1

The phone vibrated on my nightstand just a faint buzz, sharp enough to cut through the darkness. I didn’t need to check the screen. I’d been waiting for this call.

Planning for it.

I answered. “Is everything ready?”

“Yes,” the man whispered. “The body, the documents, the carriage… everything is set. When the ceremony starts, you vanish.”

A quiet breath slipped from me. “Good.”

A staged death.

My escape.

I hung up and let silence settle again. But the stillness only dragged me back to the moment everything began to collapse.

The general meeting of the Blue Moon Pack.

I went because Alpha Tristan my mate, my promised husband—asked me to. Back then, I thought it was out of love. Respect. Something meaningful.

I’d always been the weak one, the Omega without a wolf. They assumed that meant I couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t sense lies. Couldn’t feel the sting of words sharp enough to bleed.

But that day… my wolf awakened.

A soft heartbeat against my thoughts.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “Listen.”

So I did.

The hall was crowded, voices echoing beneath stone pillars. Tristan stood at the center tall, composed, the kind of man people followed without question. I had loved him for that. Blindly.

Stupidly.

Behind him stood Liora beautiful, calculating, smiling like she already owned something she shouldn’t.

He leaned closer to her, believing I was too far away.

“I can’t believe she still hasn’t awakened her wolf,” Liora giggled.

“She won’t,” someone muttered. “Omegas like her never do.”

“Tristan deserves better than a useless mate.”

And then Tristan’s voice low, intimate.

“You’re my one true love,” he murmured, brushing his fingers over hers. “Once everything is settled, I’ll make you my Luna.”

Something inside me cracked not loud, not dramatic. Quiet. Personal. The kind of break only the heart can hear.

My newborn wolf whimpered.

“Leave. He isn’t ours.”

But I didn’t move. I stood hidden, letting every word carve into me.

Weak Omega.

Placeholder.

Decoration.

Unworthy.

And Tristan never defended me. Not once. Not even a half-hearted word.

But what cut the deepest wasn’t their cruelty.

It was the softness in his voice when he spoke to her—the softness he had never offered me.

A softness I once believed was ours.

I didn’t confront him.

Didn’t scream.

Didn’t cry.

I simply walked away, calm in a way that felt like death settling early.

Now, in the cold glow of my room, my hands trembling, I whispered into the empty dark:

“Tristan… you killed me long before I chose to die.”

Tomorrow, they would mourn the Omega who took her own life out of heartbreak.

But the truth?

This wasn’t death.

It was the first decision I ever made to live.