It was two in the morning when Ronan pulled up to a house tucked deep in the pines.

Firelight glowed behind tall windows. Inside, a fire was already burning, and the whole room smelled like pine sap and smoke.

I took three steps across the white marble floor before I saw the red.

A trail of it. Small, smeared prints, all leading back to the door. My blood.

"Oh God, I'm sorry." I dropped to a crouch and swiped at the nearest spot with the sleeve of his coat. "I'll clean it. Do you have a towel? I'll—"

A hand closed around my wrist.

It wasn't rough. It was firm enough to stop me.

"Leave it," Ronan said.

"It's your floor."

"It's marble. It'll survive." He pulled me gently to my feet and guided me to the leather couch. "Sit."

I sat. He knelt in front of me.

The Alpha of Ironfang, the man people said had torn out a rogue's throat with his bare hands, cupped my calf in his wide palm like it might crack. He turned my ankle toward the firelight. His thumb brushed just above a long cut, careful not to touch it.

"Gravel," he muttered. "You walked the whole North Road like this."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

He didn't smile. His jaw shifted, like he was chewing on something he wouldn't say.

The silence made my skin prickle. So I did what I always did. I joked.

"Are you this sweet to every woman who wanders into your territory, Alpha Blackthorn?"

He didn't lift his head. He just reached for the first aid kit on the side table.

"No woman has ever been in this house."

My heart skipped. One beat, gone, then back.

I stared at the top of his dark head while he cleaned the cut. I didn't flinch at the sting. I barely felt it.

He pressed the last bandage into place and stood. "Bathroom's down the hall. Take a hot shower. I'll make you something to eat."

"You cook?"

"I eat. Cooking's part of that."

---

The bathroom was huge, all gray stone and steam. There was one towel, one bar of soap, and a cedar-scented shampoo. There was nothing soft or floral, nothing that belonged to a woman.

When I cracked the door open, a folded black shirt sat on the floor.

I pulled it on. The hem hit the middle of my thighs. The cuffs swallowed half my hands. The collar was too wide, and it slid off one shoulder no matter how many times I tugged it back.

It smelled like him. Cedar and snow.

My wolf rolled over inside me and sighed.

*Traitor,* I told her.

---

Ronan stood at the stove with his back to me, sleeves pushed to his elbows, flipping eggs.

My bare feet made almost no sound on the floor. He still heard me. He glanced over his shoulder.

And froze.

His eyes traveled from my wet hair down to his own shirt on my body. His throat moved, slow and heavy. The spatula tipped in his grip and clattered against the pan.

Something warm and wicked bubbled up in my chest. I hadn't felt it in years.

I tugged at the hem. "Is it too short?"

He turned and switched off the burner. When he spoke, his voice had dropped half an octave, rougher now.

"It's fine. I just wasn't prepared to see you wearing it."

I almost laughed.

Then I remembered the last time I'd pulled on one of Callum's sweaters. He'd peeled it right off me, frowning.

*Don't wear my clothes, Sienna. You mess up the scent.*

The smile slid off my face.

Ronan watched it go. He didn't ask why. He just poured milk into a mug, set it in front of me, and nudged it closer with two fingers.

"Drink. It's warm."

---

My phone started buzzing before I'd finished half my eggs.

It buzzed once, then again, then again.

I flipped it over.

**Callum: Come home. Now.**

**Callum: Where are you?**

**Callum: Answer me, Sienna.**

**Callum: You think this is funny?**

**Callum: I can smell another male through the bond. WHERE ARE YOU.**

Twelve messages. Thirteen. Then the last one.

**Callum: Brielle is crying because of what you did. You owe her an apology.**

I read it twice.

Then I laughed. It started as a snort and then grew until my shoulders shook and my eyes burned and tears rolled down my cheeks into my eggs.

Ronan didn't say a word. He slid a napkin across the table and left it by my plate.

"Go ahead," I said, wiping my face. "Tell me he's a bastard. Everyone else will."

"You already know what he is." He picked up my empty mug and refilled it. "Do you want somewhere quiet to sleep?"

That was all he asked. He didn't want to know what Callum said or how I felt.

I nodded.

---

The pain woke me at four.

It hit like a fist driving into my ribs and twisting. I gasped and curled onto my side.

I knew this pain. I knew exactly what it meant.

Callum was with her. Right now.

After all of it, after the ring in his glass and the wine on his face, he'd gone straight to her bed.

I dug my nails into my palms until I felt skin split. *Don't make a sound. Don't you dare.*

A sob slipped out anyway.

Footsteps stopped outside the door.

"Sienna." Ronan's voice was low through the wood. "May I come in?"

"I'm fine." My teeth were clenched. "Go back to bed."

"You don't sound fine."

"I said I'm—"

The next wave tore through me. I jerked and rolled right off the mattress, and I hit the floor hard on my hip.

The door flew open.

Ronan was across the room in two strides. He scooped me up like I weighed nothing and laid me back on the bed. One hand flattened against my spine, between my shoulder blades.

Heat poured from his palm. His Alpha presence rolled over me. It didn't push me down. It wrapped around me like a heavy blanket.

"Breathe," he said. "Just breathe with me."

My wolf stopped clawing.

Then the pain dulled, and dulled more, until it was gone.

I stared at him in the dark. "How did you do that?"

"I don't know." His voice was strained. "That shouldn't be possible."

He started to pull back. My hand shot out and fisted in the front of his shirt.

"Don't go," I whispered. "Please. Just... don't."

His whole body went rigid. Something flashed gold in his gray eyes. I heard his wolf growl, deep in his chest, and I felt it through my fingers.

He shut his eyes and exhaled through his nose.

When he opened them, they were gray again.

"I'm not going anywhere."

He sat on the edge of the bed and stayed there.

---

Sunlight woke me.

My cheek was pressed to a warm chest. My arm was thrown across a hard stomach. My leg was hooked over his.

I'd held onto him all night.

Ronan was awake, sitting propped against the headboard. His hand rested on my shoulder, right on top of the shirt. It hadn't moved an inch lower.

"Morning," he said quietly.

My face went hot. "I... I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—"

The doorbell rang. Then it rang again, over and over, someone leaning on it.

Ronan's head snapped toward the security screen on the wall.

Callum's face filled it. His eyes were bloodshot and his jaw was dark with stubble. He slammed his fist against the door.

"Tell Ronan Blackthorn," he roared into the camera, "to give me back my mate!"

I made it to the top of the stairs before my legs stopped working.

Callum's voice came through the front door, muffled but loud enough.

"She belongs to Silverpine! She's *my* Luna! Open this door, Blackthorn, or I swear to the Moon—"

I gripped the railing. *Go back to the bedroom. Shut the door. Let him scream at the wood.*

I turned.

"Sienna!" he bellowed. "You come out here right now, or when I get you home, I'll punish you as your Alpha. You hear me? In front of the whole pack!"

I stopped.

*In front of the whole pack.*

I remembered kneeling at the council table last spring because I'd spoken out of turn. I remembered eating dinner alone on our anniversary last year while he "handled business." I remembered smiling while his friends joked that I was a decorative Luna.

Three years. I had swallowed all of it.

Ronan stood at the bottom of the stairs. He hadn't touched the lock. His eyes found mine.

"Do you want to see him?"

Nobody had asked me what I wanted in a very long time.

My fingers tightened on the rail. Then I loosened them.

"Yes," I said. "I want to end this."

He opened the door.

---

Callum's face went white when he saw me.

Then it went red. It was a dark, ugly flush that crawled from his collar to his hairline.

I came down the last few steps barefoot, in Ronan's black shirt, the collar slipping off my shoulder. Callum's nostrils flared. He took one long sniff, and his whole body shook.

"Cedar," he spat. "You're soaked in it."

His stare dropped to my neck. I knew what he saw there. It was a faint red line from where I'd slept pressed against Ronan's chest all night.

"You slept with him."

He lunged and caught my upper arm, fingers digging into the bone.

"Is this your game? You crawl into another Alpha's bed to get back at me? To make me jealous?"

"Funny," I said. "You slept with Brielle in our bed. But I wear another man's shirt, and you lose your mind?"

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

For three full seconds, the great Alpha of Silverpine had no answer.

Then he lifted his chin. "That's different. Men and women are different, Sienna. An Alpha has needs. Instincts. A Luna's job is to stay loyal."

Behind me, the air in the room dropped ten degrees.

I didn't turn around, but I felt Ronan go cold, like a winter storm settling over the doorway. He didn't say a word. He didn't step in to defend me.

He was letting me fight my own battle.

"I didn't sleep with him," I said.

Relief flickered across Callum's face.

"But if I had," I added, "I wouldn't owe you an explanation. Not you. Never you."

The relief turned to rage.

His irises flooded gold. A growl ripped out of his throat, and his voice crashed down on me, heavy as iron.

"*Sienna. Come home. Now.*"

The Alpha command hit my spine like a whip. My knees bent on their own.

Then a broad back filled my vision.

Ronan stood between us, and his power rolled out of him in a wave. It was older and darker and so much heavier than Callum's that the windows rattled in their frames.

"You're standing on Ironfang land," he said quietly. "This isn't Silverpine. Your voice means nothing here."

Callum staggered back a step. Then another. Sweat beaded on his upper lip.

He swallowed hard. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. It was the voice he used when he wanted something.

"Sienna. Baby. Look."

He pulled a photo from his jacket pocket and held it out.

It was us, three years ago, on the white steps of the Moon Goddess temple. I was laughing with flowers in my hair. He was kissing my temple. I looked so happy it hurt to see.

"I made one mistake," he said. "One. Are you really going to burn down our whole future over one night of anger?"

My throat closed.

I had believed in that girl. I had believed she'd grow old with him.

My hand drifted up toward the photo.

Callum's phone lit up in his other hand.

The screen faced me. A picture filled it. Brielle was stretched across white sheets in Callum's blue dress shirt, hair messy, lips pouted.

**Baby, come back. I miss you.**

The fog in my head cleared all at once.

I took the photo from his fingers and tore it straight down the middle. The rip sounded loud in the silent hall.

"In three days," I said, "I'll formally petition to break the bond."

The halves fluttered to the marble.

Callum's lip curled. "You reject me, and you'll never get the Goddess's blessing again. No fated mate. Ever. You'll die alone, Sienna."

I didn't answer him.

I turned toward Ronan, and my knee gave out. The floor rushed up at me.

He caught me before I hit it.

I didn't think. I wrapped both arms around his waist and buried my face in his chest. In front of my mate, I held onto another man like he was the only solid thing left in the world.

My heart pounded against him. It was hard and fast and hungry.

And Callum felt every beat through the bond.

"No." His voice cracked. "No, you don't feel that for him. *You don't.*"

He charged forward, reaching to rip me away.

Ronan's hand shot out and locked around his wrist. Bone creaked.

Ronan pushed me gently behind him and leaned in close to Callum's face.

"Touch her again," he said, low and lethal, "and you'll lose more than your mate."

Callum yanked free. He stared at me one last time, his chest heaving.

Then he stormed out. The door slammed hard enough to shake the frame.

---

I made it four breaths before I broke.

The sob tore out of me, ugly and loud. I pressed my fists against my eyes.

"Why?" I choked. "I hate him. I *hate* him. So why does it still hurt when he talks to me like that?"

Ronan pulled me in and wrapped both arms around me.

"Because you loved him for three years," he said into my hair. "That doesn't disappear in one night. It's not supposed to."

I clung to his shirt, the one he was wearing, not the one I was wearing, and slowly the shaking stopped.

I tilted my head back to see him.

A stranger. Until last night, he had been a stranger. And since the moment he put his coat on my shoulders, I hadn't been able to breathe without him close.

"Why does it stop hurting when you touch me?" I whispered.

He didn't answer for a long time. His thumb moved once against my back, then stilled.

"Because my wolf chose you," he said finally. "The second I saw you on that road. He hasn't stopped pacing since."

I stumbled back out of his arms.

"Did you know?" My voice climbed. "Did you know I might be your second chance mate? Is that why you stopped the car?"

"No." He shook his head slowly. "I don't know what you are to me, Sienna. I can't confirm anything. All I know is that when you're near, he goes quiet. For the first time in years, he's quiet."

I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know where to put it.

He stepped closer and brushed the wet from my cheek with the side of his thumb.

"Can I kiss you?"

His mouth was right there. Close enough that I felt each word he spoke.

*Say no. You're still bonded. Say no.*

I nodded.

He bent his head. His lips touched mine, warm and careful, barely there.

Fire exploded in my chest.

The old mate mark over my heart burned like someone had pressed a hot brand into it. I cried out against his mouth and clutched at my ribs.

And through the bond, miles away, I felt Callum.

He wasn't angry this time.

He was terrified.

It was raw, gut-deep terror. For the first time, he understood that if I fell in love with Ronan Blackthorn, he would lose me forever.