The summons came two days after I left Amani's sitting room.

Marcus delivered it. He stood in my doorway with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes fixed on a point just past my shoulder. Professional. Distant. The way you look at someone who used to matter and doesn't anymore.

"The Alpha requires your presence in his office," he said. "Now."

I didn't ask why. I already knew.

I followed him through the pack house in silence. The halls were emptier than usual — most of the pack was at training or patrol — but the few wolves we passed stopped what they were doing to watch. No one spoke. No one nodded. They just looked.

Marcus stopped outside Cole's office and gestured to the door. He didn't follow me in.

Cole was behind his desk. Not standing. Not pacing. Just sitting with his hands folded on the polished wood surface, his posture so controlled it looked rehearsed. Gia wasn't there. The Luna pendant wasn't glinting in the light. It was just him and me and the silence between us.

He didn't tell me to sit.

"My mother informed me of your conversation," he said. His voice was measured. Calm. The tone of an Alpha closing a negotiation he'd already won. "She fast-tracked the severance paperwork. Very efficient of her."

I stood three feet from his desk and said nothing.

"I won't be signing it," he continued. He said it the way you'd mention the weather. Factual. Unremarkable. "Regardless of what agreement you reached with Amani, the bond remains a pack resource. Your wolf's continued existence — however weakened — sustains my aura. Severs my connection to you, and the pack suffers. I'm sure you understand."

I pressed my fingertips to the side of my neck. The empty space.

"You're dying anyway," he said. Not cruel. Just practical. "Dr. Dillon's prognosis is clear. The rejection would only accelerate the process. I'm protecting you by keeping the bond intact. You'll have access to the best care Ironcliff can provide. You'll be comfortable. That's more than most wolves in your condition could hope for."

He leaned back slightly in his chair. Relaxed. A man who had considered all variables and arrived at the only logical conclusion.

"The matter is closed, Leah."

I looked at him. Really looked. At the face I used to trace with my fingertips in the dark. At the mouth that used to say my name like a prayer. At the eyes that had once held nothing but me.

There was nothing left in them now but calculation.

I didn't argue. I didn't beg. I didn't ask him if he remembered the boy who had fought his way into this pack with bloody knuckles and my name in his chest.

I just turned around and walked out.

I stopped in the hallway outside his door. Stood motionless. Counted to ten in my head while my wolf made a sound so small and broken I almost couldn't feel it.

Then I kept walking.

---

I started preparing that night.

Small things. Quiet things. The kind of movements that wouldn't draw attention from the Omegas who delivered my meals or the patrols that passed my window twice a day.

I still had access to the medical stores — a leftover privilege from the days when I'd been trusted to manage my own treatment. No one had thought to revoke it. Why would they? I was too weak to be a threat. Too sick to run.

I took dried provisions from the kitchen storage. Just a handful at a time, tucked into my pockets during the late hours when the cooks had gone to bed. Jerky. Nuts. Hard bread that wouldn't spoil.

I assembled a basic first-aid kit from the medical supplies. Bandages. Antiseptic. Pain medication. Nothing that would be missed in a single inventory check.

I drew a map from memory — every border patrol route I'd memorized during my years as Luna-in-waiting, back when I'd thought I'd need to know these things to help lead the pack. I sketched it on the back of an old supply requisition form and folded it into quarters.

I hid everything beneath a loose floorboard under my cot. The kind of hiding place a child would use. The kind no one would think to check because no one thought I was capable of running.

I kept the rejection papers in my jacket. Always.

And I waited.

---

The announcement came four days later.

Cole's voice carried through the pack house on the internal link — the one that connected every wolf in Ironcliff whether they wanted to hear it or not.

*Formal pack run. Blackridge cliff trail. Tomorrow at dawn. All ranked wolves required to attend. Luna Gia will be joining to demonstrate her commitment to the pack.*

A pause. Then, quieter but no less absolute:

*Leah will attend as well.*

I felt the command settle into my chest like a stone. Not a request. Not an invitation. An Alpha order that my wolf couldn't refuse even if I wanted to.

I sat on the edge of my cot and stared at the wall.

A pack run. With Gia. Along the cliffs.

I knew what this was. A fated mate's presence amplified the Alpha's aura during a run. It was pack dynamics 101 — the reason Alphas kept their mates close during displays of dominance. I was being summoned to be a battery. Again. To stand beside Cole and radiate bond-strength while Gia played Luna and the pack pretended I didn't exist.

Dr. Dillon's voice crackled through the link an hour later, carefully professional.

*Alpha, I must recommend that Leah refrain from physical exertion given her recent relapse. The strain could be—*

Cole's response was immediate. Flat.

*Recommendation noted. She'll attend.*

The link went silent.

I pulled my boots from under the cot. Laced them slowly, each pull of the leather deliberate. My hands didn't shake.

I checked the floorboard. The supplies were still there. The map. The provisions. The first-aid kit.

I pressed my fingertips to the side of my neck.

Then I lay down. Faced the window.

And prepared to run.

The dawn air was cold enough to burn my lungs.

I stood at the trailhead with the rest of the ranked wolves, my boots planted in the dirt, my wolf a dim flicker beneath my ribs. She was there. Barely. A candle in a room filling with water.

Cole stood at the front of the group, his posture easy and commanding. Gia was beside him, her hand resting lightly on his arm. The Luna pendant caught the early light. She looked radiant. Healthy. Everything a Luna should be.

I pressed my fingertips to the side of my neck. The empty space.

Marcus called the formation. High-ranked wolves at the front and flanks. Mid-ranked warriors scattered through the center. Omegas at the rear. Standard protocol for a formal pack run.

Except I wasn't placed with the Omegas.

I was positioned three wolves behind Cole and Gia. Close enough to amplify the Alpha's aura. Close enough to be seen. Far enough to be forgotten.

A battery. Again.

My wolf stirred weakly. I felt her try to push toward the surface, try to shift, and the effort made my chest ache. I forced the half-shift instead — claws extending, muscles thickening just enough to carry me through the run. It was all I could manage. Full transformation would drain what little I had left.

Cole raised his hand. The signal.

We ran.

The Blackridge trail was narrow and winding, carved into the cliff face generations ago by wolves who knew the terrain better than their own heartbeats. To the left, dense forest. To the right, a sheer drop into the river gorge below. The sound of water was constant — a low roar that never quite faded.

I kept pace. My legs burned. My breath came in ragged pulls. But I kept pace.

Around me, the pack moved like a single organism. Synchronized. Efficient. Beautiful in the way only a well-trained pack could be.

I focused on the ground in front of me. On the rhythm of my steps. On not falling.

We were a mile in when I noticed the formation shifting.

Subtle. Deliberate. The wolves ahead of me spreading wider, creating space. The wolves behind me closing in, tightening the corridor. Within thirty seconds, the pack's arrangement had funneled Cole, Gia, and me into the narrowest section of the trail — a stretch barely wide enough for two wolves side by side, the cliff edge less than three feet to our right.

I slowed fractionally. Scanned the treeline to our left.

Movement.

Not wind. Not deer.

Wolves.

My wolf went still.

Three seconds later, they emerged.

Six rogues. Maybe seven. They came out of the forest in coordinated formation — too clean, too precise to be wild drifters looking for an easy meal. These were trained. Hired.

Operatives.

The pack's front line faltered. Wolves collided, stumbled, tried to regroup. The rogues drove straight into the gap, splitting our formation like an axe through wood.

Chaos.

Snarls. Snapping jaws. The wet sound of claws meeting flesh.

I was shoved sideways. My shoulder hit the cliff face. Rock scraped skin. I twisted, claws out, and caught a rogue's forearm before he could close his jaws on my throat. He was huge. Easily twice my weight. His eyes were flat and focused.

Professional.

I drove my claws into his wrist and felt bone. He jerked back with a snarl. Another rogue was already moving toward me from the right.

I was being cornered. Pushed toward the edge.

I looked for Cole.

He was ten feet ahead, surrounded by three rogues. Gia was behind him, pressed against the cliff wall, her eyes wide and her mouth open.

"Cole!" Her voice cut through the noise. High. Terrified. "Cole, please!"

I saw him turn.

I saw the decision happen in his body before his mind caught up.

He moved toward Gia.

Not toward me. Toward her.

He wrapped himself around her like a shield, his back to the rogues, his arms caging her against the rock. Protecting her. Covering her. His Alpha mass absorbing every angle of attack.

The rogue in front of me lunged.

I twisted. Too slow. My wolf was too weak, my body too drained, and I was too close to the edge.

His shoulder connected with my chest.

Solid. Brutal. A freight train.

I went over.

The world tilted. Sky became ground. Ground became air.

I reached for anything. Rock. Root. A handhold that didn't exist.

My claws scraped stone. Found nothing.

The river gorge opened beneath me like a mouth.

I fell.

Wind screamed past my ears. My wolf tried to shift — a desperate, instinctive attempt to brace for impact — but there was no time, no strength, no—

I hit the water.

Cold swallowed me whole. The current grabbed my body and pulled me under, spinning me like debris. I couldn't tell which way was up. My lungs burned. My ribs screamed.

I broke the surface for half a second. Gasped. Went under again.

The river dragged me downstream. Rocks tore at my arms, my legs, my back. I tasted blood.

Above me, distantly, I heard the sounds of combat. Snarls. Howls. The pack fighting rogues on the cliff trail.

No one was coming for me.

No one had seen me fall.

Or if they had, they hadn't cared enough to follow.

The current pulled me deeper. My vision blurred. My wolf went silent.

I stopped fighting.

I let the river take me.

And as the cold closed over my head, the last thing I felt was my fingertips pressing against the side of my neck.

The empty space where a mark should have been.

The space that would stay empty forever.