”

He looked at me with eyes full of loathing.

When Zelda walked into the den, I almost didn’t recognize her.

Just five days ago she had been as radiant as a wildflower in bloom. Now her cheeks were swollen, the corners of her mouth cracked, and dark bruises wrapped around her wrists so savagely they were painful to look at.

“Yvonne!” She fell to her knees the moment she saw me, bone striking stone with a sharp thud. “Please let me go. I can’t take it anymore.”

Instinctively, I stepped back. “What are you talking about?”

“They make us train from sunrise to moonrise. No rest. Barely any food.” She lifted her skirt of torn hide, revealing lash marks on her waist. “I fainted from exhaustion. They whipped me awake with a leather strap.”

“That’s impossible,” I blurted. Before sending her to the trainee barracks, I had investigated the clan thoroughly. They had no record of mistreating novices.

Zelda’s tears splashed onto the dirt floor. “It’s true. Please don’t send me back. I can’t be a trainee anymore.”

A chill crawled up my spine. “What do you mean I’m sending you? You told me it was your dream. You begged me to help you join.”

“I never had a dream,” she whispered. “I only wanted to stay by Kurt’s side.”

Then she turned to Kurt with trembling lips. “Kurt… the training is too hard. I can’t endure it. May I stay with you instead? I promise I’ll be good.”

Kurt reached out, gently patting her head, helping her rise.

When he turned toward me, his gaze was colder than an ice-edged blade. “Why did you force her?”

“I didn’t,” I protested, my voice shaking. “She begged me to go. I vetted the training clan. They don’t treat initiates this way. There must be some mistake—”

“Look at her injuries,” Kurt snapped. His brow furrowed. “What misunderstanding could explain this?”

He took a step closer. “Since you won’t admit it, then you will feel the suffering Zelda endured. Think of it as penance.”

Before I could speak, he seized my wrist. His grip tightened so fast a bruise bloomed immediately.

He dragged me toward the storage cavern.

He called to Zelda. “Bring Ethan.”

Kurt had always been gentle with our son. So when Ethan saw him, the little one giggled, reaching for him, nestling into his father’s shoulder for comfort.

But Kurt didn’t respond.

With a cold expression, he peeled our child off his neck and shoved him into my arms.

“Zelda was beaten. I won’t lay a hand on you. But your son will suffer with you.”

“Kurt,” I cried, grabbing his arm. “I swear I didn’t do anything. We can ask the elders to check the vision stones—call the guard, check the records.”

“So now you claim Zelda is lying?” Kurt’s voice dropped low. “Why would she harm herself just to frame you?”

“I raised her for six years,” he said, voice filled with conviction. “She is gentle, kind, pure.”

His eyes darkened as he looked at me. I never felt more like a stranger. “When did you become so cruel, Yvonne? You would even harm a child?”

My soul felt as if it were being dragged into a frozen abyss.

We had known each other sixteen years. Shared a den for six.

Yet Zelda’s tears erased everything.

The storage cavern door slammed shut behind us, plunging us into darkness. Ethan’s cries filled the air—loud, frantic, terrified.

The hot, dusty air choked us.

My baby, still fragile from fever, thrashed weakly in my arms. His cries faded into broken sobs, each one weaker than the last.

“Kurt. Open the door.” I pounded until my palms numbed. “He’s burning up again. He was just released from the healer’s hut. His wounds aren’t healed. He could die in here.”

“Kurt, punish me. Strike me if you want. But save Ethan.”

“He’s your son too. I’m begging you.”

Silence.

Only silence.

My legs buckled. I slid down the wall, trembling as though my heart had been cut out while I was still breathing.

Ethan’s cries grew softer. His breath shallow.

“Ethan. Don’t fall asleep.” I patted his cheek gently. “Baby, look at Mama.”

His lips parted with the faintest whimper, but his eyes did not open.

“Ethan.”