Annette POV:

The air in the shrine grew thick, suffocating. The only sounds were the hiss and pop of the struggling candle flames and the ragged, shallow breaths of the three of us who were still conscious.

Creed's eyes darted everywhere but at me. He fumbled, clumsily trying to tuck Coralie's long, golden hair back into the collar of her tunic, a pathetic attempt to hide a truth that was already burning a hole in the room.

A wave of dizziness washed over me. My stomach churned. I had barely slept the night before, preparing for this anniversary, and the shock was a physical blow.

"You... you two..." My voice was a dry, rasping whisper. The words wouldn't form.

Creed finally spoke, his tone not one of explanation, but of a cornered animal lashing out. "Dr. Hayes is on his way. You should leave. There's nothing for you here."

Nothing for me here.

In my mother's shrine, in my own home, he was telling me to get out. For her. The absurdity of it was a bitter pill in my throat.

I didn't move. I just stared at him, my expression one he had never seen before, the look one gives a complete stranger. It made him flinch.

A moment later, old Dr. Hayes bustled in, his medical bag in hand.As the Chief Physician of the Wright Pack, he had stitched up generations of Alpha warriors, yet he still paused at the threshold.

He took in the scene—me against the wall, Creed holding a woman on the altar table, the fallen helmet—and his eyes widened for a second before his professional mask slipped back on.

Creed immediately turned to him, guiding him toward Coralie, their voices dropping to urgent whispers. They ignored me completely, as if I were a piece of furniture.

I felt a chill creep over my skin that had nothing to do with the drafty shrine. Pippa came to my side, her small hand on my arm. "My lady, your face is so pale. Let's go back to your rooms and rest."

I shook my head. I was rooted to the spot, a morbid curiosity holding me captive. I wanted to see just how far his cruelty would go.

Dr. Hayes examined Coralie's wound, a nasty gash from some beast's claws. It was bleeding, but not life-threatening. The doctor announced he needed a rare herb, Silver-leaf, to neutralize a mild toxin in the wound.

Creed's head snapped toward me.

He knew. He knew that Silver-leaf was one of the last mementos my mother had left, a tribute to her skill in herbology, stored in a secret compartment within this very shrine.

He walked toward me, his voice softer now, but still carrying the weight of a command. "Annette, get me the Silver-leaf."

I looked at him, and a small, brittle laugh escaped my lips. It was a sound devoid of humor. "That is a memorial for my mother. Not medicine for your 'comrade'."

His face darkened. "Don't be childish. A life is at stake."

"Is it?" I shot back, my voice gaining strength. "And what about my feelings? What about the sanctity of my mother's memory? Are those not at stake?"

My questions left him speechless for a moment before his impatience won. He brushed past me, intending to search for the compartment himself.

I threw myself in front of the wall where the hidden latch was. "You will not touch it!"

This was the last piece of her legacy, her passion. I would not let him use it to save the woman who had helped him make a fool of me.

Our standoff stretched the tension in the room to a breaking point. On the altar, Coralie let out a perfectly timed, piteous moan, adding fuel to Creed's fire.

"Annette, I am ordering you. Move!" Creed's voice was a low growl. He unleashed the full, suffocating weight of his Alpha aura, attempting to force my Omega body into submission.He grabbed my shoulders, his grip like iron, intending to physically move me.

I struggled, but the strength of an Omega against an enraged Alpha was a joke. He shoved me.

I flew backward like a rag doll, my body weightless for a terrifying second before I collided with the central altar. Pippa's scream was a distant sound.

The last thing I saw was the black obsidian of my mother's memorial tablet wobbling on its stand.

Then it fell.

The sharp crack echoed in the sudden silence. It felt as if my own heart had just shattered on the stone floor.

I lay in a heap, the pain in my body nothing compared to the agony in my soul. I pushed myself up, my eyes fixed on the floor.

My mother's memorial tablet, the one I polished every day, the one I spoke to in my loneliness, was in a hundred pieces.

Creed stared at the fragments, then at me. A flicker of panic crossed his face, but it was quickly replaced by his concern for Coralie.

He didn't even offer me a hand. He just ran a frustrated hand through his hair, stepped over the debris of my shattered heart, and pried open the secret compartment.

In that moment, the world went silent. All I could hear was the sound of something inside me dying for good.

Annette POV:

I lay on the cold stone floor. I didn't cry. Not a single tear fell. Pippa was beside me, her sobs echoing in the hollow space, as she tried to help me up, but I couldn't move.

My fingers trembled as I began to gather the broken pieces of obsidian. Each sharp edge was a fresh cut, not on my skin, but on my soul.

Creed found the Silver-leaf. He didn't look back. He simply handed the herb to Dr. Hayes, and together, they carefully lifted Coralie and carried her out of the shrine as if they were the wronged party.

Finally, there was quiet. A dead, empty quiet that filled the space where my hope used to be. It was just me, Pippa, and the wreckage.

I collected every last shard, wrapping them carefully in the silk handkerchief I had been using to polish the tablet. I clutched the bundle to my chest, holding my broken heart in my hands.

An image flashed in my mind: the day the Moon Goddess had declared us mates. Creed, on one knee, swearing to protect me for all his days, his blue eyes as clear and true as the sky.

But another memory surfaced. An earlier one. Before he was an Honored Knight-Aspirant, when he was just Creed. He would sit with me in the gardens while I tended my mother's roses, listening patiently as I chattered about trade routes and numbers, things no warrior cared for.

When did it change? When he joined the knighthood and met Coralie? Or was it earlier, when his mother, Lady Beatrice Raymond, first looked at me with disdain, her eyes cataloging my merchant Pack origins as a fatal flaw?

I realized with a sudden, painful clarity that the boy I missed was long dead. The man who wore his face was a stranger.

I stood up, my movements steady, robotic. "Help me to my room, Pippa."

She wiped her tears and nodded, her small frame a sturdy support as I walked away from the place that had just witnessed the death of my marriage.

The walk from the shrine to my chambers was a long one, down a corridor lined with portraits of Wright family heroes. Their painted eyes seemed to follow me, judging this out-of-place Omega. Usually, I would lower my gaze. Today, I met theirs, my chin held high.

In my room, I didn't collapse onto the bed. I went straight to my writing desk.

It was made of fine mahogany, its surface neatly arranged with my ledgers, quills, and inkpots. This was my sanctuary, a world of numbers and logic, of clean, irrefutable facts.

I sent Pippa away, instructing her that I was not to be disturbed.

"My lady..." she began, her eyes wide with worry.

"I'm fine," I said, my voice so calm it surprised even me. "I just have to do something I should have done a long time ago."

Once the door was closed, I knelt and pulled a locked wooden box from the bottom drawer of my desk.

It didn't contain jewels. It held the special parchment our Allison trade Pack used for the most binding of contracts. Soaked in a magical solution, any words written upon it, once sealed with a blood-oath, became law.

I spread a sheet on the desk. It smelled of ancient promises and grave consequences.

I ground the ink, my hand steady. I picked up my favorite quill. The anger and grief had receded, leaving behind a pristine, cold clarity.

As the heir to the continent's wealthiest merchant guild, I had been taught never to pour capital into a failing venture. Creed Wright was a bankrupt investment.

I began to write. Not a letter of love or complaint, but a formal, legal document.

I listed the facts of our union. I stated my intent to dissolve it.

In the world of werewolves, it is called The Rejection. A brutal ritual that tears the soul of the bond in two, inflicting unimaginable pain on both parties.

I felt no fear of the pain. Only relief.

I wrote the final line. "I, Annette Allison, reject you, Creed Wright, as my mate."

I set down the quill, blew the ink dry, and carefully rolled the parchment. I tied it with a single black silk ribbon and placed it in a plain envelope, sealing it with a drop of black wax.

I left it unmarked. An anonymous bomb.

I looked at the envelope, and for the first time in years, I saw a future.

You destroyed what I treasured most, Creed Wright. So I will destroy the only thing that binds us together.