The pack house was never truly mine. It was supposed to be a home—a sanctuary for an Alpha and his family—but Ronan Vale of the Obsidian Howl Pack had never treated it as such. His presence was a rarity, his attention fleeting. It had always been that way. Even after I bore him a son, even after Kieran grew up waiting for a father who was never truly there, Ronan remained absent.

The only time I had ever begged him for something was for Kieran’s last wish—to see the ocean with his parents. It wasn’t much to ask, was it? A child’s simple dream. And yet, I had to plead, over and over, until he finally agreed. But on the eve of our departure, Ronan disappeared. He left us behind, just as he always did. That same night, Kieran took his last breath, never getting the chance to see the vast blue waves he had longed for.

I buried my son alone. There was no comforting hand, no whispered words of solace from the mate who should have been by my side. Days later, I found out why he had abandoned us—not for duty, not for some pressing Alpha obligation. He had been with my sister, Adeline Leclair. She had wanted to see the snow, and Ronan had taken her thousands of miles away to find it. The proof was right there on her Instagram, a picture of them together in the snow-capped mountains, her caption piercing through my grief like a dagger:

[I said I wanted to see the snow, and you took me thousands of miles just to find it.]

I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. What was the point? My son was gone, and my mate had never belonged to me in the first place. So, I packed my things. I had nothing left to keep me here.

But as I prepared to leave, Ronan broke down for the first time. He clung to me, his tears soaking my shoulder, his voice trembling with desperate pleas. Yet, his sorrow came too late. His grief meant nothing to me now.

---

Returning from the cemetery to the pack house felt like walking through a graveyard of memories. Kieran’s laughter still echoed in my mind, his tiny hands pulling at my dress, begging for just one more bedtime story. Now, the silence was deafening. Each toy I packed away, each piece of clothing I folded, felt like I was erasing him from existence. My hands trembled as I clutched his belongings, tears falling unchecked.

But I couldn’t stay. Not in this house. Not in this pack. Not with the man who had never truly been mine.

Dragging my suitcase down the stairs, I halted when I saw Ronan carrying Adeline in his arms. She looked up at him, her hands curled around his neck as if she belonged there. And maybe, in his eyes, she did. He walked past me without so much as a glance, setting her down on the couch with the kind of tenderness I had never received.

"Anastasia Leclair," his voice was cold, indifferent. "Is this just another one of your dramatic stunts?"

Adeline, feigning innocence, sighed. "Anastasia, I twisted my ankle, and since Ronan said the Obsidian Howl Pack was close by, he brought me here to take care of it. You don’t mind, do you?"

I watched as he tended to her injury, his hands careful, his touch reverent. A twisted ankle—that was all it took for him to drop everything and run to her side.

I remembered when I had been injured. A rogue attack had left me with a broken leg, and in my desperation, I had reached out to him through our mind link, hoping—stupidly—for some concern.

"A broken leg isn’t life or death," he had said. "You already escaped the rogue. Why bother me?"

That was when I knew. Ronan had never cared. Not for me. Not for Kieran. His wolf should have sensed his mate’s pain, should have felt my suffering—but he had remained indifferent.

And now, as I stood here watching him dote on my sister, the truth had never been clearer. I had never been his priority. I had never been his exception. He was forced to take me as his mate, but his heart had always belonged to Adeline.

If it had been her instead of me, she would have been Luna of the Obsidian Howl Pack by now. But it was me—me, who had given him the power to become Alpha. And still, I was nothing more than a placeholder. A name on paper. Nothing in his heart.

My fingers curled around the handle of my suitcase. I had made my decision. There was no turning back.

At last, I spoke the words I had been rehearsing for days. "Alpha, as you wish, I'm leaving."

I almost slipped—almost blurted out that I wanted to sever our bond entirely. But I caught myself just in time. After all, what did our so-called mateship even mean? It had been nothing more than a rushed ceremony, a mere formality. We weren’t truly married, nor had we ever built a real life together. There had been no love, no deep connection—only the bare minimum of what a bond should be. A hollow tie that had never truly been forged in the first place.

Ronan didn’t even bother to glance up, his full attention still on Adeline as if I were nothing more than an unwelcome disruption in his carefully crafted world. "What now? Changing your tactics?" His voice was as cold as ever, laced with mockery. "You think, now that you can’t use your son to manipulate me anymore, you’ll try using yourself instead?"

His words struck me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. A year ago, Kieran had been diagnosed with an untreatable illness. His frail heart, his inability to heal—everything had pointed to a grim fate. He was just a child, too weak to shift, too fragile to connect with his wolf. Every day, his life had hung by a thread while I watched in helpless agony, knowing he was slipping further away. And throughout it all, he had only asked for one thing—to see his father.

Ronan had never visited him, never shown the slightest concern. In his mind, I had only ever used Kieran to gain sympathy, to guilt-trip him into caring. And now, after ten years together, that was all I was to him—a manipulative woman desperate for attention.

I blinked away the sting of tears, refusing to let him see me break. "Believe whatever you want, Alpha. I'm leaving."

With that, I turned on my heel, dragging my suitcase toward the door. But before I could make it out, Adeline’s voice cut through the silence, feigning innocence. "Alpha, didn’t you plan to take Kieran to the ocean? You didn’t cancel that just for the mountain trip with me, did you? Anastasia’s upset..."

Ronan’s voice was gentle, almost soothing—a stark contrast to the cold indifference he always reserved for me. "Don’t worry, I know my priorities. We can visit the ocean anytime, but once the snow melts in the mountains, it'll be a long time before we can see it again."

A bitter scoff escaped my lips, sharp and cutting. How blind could he be? How utterly oblivious to the damage he had done? He didn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know that there would be no next time, no next trip, no next month for Kieran.

I clenched my jaw and strode toward the door, determined to leave. But before I could, Ronan moved, seizing my wrist in frustration. "It’s the middle of the night, Anastasia. Do you really think this is necessary? You’re crying over missing one trip to the ocean? Kieran can wait."

His words cut deeper than any blade. Even now, even after everything, he didn’t understand. He didn’t care enough to understand. His eyes flickered toward my face, finally registering the redness and swelling of my tear-streaked cheeks. For the first time, a hint of pity entered his gaze. "I’ll clear my schedule next month. I’ll take Kieran then, alright?"

Next month? What next month? What future did Kieran have left? If only Ronan had cared just a little more, maybe he wouldn’t be standing here, saying something so absurd.

I wrenched my hand free, my voice trembling with barely contained fury. "No need!"

Ronan stared at his empty palm, visibly stunned. He had never expected this—never imagined that the woman who had once clung to him so desperately would now recoil from him like he was a curse. He hesitated, then made a move to follow me, but Adeline, ever the center of his universe, clutched his arm, pulling him back.

"Alpha, it’s my fault," she murmured, her voice laced with false remorse. "I shouldn’t have competed for your attention. Even though I knew Kieran was faking his illness, I still—"

Faking…?

The world seemed to tilt, my breath catching in my throat. My entire body went cold.

Before I could even process the words, my hand had already moved on its own.

The sharp crack of the slap echoed through the room.

Adeline stumbled back, her hand flying to her cheek, eyes wide in disbelief. But I didn’t care. My palm tingled from the impact, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough to drown out the storm of rage surging inside me.

Ronan's face, which had initially shown a flicker of guilt, hardened in an instant. His expression turned cold as he instinctively positioned Adeline behind him, shielding her while his eyes darkened with accusation. "Anastasia, what are you doing? She’s your sister!"

I locked eyes with Adeline, barely restraining my rage. "You better watch your mouth."

Adeline widened her eyes, feigning innocence as she leaned closer to my mate, her presence making my wolf bristle with unease. "Alpha, I don’t want to come between you two. If my sister refuses to admit that Kieran is faking his illness, then I’ll just drop it."

Disbelief surged through me. My brow furrowed as I turned to Ronan, my voice shaking. "You think Kieran is faking it too?"

His silence was answer enough. He didn't believe me. He never did.

Then, I caught him scanning the room, his eyes searching for our son. But Kieran was nowhere in sight. "Where did you hide him this time?" His voice dripped with suspicion, laced with an accusation that cut me deeper than any blade.

If only he came home more often, he would see the reality—the table littered with medicine bottles, the never-ending pile of medical reports from our wolf healers, the sleepless nights Kieran endured. But instead, he chose to believe Adeline's lies—the poisonous words that painted Kieran as a manipulative child rather than the sick, fragile boy he truly was.

I remembered the day Kieran confided in me, his small voice trembling as he told me he didn’t have much time left. His last wish was simple: to see the ocean one final time. He had always been enchanted by the sea, mesmerized by its endless waves and mysteries—a love passed down from the stories his late grandmother used to tell him. But we lived far from the coast, and the only way to make his wish come true was to get Ronan to agree.

So I had begged him. No, I had humiliated myself—kneeling before him, clutching the fabric of his pants as I pleaded. "Please," I had whispered, my voice breaking. "This will be the last thing I ever ask of you. I swear… after this, I’ll set you free."

Ronan had looked down at me then, something flickering in his gaze. Was it relief? Satisfaction? I couldn't tell. "You mean that?" he had asked, his voice void of warmth, calculating.

"Yes," I had murmured, closing my eyes as tears streamed down my face, feeling the last remnants of my dignity shatter.

The bitter truth was that when Ronan was young, he had lost his parents in a rogue attack, leaving him a lone wanderer. I could still recall the day I found him—a frail, half-starved boy lying unconscious on the forest floor. I had been just a child myself, playing among the trees, when I stumbled upon him. He was nothing but skin and bones, his body covered in grime, his lips cracked from thirst.

My heart had clenched painfully at the sight. "You poor thing," I had whispered, brushing aside the tangled strands of hair from his dirt-streaked face. "You must be starving."

His hollow eyes had flickered open, filled with a fear that spoke of countless nights spent alone. Something in me had fractured at that moment. I couldn’t leave him there. I couldn’t let him die.

Reaching for his frail hand, I had pulled him up with all the strength my small arms could muster. "Come with me," I had said, my voice filled with quiet determination. "I’ll take care of you."

When I brought him home, my parents—Alpha Theron and Luna Faye Leclair of the Obsidian Howl Pack—had been wary. My father’s stern voice still echoed in my memories. "Anastasia, he’s a stranger."

But I had refused to back down. "Please, Father," I had begged, desperation tightening my throat. "He has no one else. If we don’t help him, he’ll die!"

My mother, always the gentler soul, had looked at Ronan with quiet pity. "Theron," she had murmured, placing a hand on my father’s arm. "He’s just a child."

Even then, my father had hesitated, his expression unreadable. He had not been easily swayed. And so, I had done the only thing I could think of—I went on a hunger strike.

For days, I refused to eat, growing weaker with each passing moment. But I had remained steadfast, determined to prove that I would not relent until they agreed. Eventually, my father had sighed in resignation. "Alright, Anastasia," he had said, his voice laced with reluctance. "We’ll take him in."

That day, I had thought Ronan became my brother.

Or so I had believed.