4

Tristan left before dawn.

He stood in the doorway with a suitcase at his side, dressed in a crisp shirt and dark coat the perfect picture of a dutiful Alpha heading out for a business trip. His voice carried that warm, practiced softness he used when others were watching, warm enough that anyone else would have called him a loving fiancé.

“I’ll be gone for two days,” he murmured, brushing his thumb along my jaw as though he cherished me. “When I return, we’ll finish the last preparations for our mating ceremony.”

My chest tightened.

My wolf snarled.

But my face remained a calm, polished mask.

“Travel safely,” I said, my voice steady as still water.

He leaned down and pressed a slow, tender kiss to my forehead gentle enough to have melted me once. Weeks ago, I might have clung to his shirt, whispered that I loved him, and watched him leave with a heart full of hope.

But now?

His kiss felt poisonous.

His scent once my solace clung to my skin like smoke from a house burning down.

He stepped back and offered his charming, Pack-beloved smile. “Don’t stress too much while I’m away. Everything will be perfect when I get back.”

Perfect.

The word was starting to feel like an insult.

He squeezed my hand once before walking away. I stayed still, rigid, until the front door closed and the sound of his car faded down the road.

Only then did I exhale long, slow, exhausted.

My wolf pressed against my mind.

“He leaves us to meet her.”

“I know.”

I walked deeper into the house that had been my cage for years. Sunlight drifted through the windows, but it felt cold. Every framed photo of Tristan on the walls, every lingering trace of his scent in the hall… each one mocked me. They reminded me of who I used to be soft, trusting, loyal to a fault.

Never again.

I moved through the rooms, touching the furniture I once polished to impress him, the kitchen counter where I made his favorite meals, the balcony where he once lifted me onto the railing and kissed me under the stars.

“I can’t stay here anymore,” I whispered.

My wolf’s voice was steady.

“We leave soon.”

I sat on the edge of the bed the same bed where he kissed me hundreds of times, whispered promises he never meant, held me like I was the only thing he breathed for. I pressed my palm against the mattress.

A single tear slipped free before I could stop it.

“Why wasn’t I enough?”

My wolf didn’t hesitate.

“You were more than enough. He was too little.”

The rest of the day moved like a quiet storm.

I sorted through my belongings with clinical precision. Clothes. Books. The old letters I wrote him when he was away on pack duties. Little trinkets he gave me back when his words still felt warm.

None of it meant anything now.

I packed only what mattered practical things, nothing sentimental.

The only real thing I was removing from this house of betrayal...was myself.

At noon, my burner phone buzzed. A message from the man helping arrange my staged death:

“The body is finished. Need delivery instructions.”

“Once the ceremony begins, we move.”

A strange calm settled through me. I typed out the address and locked the phone.

No turning back.

By late afternoon, as I prepared to burn my diaries, my phone vibrated again.

A new message.

From an unknown number.

I opened it.

A photo filled the screen.

Tristan.

Shirtless.

Asleep.

In Liora’s bed.

My stomach twisted violently.

Beneath the photo:

“He left an hour ago. Thought you should see where he spent the night before your ceremony.”

My vision blurred around the edges.

My wolf’s fury roared through me, a sharp, shaking force that rattled my bones.

“Good,” I whispered, my voice steel.

Because the more they hurt me, the easier it became to leave them behind.

And when morning came, I stood before my mirror.

My reflection stared back tired eyes, pale skin, but a spine straighter than ever.

Three days from now, Tristan would stand on a ceremonial platform, waiting for a bride who would never arrive.

And when the coffin appeared instead…

He would finally taste the one thing he had forced me to swallow for so long:

Loss.