Calder froze.

For one long second, nobody moved. Not him. Not her. Not me.

Then I understood that he wasn't going to move at all.

He stayed right where he was, hips pinned between Livia's thighs, his cock still buried inside her. He only turned his head and glanced at me over his bare shoulder, like I'd interrupted him in the middle of a war report.

"Laurel." His voice came out rough. "Go back to bed."

"Go back to bed?" The words scraped up my throat. "That *is* my bed, Calder."

"Not anymore."

"It's been *hours*." I gripped the doorframe so hard a splinter slid under my nail. "You rejected me in front of the whole pack this afternoon, and tonight you bring her here? Into the bed you built for me?"

He didn't answer.

The smell hit me then. Jasmine and sweat and sex, all of it soaked into the sheets where I used to sleep. My wolf lunged inside me. She snarled and clawed, but there was no bond left to hold her steady, and she tore through my chest instead.

Pain split me in two. One blade of it under my ribs. Another low in my belly, right along the old scar.

I folded over, gasping.

Livia laughed.

She didn't push Calder away. She curled into him, pressing her cheek against his chest, her fingers drawing lazy circles on his arm.

"Look at her," she purred. "Seven years wearing the Luna's crown, and what did she leave behind? Not one pup. Not even a miscarriage to cry over."

"Livia," Calder murmured.

It wasn't a warning. It was barely a sound.

She smiled at me and slid her hand down over her own flat stomach. Her palm rested there, gentle, almost loving.

"Some of us won't need five years," she said. "Some of us won't even need five months."

My mouth went dry.

I straightened up, one inch at a time. My legs shook, but I made them hold.

"Tell her, Calder." I fixed my eyes on him and only him. "Tell her why I can't give you a child."

His jaw set hard.

"Tell her about the north woods. The rogue in the trees. That silver blade was aimed at your back, right behind your heart. If I hadn't jumped, it would've gone straight through you." My voice cracked, then sharpened. "You'd be ash on a pyre. There wouldn't *be* an Alpha Thorne for her to crawl under."

Livia's smile slipped. Just a little.

Calder finally pulled out of her and sat up. He reached for the sheet and dragged it over his lap, slow and careless.

"You think I wouldn't have survived?"

I stared at him.

"I'm an Alpha, Laurel. I've taken worse. I'd have healed." He shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe it would've hurt. But I'd have lived. With you or without you."

"You were *there*. You saw the poison—"

"And every time you don't get your way, you drag it out again." His eyes narrowed. "The blade. The scar. The fever. You've been hanging that night around my neck for five years like a chain. I'm done carrying it."

The room went very quiet.

Something in me stopped hurting.

Not because it healed. Because there was nothing left in there to feel it.

I reached up to my collar. The Luna badge was silver and moonstone, pinned over my heart since the night of our mating. My fingers were steady now. Strangely steady. I unclasped it.

Then I tossed it.

It hit the floor beside the bed with a small, cold clink and spun twice before it lay flat.

Calder's gaze dropped to it. For the first time all night, he looked startled.

"What are you doing?"

"Returning what's yours." I stepped back into the hall. "I won't stay in this house and watch her wear my life like a borrowed dress."

He snorted. "Where are you going to go? You were born in Silverpine. Your mother is buried here. You have nowhere else."

I said nothing.

"Fine." He leaned back against the headboard. "Go cool off. When you're done throwing your little fit, come home. The guest room will still be there."

Livia sat up beside him, the sheet clutched to her chest. Her voice rang out past me, toward the stairs.

"Guards!"

Boots thudded up the steps. Two young warriors appeared in the hallway, eyes wide, faces flushing at the sight of the bed.

"Clear out the rest of her things," Livia said. "Tonight. Clothes, books, all of it. I want the Luna residence empty of her by sunrise."

The guards hesitated. One of them looked at Calder.

Calder waved his hand. "Do it."

---

I didn't fight over any of it.

In the guest room, I knelt by the bed and pulled out the small cedar box from underneath. Inside lay my mother's necklace, a thin chain with a pale gray stone. She'd fastened it around my neck the day before she died.

I put it on. That was all I took.

The guards were already stuffing my dresses into sacks when I walked past them. Neither one looked up.

---

At the eastern gate, the watchman stepped out of his post. Old Harlan. He used to sneak me honey cakes when I first came to the pack house.

He cleared his throat.

"Former Luna."

The title landed like a slap. Two more wolves leaned against the wall behind him, grinning.

"Gate's open, Former Luna," one of them called. "Watch your step. Wouldn't want you to fall. Again."

They laughed.

I stopped in front of Harlan. He couldn't meet my eyes.

"Thank you for the honey cakes," I said quietly.

His face crumpled. He opened his mouth, but I was already through the gate.

---

The snow started slow. Then it thickened, fat flakes sticking to my lashes, filling my shoes.

Every step pulled something out of me. The torn bond kept bleeding strength, like a tap left running. My wolf pushed up under my skin. I felt her try.

*Shift,* I begged her. *Please. Four legs. We'll be faster.*

My bones ached and twisted. My spine bowed. Then it all snapped back, and I collapsed onto my hands, panting.

She couldn't do it. She was too weak.

Warmth seeped across my stomach. I pressed my palm there and pulled it away.

Red. Bright against the snow.

The scar had opened.

I laughed again, a thin, shaky sound in the dark trees. Five years it stayed closed, and tonight of all nights, it decided to bleed.

Then I heard it.

A howl. Deep. Close. Rolling between the pines.

My heart jumped before my head could stop it.

"Calder?" I lifted my face. "Calder, is that you?"

He came. He came after me. He—

Something moved between the trunks. Huge. Dark as the night itself.

My arms gave out. I sank face-first into the cold drift, and the world narrowed to a smear of white.

The last thing I saw was a pair of eyes above me.

Silver-gray. Steady. Not Calder's.

A stranger's.

Heat closed around me. Thick fur pressed against my cheek. Something lifted me out of the snow as easily as picking up a fallen branch.

A massive black wolf.

He turned and carried me into the dark, away from Silverpine.

And somewhere in the back of my fading mind, my wolf, who hadn't made a sound since the gate—

Whispered a single word.

*Mine.*

The first thing I smelled was pine smoke.

Not cedar. Not jasmine. Just pine, and iodine, and something warm and dark underneath it, like rain on stone.

I opened my eyes to a low wooden ceiling. A tube ran from the back of my hand to a bag hanging on a hook. My stomach was wrapped tight in fresh white linen.

Someone had changed the bandage.

A log shifted in the stove. I turned my head.

A man sat beside the fire, elbows on his knees, sleeves pushed up his forearms. Broad shoulders. Black hair cut short. He was watching the flames, not me.

Then the air rolled over my skin, heavy and thick, pressing down on my lungs.

*Alpha.*

My hand shot out to the tray beside the bed. My fingers closed on something cold. A silver scalpel. I yanked it up and pointed it at him.

"Don't move."

He didn't. He just lifted his eyes.

Silver-gray. The same eyes from the snow.

"That's sharp," he said. "You'll tear your stitches if you swing it."

"Who are you? Where am I?"

"Soren Ashford." He stayed in his chair. Didn't even uncross his ankles. "Alpha of Ironcliff. This is a healer's cabin on our southern border. I was running patrol two nights ago and found you face-down in a drift."

"Two nights?"

"You lost a lot of blood."

I stared at him. The scalpel trembled in my fist. He hadn't come one step closer. He hadn't flared his aura to force me down, the way Calder always did when I argued.

Slowly, I lowered the blade.

"I'm sorry." My throat felt like sandpaper. "You saved my life, and I greeted you with a knife."

"Fair greeting for a stranger." One corner of his mouth tilted. "What's your name?"

"Laurel."

"Just Laurel?"

"Just Laurel. I'm from Silverpine."

He waited. I gave him nothing else. I set the scalpel back on the tray and tucked my hands under the blanket so he wouldn't see them shake.

"Silverpine," he repeated. He reached for a mug on the floor and turned it in his palms. "Busy pack this week. They're throwing a feast. Lanterns, music, the works. The whole border can hear it."

"A feast?"

"For their Alpha's new bonding." He took a sip. "Calder Thorne. He announced it the morning after you went into the snow. Said his former Luna walked away from her duties of her own free will. Then he finished a private bonding rite with a she-wolf named Livia that same afternoon."

The room tilted.

The same afternoon. While I was bleeding out under the pines, calling his name.

He'd been standing under the moon with her.

I pressed my fist against my sternum, right where the bond used to sit. It didn't hurt this time. It just felt hollow, like a house after a fire.

"Of her own free will," I said.

Soren watched me over the rim of the mug. "You're her. The former Luna."

There was no point lying anymore.

"He rejected me." The words came out flat. "In front of the whole council. Because I couldn't give him an heir. Everyone in Silverpine believes I can't get pregnant. Maybe they're right."

Something changed in Soren's face.

His shoulders dropped. The line between his brows smoothed out. He let out a long breath through his nose, and it almost sounded like relief.

Heat shot up my neck.

"What's that look?"

"Nothing."

"No. That was *something*." I pushed myself up against the headboard. My stitches pulled. I didn't care. "I just told you my mate threw me away because my body is broken, and you look *pleased*. What exactly are you happy about, Alpha Ashford?"

He set the mug down.

"I have an offer," he said.

"Answer my question."

"This is the answer." He leaned forward, forearms on his knees. "Be my Luna. One year. Stand at my side in front of my pack and help me get through every full moon."

I laughed. It cracked in half.

"You've known me for two days. Most of that I was unconscious."

"I don't need to know you for a contract."

"And what do I get?"

"A title. A home. Protection from anyone who comes looking for you." His gaze didn't waver. "And a seat at the next Alpha Summit, where Calder Thorne will have to look you in the face."

My pulse jumped. I hated that it did.

"And why does an Alpha want a Luna who can't give him pups?"

"Because I don't need an heir."

"Every Alpha needs an heir."

"Not me."

"Why not?"

He was quiet for a moment. The fire popped.

"That's a conversation for after you sign."

There it was. The catch. Always a catch.

"No." I peeled the tape off the back of my hand. "I spent seven years being Calder's answer to a problem. His shield. His Luna. His mistake. I'm not doing it again for a stranger with secrets."

I pinched the needle and pulled. A sting, then a bead of blood. I swung my legs over the side of the bed.

Soren didn't stand up. He didn't block the door.

He just reached into his coat, took out a folded sheet of paper, and held it out.

"Before you go," he said. "Read this."

I snatched it from his hand.

The Silverpine seal sat in the corner. Calder's signature sprawled across the bottom.

*Laurel, formerly Luna of Silverpine, has abandoned her post. Her jealousy toward members of the Alpha's household created unrest. Her failure to fulfill her duties left the pack weakened. In light of her departure, all lands, trade routes, and accounts under her management revert to the Alpha. The eastern grain agreement, previously credited to her, was negotiated under the Alpha's direction.*

My eyes caught on that last line.

The grain agreement. Eleven weeks of travel. Three winters of nobody starving. I'd sat across from the Riverbend elders until dawn with frostbite on two fingers.

*Under the Alpha's direction.*

He'd been home that whole time. Drinking with Livia's brothers.

The paper crumpled in my fist.

"He took everything," I whispered. "Even the parts he wasn't there for."

"He took what you let him keep," Soren said.

I spun around. "What does that mean?"

He finally stood. He was taller than I'd thought. He picked up another sheet from the table by the stove, a clean page with neat black lines, and laid it on the blanket beside me. A pen rested on top.

"It means you have a choice," he said. "You can walk into that blizzard alone. Or you can stand next to me. And from now on, every one of them will have to look up to see you."

The wind slammed against the cabin wall. Snow hissed at the window.

I looked down at the page.

*Contract of Union. One year. Ironcliff.*

And at the bottom, written in the same neat hand, already filled in—

My name.

Not *Laurel*. My full name. The one I hadn't spoken out loud since my mother died.

The one I'd never told him.

My fingers closed around the pen.

Soren said nothing. He just watched.

I touched the nib to the paper, and a single drop of ink bled out beside my name, dark and round, like the first drop of something that couldn't be taken back.