A young she-wolf had once set her sights on Roderic. When I caught the scent of it on him, I wouldn't let it go. I kept asking, kept pushing, and he gave me a full week of silence for it.

After that, the smallest thing could set my nerves on edge, my wolf pacing under my skin at every shift in his scent.

This time, he'd assumed at first that "bond rejection" was just another bid for attention.

Now he was confused. Why wasn't I clashing with Seraphine? Why wasn't I even baring my teeth?

What he didn't understand was that jealousy had lost all meaning.

The harder I fought, the further his heart tilted toward Seraphine and her soft, wounded act.

More than that, I simply didn't care anymore.

Just as Roderic was about to reach for me, Seraphine let out a sharp cry:

"Roderic, my stomach hurts so bad!"

His expression changed instantly. He pulled his hand back, scooped her up, and rushed for the door.

"I'm taking Seraphine to the Healing Hall. We'll talk when I get back!"

He looked frantic, cradling her like she was something precious.

I slammed the blood-oath papers down on the low table, turned, and went upstairs to pack.

Late that night, Roderic climbed into bed and wrapped his arms around me from behind. Beneath the cedar of his scent, that sour, cloying rot lingered, and my wolf curled away from it.

"Aurora, I know I've been neglecting you lately. I know you're upset."

"But Seraphine and I really are just friends. Her mate's away across the far territories, and she's carrying a pup with no one to look after her. That's the only reason I let her into the den, just to keep her safe for now."

I lay silent in the dark.

Did he actually believe that after what I'd seen with my own eyes, I'd still swallow his lies?

"Once this whole thing with the obsessed she-wolf blows over, she'll go. I promise. Everything will go back to normal."

His voice dropped lower, softer: "Aurora, I love you."

He sounded exactly the way he used to, same warmth, same voice, as if nothing had changed.

All I felt was disgust.

Maybe the tenderness was real. But so was the pup he'd made with someone else.

I wrenched myself free of his arms. I couldn't stand another second of his touch.

I could feel his gaze lingering on my back for a long time.

The next morning, I woke to the smell of cooking drifting up through the den.

I walked into the main room and found Roderic, who had never once set foot near the hearth, wearing an apron, carrying a bowl of stewed fish to Seraphine.

"The healer said more fish stew makes the pup stronger."

Seraphine spotted me and waved with a bright smile:

"Aurora, come join us! Roderic was up before first light making this. You're so lucky, a hearth-cooked meal like this every morning."

Roderic's hands went still.

I gave a faint smile: "He's never once cooked for me."

I glanced at the stew. My stomach turned, the smell sitting wrong in the back of my throat, and I headed for the washroom.

"I can't stand the smell of fish. Never could."

Seraphine followed me in. Under her sugared scent, that thread of tin sharpened, and a growl I didn't let surface stirred low in my chest.

Her face was all sincerity: "Aurora, I've never wanted to come between you two. Please don't overthink this."

The moment the door closed behind her, the mask dropped: "If you're going to leave, leave already. He stopped caring about you a long time ago."

Pity and triumph flickered together in her eyes.

"Did you know? He's already sworn his inheritance. Every holding goes to me and our pup. As for you and your whelp, you can spend the rest of your lives rotting in this run-down corner of the territory."

"Bond-betrayal really is your one true calling, isn't it."

I met her gaze. My voice was calm, but it cut.

The color drained from Seraphine's face.

I lowered my voice further:

"Roderic may not know what you really are. I know exactly what you are."

"I can walk away. But don't push me again."

A beat later, Seraphine's lips slowly curved into a smile, quiet, unreadable, and promising nothing good.

Seraphine dropped to the floor of the washing den, clutching her belly, and screamed.

“My pup! Aurora, why did you push me?”

The next second, Roderic burst through the door.

He saw Seraphine crumpled on the cold stone, sobbing, and his face went dark as he turned on me. The cloying sweetness of his scent soured in an instant, copper sharpening to something feral.

“What did you do to her?!”

Before I could say a word, he shoved me aside and scooped up Seraphine, still crying her pretty little eyes out.

“Ah!”

I hit the cold floor hard, and a searing pain tore through my stomach.

Beneath me, a dark red stain slowly spread.

I reached for Roderic, terrified: “I didn't do anything to her. Roderic, my stomach……”

“Shut up. Don't fucking pretend with me.”

He didn't even glance at me. He carried Seraphine out the door and was gone, and his scent went with him, leaving the den hollow and silent.

I curled up on the floor, cold sweat soaking through every layer I wore.

My abdomen was screaming. Somewhere deep inside me my wolf had gone utterly still, the way a creature goes still when something it was guarding has already slipped away. My heart, though, that didn't hurt so much anymore.

I dragged myself upright, made it down the stairs one step at a time, and summoned a carriage alone.

Blood ran down my legs. The driver was so frightened he took the bends in the road too fast, the storm-hawks straining against their harness.

We passed the little grove on the corner, and I suddenly remembered where it all began.

That same old tree. A boy standing under it, face going red because I'd told him first, nodding before he could get a full sentence out.

“Yeah, yeah……”

“I mean, I like you too, Aurora.”

The memory flickered past, so sweet it made me laugh out loud even as my eyes blurred with tears.

That “honest wolf” I'd found so endearingly sincere had only ever been something I invented.

Just last night, a full account of Roderic's holdings had landed in my sending-stone.

Vast hunting grounds. Territory stretching past the far ridges.

Even his parents weren't ordinary lore-keepers. They were silent owners behind an entire pack, seated among the Elders.

Yet he hadn't even been willing to give us a decent mating ceremony beneath the moon.

I finally saw it for what it was: he had never loved me.

Five cycles bonded as mates, nothing but a game to him. A lie spun to keep me from ever learning about the wealth.

Sitting on the bed in the Healing Hall, I pressed my hands against my hollow stomach, and my eyes went cold.

I reached my advocate through the sending-stone:

“I've sent over all the evidence. Move to freeze Roderic Ashthorne's holdings.”

I'd meant to part on decent terms. No need for that now.

My sending-stone pulsed. A message from Dorian Greywood, my old academy lab-mate and Alpha of the Silvercrest Pack.

“Passage is arranged. I'll send a carriage for you the day after tomorrow.”

“Good. See you then.”

The pup was gone. Five cycles of love, severed clean. It was time to leave.

At the edge of pack territory, right before departure, a message from Roderic.

“Do you have any idea Seraphine almost lost the pup because of you?”

“Fine, I lied to you. I took her to my bed. But if you're angry, take it out on me. What does she have to do with it?”

“Just lower your head to Seraphine and we'll put it behind us. You only did all this because you love me too much, and carrying the pup made you a little emotional. I get it.”

That interrogating tone, that lofty charity-dispensing attitude, I actually laughed.

What right did he have to defend Seraphine to me?

Where did he find the nerve to demand I bare my throat to her?

I sent back fast: “In a few days, you can speak to my advocate. Before the Council.”

Sent. Stone dark. I walked toward the waiting carriage without looking back.

Once I stopped loving him, the whole sky opened up. I was done being someone's useless mate. I had a place to claim, the lead architect of the Silvercrest Pack's territory-strengthening lore, work the whole wolf-world would one day know.

Eight hours later the carriage crossed into Silvercrest land and I woke the stone again.

Roderic's missed calls and messages hit the surface like a volley of arrows.

The first few dozen were all threats and warnings.

Then the tone shifted, fraying into agitation and unease.

By the last hundred or so, the long and short voice-sendings, the broken strings of words, they reeked of raw, bone-deep panic.

He had finally realized the bond rejection was real, and that I had slipped out of his grip for good.