Adrian came home at six the next morning with flowers.

White peonies. My favorite. He set them on the kitchen counter, right next to the photo of us on the fridge, and didn't look at it once.

Noah was gone. The couch cushions were still dented where he'd slept.

"Sienna." Adrian stood in the doorway of the bedroom. His collar was open. I could see a faint red mark under his jaw. "Can we talk?"

I sat up. My ribs still throbbed where the bond lived.

"You hung up on me."

"I know."

"I was bleeding on the floor, Adrian."

He winced. It looked practiced. "I didn't know it was that bad. I swear to the Moon, I didn't know."

"Callie knew. I heard her."

"Callie's confused. I'm confused." He crossed the room and knelt by the bed. He took my hand, and his thumb rubbed the back of it the way it always had. "I made a mistake. A stupid, ugly mistake. I don't want to lose you over one night."

One night.

Noah's phone flashed in my memory. *The last two years.*

I pulled my hand back. "Then postpone the wedding."

His thumb stopped. "What?"

"I'm not walking down that aisle in six days like nothing happened. I need time. If you're sorry, give me time."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded.

"Okay."

I blinked. "Okay?"

"You're right. We'll tell the families together. Tonight. My parents are hosting dinner at the estate anyway." He kissed my knuckles. "We'll do it properly. Side by side."

I wanted to believe him so badly that my chest ached.

So I did.

...

The Rourke estate glowed like a wedding cake. Every window was lit. Cars lined the gravel drive.

"That's a lot of people for a family dinner," I said.

Adrian squeezed my waist. "Council members. Mom invited a few."

The dining hall was full. My father sat near the head of the table in his good gray suit. He didn't stand when I came in. He didn't even meet my eyes.

Then I saw Callie.

She sat at Adrian's mother's right hand, in the seat that had been mine for three years. Pale blue dress. Hair pinned up. A pearl comb tucked behind her ear.

One of my pearls. From the neckline of my dress.

"Sienna, sweetheart." Margaret Rourke rose with her wine glass. "Sit. We were just finishing the toast."

"What toast?"

"To the new arrangement, of course." She smiled at Callie. "The wedding goes ahead Saturday. Same venue, same guests. The council has already approved the change of bride."

The room went still and loud at the same time. Forks scraped. Someone coughed.

I turned to Adrian. "Change of bride."

He didn't answer.

"You said we'd postpone. You knelt by my bed this morning and *said* it."

"I said we'd talk to the families." His voice was even. "We're talking."

"Dad?"

My father finally looked up. His mouth was tight. "The alliance with Silver Hollow matters to our pack, Sienna. The Mercers are close kin to us. It changes very little."

"It changes *me*."

"Sienna." Callie rose halfway from her chair, her eyes wet and wide. "I never wanted it like this. But Adrian and I... we didn't plan to fall in love. Please don't make this harder than it has to be."

I stared at the pearl comb in her hair.

Then I started laughing again. Quietly this time.

"You want me to make it easy?" I asked. "You want me to sit down, eat dessert, and clap?"

Margaret set her glass down. "We'd like you to step aside gracefully. You'll be compensated. A house. A position in the pack—"

"No."

The word cracked across the table.

"I won't step aside. I won't smile for your council. If Adrian wants to marry her, he can stand up and tell everyone what he did in room 1408."

Adrian's jaw locked.

Every head in the hall turned to him.

He pushed back his chair and stood. When he spoke, his Alpha voice rolled through the room, low and heavy, and I felt it in my teeth.

"Sienna and I haven't been in love for a long time."

My lungs stopped working.

"We stayed together out of habit and duty. I won't keep pretending. It isn't fair to either of us." He finally turned to face me. His eyes were flat gray stones. "This is a mutual decision. It's just hard for her to say out loud."

"Mutual," I whispered.

"I, Adrian Rourke, Alpha of the Silver Hollow Pack," he said, "reject you, Sienna Dorsey, as my mate."

The bond snapped.

It didn't break the way a thread breaks. It tore like a root ripped out of wet ground. Something inside my chest came loose and kept coming. White light burst behind my eyes. My knees hit the marble before I knew I was falling.

I heard glass shatter. A chair tipped over.

Callie screamed.

Through the blur, I saw Adrian move. Fast. Alpha fast.

Not toward me.

He caught Callie by the shoulders as she stumbled back from the table, and he pulled her against his chest.

"I've got you," he murmured into her hair. "You're okay. Don't look."

Don't look. At me. On the floor.

I tried to breathe and tasted copper again. My fingers scraped at the cold marble.

"Noah." Adrian's voice came from somewhere far above, irritated. "Get her to the hospital. Quietly."

Footsteps. Heavy. Running.

"Sienna." Noah's face swam into view. His hands were on my cheeks, hot and shaking. "Look at me. Stay with me, okay? Stay right here."

"He..." My voice was gone. Just air.

"I know. I know. Don't talk."

He slid one arm under my knees and the other behind my back. Then he lifted me against his chest like I weighed nothing.

The second my cheek touched his collarbone, the world caught fire.

Heat surged through the raw, empty place where Adrian's bond had been. It didn't hurt. It *filled*. It was warm and bright and so fierce it pulled a gasp out of me.

Pine. Rain. Woodsmoke.

His scent hit me like I'd never smelled anything before.

Noah froze in the middle of the dining hall.

His heartbeat thundered under my ear. Once. Twice. Then it slammed into a rhythm that matched mine exactly.

"No," he breathed. His arms tightened around me. "No, no. Not now."

I lifted my head. His eyes had gone gold, wolf-gold, and he was staring at me like I'd just set him on fire too.

Behind us, the dining hall had gone dead silent.

Then Adrian spoke, and his voice had changed.

"Noah," he said slowly. "What the hell did you just do?"

The fever lasted three days.

I remember pieces. Ice chips on my tongue. A nurse with cold hands. The beep of a monitor that never stopped. And Noah, always Noah, in the plastic chair by the window, his elbows on his knees.

Adrian never came.

On the fourth morning, the fever broke. On the fourth afternoon, the door opened without a knock.

"You look better."

Adrian stood at the foot of my bed in a charcoal coat. No flowers this time. His eyes moved over the IV in my arm and kept going, like it was furniture.

Noah rose from his chair. "She's not ready for visitors."

"I'm not a visitor. I'm her Alpha."

"You rejected her," Noah said. "In front of the whole council. You're nothing to her now."

Adrian ignored him. He came around to the side of the bed and looked down at my left hand.

"I need the ring, Sienna."

I followed his gaze. The Rourke ring. Three generations old. A square sapphire in old gold, worn smooth by his grandmother's hands, then his mother's, then mine.

"You came here," I said slowly, "for the ring."

"It's a family heirloom. It belongs with the Luna of Silver Hollow." He paused. "Callie feels strongly about it."

"Callie feels strongly."

"She thinks it should be hers. And she's right. It's tradition."

I started to laugh, but it turned into a cough that scraped my throat raw. Noah poured a cup of water and held it out. I waved it away.

"Three days," I said. "I had a fever of a hundred and five. They thought my wolf might not come back. And this is your first visit?"

"I've been busy with the wedding."

"*My* wedding."

"Not anymore." He held out his palm. "The ring."

I tugged at it. It didn't move. My fingers were puffy from the fever and the fluids, and the gold band had sunk into the swollen skin like it had grown there.

"It's stuck."

"Try harder."

"Adrian, it's *stuck*. Look at my hand."

He looked. Then he turned and leaned out into the hallway.

"Nurse. Can you come in here? We need some soap. Or lotion. Whatever you use for this."

A young nurse appeared in the doorway, her eyes darting between us. "Sir, her hand is inflamed. Forcing it could damage the—"

"Then be gentle about it."

Noah moved. One second he was by the window. The next he was between Adrian and the bed, his shoulders squared.

"Get out."

"Step aside, Noah."

"She almost *died*. And you want a nurse to yank a ring off her while she's on an IV?"

"I want what belongs to my family."

"You don't get to—"

Adrian went still.

His nostrils flared. Once, then again. His head tilted, slow, the way a wolf does when it catches something on the wind.

He was staring at Noah's neck. Then at mine.

"No," Adrian said quietly. "That's not possible."

Noah didn't answer.

"I felt something at the estate. I told myself I imagined it." Adrian stepped closer. His voice dropped into something ugly. "But I can smell it on both of you. You're *bonded*."

"It happened the night you broke her," Noah said. "I didn't choose it."

"Nobody gets a second mate four seconds after a rejection. That bond had to be waiting." Adrian swung around to me, and his face cracked open with something like triumph. "How long, Sienna? How long were you sneaking around with my Beta?"

My mouth fell open. "Are you serious?"

"You stood in my parents' dining hall and played the victim. And all along—"

"I've *never* touched him. Not once. You're the one who was in a hotel room in my dress!"

"So you say."

"You don't get to turn this around on me!"

"Why not? You've been playing loyal fiancée while he's been sniffing after you for years." He jabbed a finger at Noah. "Ask him. Ask your new mate how loyal he is. He's known about Callie since the start."

The room tilted.

"What?"

Noah's jaw locked. He didn't look at me.

"Two years," Adrian said. He sounded almost pleased. "He covered for me at every council trip. Every late night. Booked half the rooms himself. Didn't he tell you?"

I turned to Noah.

"Is that true?"

Silence.

"Noah. *Is that true?*"

His throat moved. "Sienna, I—"

"Yes or no."

He closed his eyes. "Yes."

Something in my chest went very quiet. Not broken. Just quiet. Like a house after everyone's left.

I turned to the nurse, still frozen in the doorway.

"Do you have ring cutters?"

She blinked. "We do. But it's heirloom gold, ma'am. Once it's cut—"

"Cut it."

Adrian's head snapped toward me. "Sienna, that ring is ninety years old."

"Then you should have asked me nicely ninety minutes ago. Or ninety days. Or two years." I held my hand out to the nurse. "Please."

She came back with a small steel tool. She slid the guard under the band, and her eyes flicked to me one more time.

"Do it," I said.

The cutter bit down. There was a tiny metallic snap.

She pried the band open, and blood rushed back into my finger so hard it throbbed. I didn't wince. I picked up the bent ring, sapphire and all, and dropped it into Adrian's open palm.

"Tell Callie it fits her perfectly now."

His fingers closed around it. For a second, I thought he might say something real. Something human.

"You'll regret this," he said instead.

Then he walked out.

The nurse slipped away after him. The door clicked shut. And it was just Noah and me and the beeping monitor.

He took a step toward the bed. "Sienna, please let me explain."

"Did you know when you held my head on the kitchen floor?"

"Yes."

"Did you know when you told me to breathe?"

"I wanted to tell you. I almost did, a hundred times. He's my Alpha. If I'd crossed him, he'd have—"

"Thrown you out?" I pulled the tape off the IV in my arm. "Good thing you didn't have to choose."

"Don't do that. You're not cleared to leave."

"I'm discharging myself."

"Then let me drive you."

"No."

"Sienna, the bond—" He pressed a fist against his sternum like it hurt him. "You feel it too. I know you do."

I did. Warm and steady and stubborn under my ribs. Pulling toward him even now.

I hated it.

"I felt the last one too," I said. "Look where that got me."

He flinched like I'd slapped him.

"Go home, Noah. And don't come back."

...

The paperwork took an hour. No one helped me carry my suitcase.

Someone had packed it for me, probably on Margaret's orders. My clothes were shoved in, still on their hangers. A sweater sleeve hung out of the zipper.

I dragged it through the lobby, one wheel squeaking with every turn. My legs shook. My left hand pulsed in its bandage.

The automatic doors slid open. Cold air hit my face.

And a man was standing right in my way.

Tall. Black coat. Black hair pushed back off his forehead. A thin white scar ran from the corner of his eyebrow down toward his cheekbone. He was leaning against a dark car parked in the ambulance lane like he owned it.

He looked at my suitcase. Then at my bandaged hand. Then at me.

He smiled, and it wasn't kind.

"Sienna Dorsey," he said. "You're harder to find than I expected."

I gripped the handle tighter. "Who are you?"

"Kane." He pushed off the car. "Adrian Rourke's brother."

My stomach dropped.

Adrian didn't have a brother.

"I think," Kane said, opening the passenger door, "it's time someone told you the truth about the Rourke family. Get in."