Chapter 2

When I opened my eyes, I was still on the floor.

The stone was cold against my cheek. The packhouse was silent — not the peaceful hush of wolves at rest, but the hollow quiet of a den that had been abandoned.

The back of my skull was wet. I touched it. My fingers came away dark.

Kael hadn't even sent for a healer. He'd walked out with Selene tucked against his side and left me bleeding on the floor like a wounded rogue unworthy of mercy.

My wolf stirred weakly — not with rage, but resignation. She'd stopped howling for our mate months ago.

I reached for my phone. Selene's latest post on the pack feed was three minutes old.

A private room in the healers' wing. Kael dabbing salve onto her jaw. Him holding a spoon to her lips while she gazed up with practiced helplessness.

The caption: My protector. My Alpha.

I dragged myself upright and started packing.

There wasn't much. Kael kept most of the "Luna things" locked in the pack vault — jewels I couldn't wear without permission, ceremonial gowns I needed clearance to access. A life curated for display, then sealed behind enchanted locks the moment the ceremony ended.

I was leaving pack territory. I wasn't coming back.

The bonding portrait came off the wall first. I laid it face-down on the floor, like closing a coffin lid. Next: the gifts — a moonstone pendant from our first anniversary, a silk wrap from the Solstice market. Into the bag. All of it.

Last — the bonding ring. I slid it off. It came easily. Three years, and my finger had never molded to the band.

I dropped it into the toilet. Flushed. Watched the silver vanish.

I zipped my bag and reached for the door.

The lights went out. A hard, deliberate kill — someone had severed the ward stones on purpose.

Two shadows materialized from the service corridor. Fast. Silent. Trained wolves.

I swung my bag on instinct, but a gloved hand caught my wrist and wrenched it behind my back. The other clamped over my mouth — raw strength, enough to smother the scream.

They dragged me through the lower tunnels into a black van with no pack markings.

One pinned my arms. The other hit record on his phone.

Then the first one started hitting me.

Open-handed. Methodical. The disciplined strikes of enforcers given exact instructions. Each blow cracked across my cheekbone, snapping my head sideways, splitting skin against teeth.

My wolf surged — clawing, snarling, desperate to shift. But whatever they'd injected into my neck was already working. Wolfsbane. Just enough to cage her beneath my skin while my human body absorbed every hit.

I lost count around forty.

By the time they finished, my face was a swollen wreck. Left eye closing. Lip split in two places. Copper flooding my mouth.

"Ninety-nine. That's enough."

The one with the camera pried my eyelid open, forcing eye contact.

"Selene Ashford is under the Alpha's protection. Touch her again, and we put you in the ground."

They dumped me on the gravel behind the packhouse. The van vanished into the tree line.

I lay staring at the full moon — silver, indifferent, same color as the ring I'd just flushed — and understood with perfect clarity: Kael had ordered this.

I hadn't pulled myself upright when headlights swept the clearing.

Kael's convoy.

He stepped out and froze. Something crossed his face — not guilt, but close enough to wear its mask.

"Jesus, Rowan." He crouched beside me. "Who did this? I'll find them."

Flawless performance. Tender voice. Worried eyes. The devoted Alpha discovering his Luna's misfortune by coincidence.

I was too shattered to resist. He loaded me into the vehicle and drove me to the healing suite — the same one where Selene was resting.

The same room.

Selene was propped against silk pillows, bruised jaw artfully lit by candlelight. When she saw my face, she didn't bother hiding the satisfaction.

"Luna." Her eyes were bright. "Karma moves fast, doesn't it? One punch from you, and the Moon Goddess answers with..." She gestured at the ruin of my face. "Well. That."

Kael was refilling her water. "Don't start."

"I'm just saying. Almost poetic."

After the healer stitched my cheek and wrapped my head, Kael turned to me like a man ticking off a task.

"You owe Selene an apology."

Blood was already seeping through the fresh bandage.

"She brought me counterfeits. She paralyzed my mother. And you want me to apologize?"

"You struck my Beta inside my packhouse. That's a breach of pack law and a challenge to my authority. Apologize. We move on."

I looked past Selene's smirk. Past the glass in Kael's hand. I looked at the wolf I'd once hauled from an alley and stitched together with my own hands.

"She stole the funds. She delayed the surgery. My mother will never walk again. Why should I apologize?"

"Or maybe," I said, voice hoarse but unwavering, "you're so in love with Selene you can't tell right from wrong anymore."

Kael's hand moved before I saw it.

The slap landed directly on the stitches. The bandage tore. Fresh blood spilled warm down my neck.

I didn't flinch. I looked him dead in the eyes.

"One hundred. Nice round number."

His hand was still raised. His breathing had gone ragged.

"I want to reject the bond, Kael."

For the first time, something cracked behind his expression. A flash of raw, animal panic — quick and involuntary, like a wolf feeling the ground open beneath his paws.

But he buried it fast.

"I claimed you," he said, voice too controlled. "The bond stands. Get that out of your head."

Behind him, Selene's smirk had vanished. She was watching Kael with something I'd never seen on her — calculation laced with the faintest edge of fear.