Chapter 6

My body locked up for a split second, then relaxed.

"Weren't you the one who promised me the aurora?" I turned around and calmly straightened the rumpled clothes in my suitcase. "The airline called to confirm the itinerary. That's all."

Dominic blinked. Blood seeped through the bandage on his forehead in a pale pink stain. One cheek bore a raw scrape, and the burns on his skin were slowly scabbing over under the pull of werewolf healing.

"I've been in the medical wing for days," his gaze stayed locked on me. "You never came. Never picked up."

"Lost my phone. Getting a replacement." I folded a jacket and pressed it into the case.

He stood there, one hand braced against the doorframe, not moving.

I knew what he was waiting for—the old Selena, the one who would rush over, peel back the bandage with trembling fingers, and ask through red-rimmed eyes if it hurt.

For him, I'd taught myself herbal healing arts, because I couldn't bear feeling helpless when he was wounded. For him, I'd taken drink after drink at pack banquets, shielding him from toast after toast until my stomach seized, and never made a sound. I would have thrown myself between him and enemy claws without a heartbeat's hesitation.

Dominic had once risked everything for me, and I'd given back no less. But that was when he still loved me. Now that his heart belonged to someone else, I was taking every last piece of it back.

"Nothing you want to ask?" A thread of testing in his voice. "Not even curious where I'm hurt?"

"You're the one who always said I hovered too much." I looked up at him. "I've come around. What you don't want to tell me, I won't ask. What you're not willing to give, I'll stop wanting. The space you asked for—consider it yours."

His pupils contracted sharply. Those words—every single one—had been his first. I was simply returning them.

Silence settled through the bedroom. He walked to the window, stood with his back to me for a long time. When he finally spoke, his tone made a stiff, awkward turn.

"Your birthday was almost two months ago. I was tied up at the time. There's a batch of rare moonstones at the Full Moon auction tonight. I'll take you—call it a belated gift."

I was about to refuse, but he didn't give me the chance.

The auction house blazed with light. Every prominent face in the Great Lakes upper circle was there. Dominic sat beside me, never once opening the catalog, his paddle rising again and again.

"Three hundred thousand." "Five hundred thousand." "Eight hundred thousand."

Not a second's hesitation on any bid. By the end of the night, he'd swept nearly every top-tier lot. After each win, he'd turn to look at me.

I knew what he was hoping for. The old Selena would have leaned into his shoulder and whispered, "That's too much," and he'd have pulled me closer by the waist and murmured back, "Money spent on you doesn't count." But that Selena was gone.

Whispers slithered in from every direction. "The Blackwell Alpha couple—such a perfect match." "Didn't the Alpha cause that scene at that ceremony? Now they look so in love again." "Male wolves, right? In the end they always figure out who really matters."

Each murmur was a fine needle sliding under my skin. I thought of the forged bonding contract and tasted something bitter at the root of my tongue.

After the auction, Dominic stepped away to take a call. Staff handed me several jewelry cases. I was heading for the exit when I caught a voice drifting from a half-open VIP lounge at the end of the corridor.

Lillian's—shrill and wounded. "You told me it was a border patrol. And instead you brought her to an auction?"

Dominic sighed. "It's just a belated birthday gift. Have I ever denied you anything you wanted?"

"That necklace you bid on for her—that was the one I had my eye on! I'm not happy, Dominic."

"That's my fault. Whatever you want, it's yours."

Lillian pouted and sulked; he coaxed and soothed with endless patience. Meanwhile, if I so much as asked where he'd been, I was "pushing too hard" and "impossible to deal with."

It wasn't that I'd changed. He'd simply stopped loving me—and once that happened, everything I did became an eyesore.

I set every gift box on the front desk in the lobby and walked out without looking back.

…

Back at the main house, fever crashed over me like a rising tide. For the next several days I was bedridden, drifting in and out of consciousness. In my dreams, a sixteen-year-old boy sat at my bedside, coaxing me to take my medicine, pressing a damp cloth to my forehead.

I opened my eyes. No one beside me.

My throat was on fire. I staggered toward the staircase, took one step, and the world went black. My foot met nothing. My back slammed into the stairs and I tumbled down, step by step. The wound on my forehead split open again. Blood trailed down my cheek and soaked into my collar.

I came to rest at the bottom, face pressed against the cold stone floor. Everything in my vision was red.

Helen, the housekeeper, screamed when she found me. She called an ambulance with one hand and dialed Dominic with the other.

"The number you have dialed is currently unavailable…"

Fifty times. Exactly like before.

I grabbed her wrist with what strength I had left. "Stop. He won't answer."

Tears fell on the back of my hand. She'd watched me grow up. She knew better than anyone how much Dominic used to care.

"The Alpha must be tied up somewhere he can't leave… Miss, do you remember? That time you cut your hand, he flew in the three best healers from across three territories. Every time you felt even a little off, he'd walk out of a council meeting mid-session to come home…"

I closed my eyes. Yes. I remembered all of it. But that Dominic was already dead.

After I was discharged, my phone screen lit up. A message from Lillian.

"Selena, you're pathetic. Your bonding contract with Dominic is fake—he never intended to complete a real soul-bond with you."

"Tomorrow, he'll send you away under the pretense of a trip, and then take me to the Elders' Council for the official ceremony. From that day on, I'll be the Blackwell Luna. And you? You'll be nothing."

I read every last word, then set the phone facedown on the nightstand. I got up and went to the hospital where I'd had the procedure.

"I'm here to collect the cryopreserved embryo."

The nurse recognized me. Something complicated moved behind her eyes as she handed over the preservation container. I contacted a courier service and spelled out every detail—tomorrow morning, ten o'clock sharp, at the entrance to the Elders' Council sanctum, placed directly into the hands of Dominic Blackwell.

By the time I got back to the main house, Dominic was already sitting in the living room. Gift boxes crowded the coffee table.

"Selena, something came up with the pack that I can't get away from. Head to Alaska on your own first—I've arranged everything. As soon as I'm done, I'll fly out. Alright?"

"Alright."

The word visibly stunned him. Whatever persuasion he'd rehearsed jammed in his throat. His mouth opened, then his phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, expression shifting, and grabbed his coat for the door.

"Wait for me."

The door closed softly—but to my ears, it sounded like a verdict finally handed down.

I turned and packed. The suitcase was small: a few changes of clothes, my documents. Everything he'd ever given me stayed exactly where it was.

I asked Helen to leave the courier's pickup parcel in the front hall. She didn't know what was inside. She just nodded, eyes rimmed red.

I sent Dominic one last message: "I left you a gift. Don't forget to open it."

Then I powered off the phone, picked up the suitcase, and walked out of that gilded cage.

The night air was cool. The taxi carried me toward the airport. The Great Lakes skyline slid backward past the window—familiar lights shrinking one by one, blurring, vanishing.

The hollow mark on my neck flared one final time, then went cold for good. Like a wick burned down to nothing, with not even ash left behind.

I didn't look back.

The moment the cabin door sealed shut, I closed my eyes. The seatbelt clasp pressed cool against my lower belly—where a life I'd longed for had once been.

And tomorrow, Dominic Blackwell would stand at the entrance to the Elders' Council sanctum and open, with his own hands, the last gift I would ever leave him.