I was nineteen when I gave my heart to Alpha Kael Thorne.

Not with flowers or fanfare—just the trembling pulse of a girl too young to know what love should feel like.

That night, beneath the Crimson Moon, I gave myself to him—my body, my name, my future.

Not because he asked, but because I believed he already owned them.

He didn’t kiss me when it was over.

He didn’t hold me or whisper promises into my hair.

He stood by the window, fastening his belt like I hadn’t just unraveled everything sacred to me.

“I’ll make this right, Sera,” he said, voice flat as cold steel. “You’ll be Luna. It’s the least I can do.”

And he did.

The ceremony was swift, sanctioned by the Elders.

I wore silver silk and a broken smile as they called me Luna Seraphine.

The wolves cheered like I’d won.

But no one saw how his eyes never met mine.

No one noticed how Kael placed the ceremonial mark on my shoulder—not my neck.

Not where it should’ve gone.

I spent the next seven years clinging to a lie dressed in gold.

Until the night he shattered it.

The Bloodmoon Ball was meant to be our night.

But Kael couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Mira Langley.

His new assistant. Barely twenty-two. A rogue-born omega with no name and too many secrets.

She wore a wine-red dress and a defiant smile—like she already knew she’d won.

When Alpha Theron from the Western Borderlands joked that Kael’s assistant smelled "sweet enough to mark," I expected a chuckle.

Instead, Kael snapped.

Right there—before a room of Alphas and Deltas—he lunged.

His claws tore through fabric, flesh, and ego. He beat Theron into unconsciousness with a growl that shook the chandeliers.

And as they dragged him away, Kael didn’t look at me once.

I covered the scandal. I faced the Council. I offered blood money for his outburst.

And then I went to him—behind the iron gate of the holding den, where the man who once promised me the stars now reeked of wine and another woman.

I heard them before I saw them.

Kael and his Beta, laughing.

“She’s nothing like Sera,” Kael murmured. “Mira’s fire. She bites back. She’s not begging for scraps like the Luna.”

My breath caught.

“She’s untamed,” he said. “If I took her as Luna, it’d shake the pack. But better that than be tied to regret.”

My name wasn’t spoken with malice. It was worse.

Pity.

A mistake.

That’s what I had become.

Later that night, Kael sat in my car, blood still on his collar, Mira’s perfume clinging to him like guilt that wouldn’t stick.

His phone buzzed.

He smiled.

That soft, quiet kind of smile. The one I never got.

The kind that made my chest hollow out.

I stared at him through the mirror.

“Was the fight about her?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

Kael didn’t even blink. “She’s under my protection. That’s all.”

“No. I mean… is she why you’ve stopped coming home?”

Silence.

Then he said, “You have status. She has none. I had to defend her.”

And just like that, I disappeared.

No scream. No slap. Just the sound of my heart cracking inside my ribs.

When we reached the Pack Hall, he didn’t thank me.

Didn’t look back.

But he left his phone behind.

And Mira’s name was glowing on the screen.

I should’ve walked away.

I should’ve left the phone on the seat and driven home to cry in private.

But I didn’t.

Something wild inside me—a desperate fragment of the wolf I used to be—climbed those marble stairs.

His door wasn’t shut.

I heard her first.

“Mira, don’t,” Kael murmured.

She was crying. Her voice cracking under the weight of something I’d never been allowed to feel around him.

“I’m scared,” she said. “They hate me.”

Kael wrapped her in his arms.

The arms that once held me like I was glass. Now they were shields for another.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “I won’t let them touch you.”

Her sobs turned to silence. She looked up.

“Alpha… this is wrong. You’re mated.”

“I’ll fix it,” he said, like undoing our bond was as easy as tearing a page from a book.

I dropped the phone on the floor and walked away.

Each step was an earthquake. Each breath a howl I didn’t have the strength to make.

The storm broke the sky open as I drove.

I didn’t see the truck.

I only remember the pain.

The way metal groaned around me like it was mourning too.

I was pinned. Trapped.

I called him.

Of course I did.

Even then, some tiny ember in me still hoped.

He picked up.

“What?” he snapped.

“I’m hurt,” I whispered. “There’s… fire. I think the tank—”

In the background, I heard her laugh.

Kael’s voice dropped. “I’ll send someone.”

Then the line went dead.

So did everything inside me.

It was Lucas Rhys who came.

The Delta I’d trained beside. Kael’s war-brother. The only wolf who’d ever seen me cry after the first moon-bite.

He broke open the door. He pulled me free.

And when I could breathe again, when I was coughing blood and trembling in his arms, I whispered:

“Lucas… you’re still licensed with the Council, right?”

He frowned. “Yeah. Why?”

My voice was ash and steel.

“I want you to file a formal matebond termination.”

To the pack, I was Luna Seraphine Thorne.

But inside the Alpha’s Estate, I was a placeholder.

A body in Kael’s bed when his guilt clawed too loudly, a shadow in his meetings, a caretaker to a pack I no longer recognized.

The mark on my neck had dulled weeks ago. And with every passing day, I felt it—

Fading.

Fracturing.

Fraying like thread pulled too tight.

My phone buzzed.

A location pin.

No name. No message. Just a single red dot on a digital map.

I exhaled slowly.

The ache in my ribcage—still bruised from the crash—tightened, but I forced myself to move.

Kael was still my mate.

Until the Council accepted the dissolution, I was bound by duty.

And a fool’s love.

The address led me to the upper-tier ridge—the Howler’s Lounge.

A secluded, warded den only accessible to high-ranking wolves and visiting Alphas.

The kind of place Kael used to scoff at. “Too flashy,” he’d say. “Too many games.”

But there he was now.

Slouched deep in a leather chair, collar open, drink sloshing in one hand while his Beta and two Deltas sat beside him like vultures circling a dying god.

His eyes were glassy, red-rimmed. His mouth slack from drink.

Not guilt.

Just loss.

“She said no?” one Delta asked, teeth gleaming. “Seriously? After all that?”

Kael shrugged.

Another chuckled. “Rogues, man. No sense of gratitude. You save ‘em, they spit in your face.”

The Beta beside him muttered, “Don’t worry. There are a dozen unmated females in this pack alone who’d beg for your attention. Including your Luna.”

The laughter that followed nearly knocked the breath from my lungs.

It echoed, sharp and merciless, like blades tossed around a bonfire.

So this is what I was to him now.

A running joke.

I didn’t knock. I didn’t pause. I pushed the iron-latched door open and walked in.

Silence fell like a guillotine.

Kael’s head lolled up. He blinked at me—confused. Like I wasn’t supposed to exist outside his mistakes.

A Delta smirked. “Well, well. The Luna honors us.”

I didn’t look at him.

I walked straight to Kael, ignoring the flare of pain in my side.

“I’m here to take you home,” I said, voice flat and cold.

He didn’t argue.

Didn’t apologize.

Just stood, swaying, and threw an arm over my shoulders like it was a leash.

His weight nearly crushed my fractured ribs, but I didn’t flinch. I wouldn’t give them the pleasure.

We were halfway to the door when another voice cut through the air.

“Alpha Thorne.”

We turned.

Mira stood in the doorway, her eyes thunderstorm-dark, her hair dripping rain.

The sheer fire in her gaze nearly scorched me.

“If you were going to have your Luna come,” she said, voice shaking, “why message me at all?”

Kael frowned. “What?”

Mira took a step in. “Don’t humiliate me like this. I didn’t ask for your bond drama.”

Kael straightened. “I didn’t send anything.”

Her face crumpled for half a second. “Then who—?”

He whipped around. “Who touched my communicator?”

No one answered.

His voice dropped, low and brutal. “Who. Did it?”

The room stiffened.

“Because if any of you think it’s funny to toy with her—if any of you put Mira in this mess for laughs—you’ll regret it.”

Mira’s eyes brimmed. She turned and fled down the hall.

And Kael—Kael didn’t hesitate.

He dropped his arm from around me like it weighed too much. Like I weighed too much.

“Sera, wait!”

No. Not me. Her.

He stumbled after Mira, calling her name, leaving me to watch the man who once vowed forever chase a woman he barely knew.

Again.

Behind me, the whispers returned.

“Damn. He’s obsessed.”

“Think he’ll try to claim her?”

“What about the Luna?”

“Still hanging on like a pup left in the rain.”

Laughter.

It didn’t burn this time.

It just sank.

And maybe the worst part was—I wasn’t even angry.

Just empty.

Like my soul had quietly packed its things and slipped out while no one was looking.

A sharp breath caught in my lungs. My ribs throbbed. I lifted a hand to steady myself.

And then—

“Seraphine.”

Lucas’s voice. Quiet. Solid. Steady.

I turned.

He stood near the back, framed by the amber glow of the fireplace. His silver eyes locked on mine, unreadable.

“I’ll take you home.”

I didn’t argue.

I just walked to him.

The ride was silent.

His scent—cedar and ash—filled the car, calming and cutting all at once.

He didn’t ask questions.

Didn’t offer comfort I wasn’t ready to take.

But when we pulled up to the Alpha Estate and I reached for the door, his voice stopped me.

“You’re really going to end it?”

I looked at him.

And for the first time since the bond began to unravel, I felt something honest between us—something unspoken but heavy.

“I have to,” I said. “Before it kills what’s left of me.”

Lucas nodded. Just once.

“Then I’ll take the papers to the Council at dawn.”

I didn’t thank him.

There was nothing left to say.

I stepped out of the car, walked into the cold, and closed the door behind me.

But even before the lock clicked, I heard his voice again—

“...You deserved better than this, Sera.”

And for the first time in weeks,

I almost cried.

I was tired of life.

Tired of pretending. Tired of playing Luna to a man who only loved the idea of me, never the mess I really was.

But Lucas… Lucas didn’t let it slide.

The black SUV door shut behind him with a soft click, and there he was—crossing the street like the shadows were his to command. Every step of his boots on gravel echoed louder than it should’ve. Maybe because the air between us was so full. Heavy. Waiting.

He didn’t speak right away. Just stared. That quiet, ancient intensity burning in his golden eyes. Not the gold of a hero. The gold of something hunted, wounded, and still dangerous.

And then—his voice. Low, rough. Like it’d been soaked in fire and silence.

“Then maybe…” he said, each word slow, precise, brutal, “you should choose me.”

I blinked.

No.

No, that wasn’t supposed to happen.

Lucas was always the one in the corner. The unspoken loyalty. The quiet ache. The only person who ever looked at me like I was more than a Luna-shaped trophy.

“I wasn’t trying to make Kael jealous,” I said, my throat dry. “I just… I need space. I need—”

“You need someone who sees you.” His eyes burned through me. “And I do. I always have.”

My heart twisted. God.

Lucas didn’t love loudly. He never had. But when he did, it cut deeper than knives.

So I did what I always did when I was about to unravel—I made it a joke.

“Sure,” I said lightly, “after the divorce papers are signed, you’ll be first on my list.”

And then I walked away. Fast. Like the world would crack open if I stayed a second longer.

But I felt him behind me, like a storm that never stopped watching.

That night, my phone buzzed once.

Lucas: I’m done waiting.

I stared at the message.

What did that mean?

I stepped onto the balcony, breath catching in my throat.

There he was.

Still.

The same SUV, still parked. Him leaning against it, like he had nowhere else to be. A cigarette dangled from his fingers.

Lucas never smoked.

The moonlight hit him just right, like it chose him—silver tracing his sharp cheekbones, glinting off the edges of pain he never spoke about.

Our eyes met.

And he smiled. A slow, broken kind of smile. The kind that says, I already know how this ends, but I’d do it anyway.

He got in his car. And left.

But my chest didn’t unclench.

It never would—not where he was concerned.

Kael came home before sunrise. He smelled like winter wind and someone else’s perfume.

“Smoke?” he snapped the second he walked in, disgust curling his upper lip. “You stink. Try not embarrassing me for once.”

I hadn’t smoked.

But I’d stood beside someone who had. And for once, I didn’t try to hide it.

“I’ll take a shower,” I said quietly.

He followed. Of course he did.

“You’re acting different.”

I didn’t reply.

His gaze caught something near my collarbone. The edge of a bruise that hadn’t faded. The one Lucas hadn’t meant to leave when he grabbed my arm in the dark, begging me not to go back inside.

“What happened to your neck?” Kael demanded.

I moved away. Reflex.

And that small recoil—it undid him.

His hand clenched. “You ungrateful—”

I cut him off. My voice was low. Steady. “If I’m such a burden… maybe we should get a divorce.”

Silence.

And then laughter. Bitter. Cruel.

“You? Leave me?”

He stalked forward.

“You wouldn’t last a day. You don’t even have a scent strong enough to be claimed again. No one would want you.”

I didn’t flinch. Not this time.

He paused, nostrils flaring. “You think Lucas would keep you? He was raised to serve, not to claim. You think that mutt would choose you over blood?”

He waited. Wanted me to shatter.

I didn’t.

Instead, I washed my hands in the sink. The sound of water was louder than the sound of my heartbeat.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was cold.

“Grandfather’s party. Wear something red. You’re coming.”

Not a question.

Just control. Disguised as a schedule.

He picked me up early.

And in the front passenger seat, legs crossed and lipstick fresh, sat Mira.

She turned when she saw me. Soft smile. Hollow eyes.

“Evening, Luna.”

She didn’t need to say more.

Her scent was on the seat. On his shirt.

On my life.

Kael didn’t explain. He never had to.

And I didn’t ask. I climbed into the back seat and folded my hands in my lap like a girl raised to survive instead of scream.

But as the engine rumbled to life and Mira laughed at something only Kael could hear, I felt something shift in me.

Not rage.

Not heartbreak.

Something older.

Something quieter.

Like smoke.

Like silence.

Like the moment just before the howl.