Chapter 2

My knee should have closed.

But I wasn't a normal wolf anymore.

Blood had dried in dark streaks along my shin. I cleaned it. Warm water, cloth, salt that made me hiss. Then I wrapped it tight.

The door opened behind me without a knock.

Kade's scent filled the room—pine, smoke, and that sharp Alpha edge that used to make my wolf curl up against my ribs like it had found home.

Now my body only tensed.

He stopped a few steps in, gaze flicking over my bandaged knee, the stained sheets, the line of dried blood near the washbasin.

His expression didn't change.

Concern.Guilt.No.

Just assessment.

“Seraphina isn't going to hold it against you,” he said, like he was delivering good news. “So don't start anything today. Rest.”

I stared at him.Hold it against me.

She poured scalding liquid on me, shattered a cup at my feet, and I bled all over the floor—yet somehow I was the problem she was gracious enough to forgive.

Kade's eyes slid to my throat, then down again, as if searching for proof that I was exaggerating. “You're already half-marked,” he said. “Why are you healing so slowly?”

He didn't say the rest out loud, but I heard it anyway—heard it in the way every Alpha spoke when they were tired of an Omega's pain.

You're weak.

You're messy.

You're inconvenient.

My fingers tightened around the cloth in my lap. I didn't answer, because any answer would be begging, and I was so tired of begging.

Silence stretched.

Kade took it as permission to be done with me.

“I have things to handle,” he said, already turning. “Stay inside.”

The door shut behind him with the soft finality of a decision he'd made a long time ago.

I stayed where I was, staring at the wood grain of the floor until my eyes blurred.

I hadn't even wondered if he'd be back.

---

By nightfall, the moon had grown fat and bright.

I lay on my side, trying to sleep.

Then the bond stirred.

Not with Kade.

With her.

Rose. Wild honey.

Seraphina's presence slid along the edge of the connection like perfume pushed through a crack.

A whisper pressed into my mind.

Still here? Still hoping?

I jerked upright, breath catching. “Get out.”

Her laughter rippled through the bond, soft as velvet and just as suffocating.

Come see what you're not.

The scent intensified, pulling. Calling.

I told myself to stay in bed. I told myself it was bait.

But the bond—broken, half-dead, confused—responded anyway. Some ancient part of me still wanted to know where my Alpha was.

So I wrapped my knee, forced my feet into boots, and limped into the night.

The forest swallowed sound. Moonlight spilled between branches in pale ribbons. The closer I got, the stronger the honey-rose became, guiding me like a leash.

Until I reached the clearing.

And my heart stopped.

A black wolf stood in the center of the moonlight, massive and sleek, his fur drinking in the silver glow. His eyes—gold, unmistakable—caught the moon like blades.

Kade's wolf.

Across from him, a silver wolf moved with liquid grace, pale coat shimmering like frost. Seraphina.

They circled each other in slow, deliberate arcs, paws silent on the earth. Not a hunt. Not a fight.

A ritual.

The Moon Dance.

A holy thing meant for a Luna—meant for the mate a wolf chose in front of the moon and meant it. A vow written in movement, in breath, in shared rhythm.

My stomach dropped so hard I thought I'd be sick.

They drew closer. Brushed shoulders. Muzzles grazed, intimate as a kiss.

Kade's black wolf pressed his forehead to hers.

And something inside me tore—the bond, the mark.

I clapped a hand over my mouth to trap the sound that wanted to come out.

I couldn't shift. I couldn't answer the moon.

My wolf—my real wolf—was gone, or going, leaving me trapped in this fragile human skin while my Alpha gave my sacred place to another she-wolf.

I backed away.

A twig snapped.

Kade's wolf stilled. His head lifted.

For a heartbeat, his gold eyes turned toward the shadows where I stood.

My lungs froze.

Then he looked away, as if whatever he sensed wasn't worth turning toward.

As if I wasn't worth it.

I fled.

The forest blurred. My knee buckled on uneven ground. I didn't stop until the thorns grabbed me.

Silverthorn.

The boundary plants that grew where no wolf was supposed to trespass—each spine threaded with silver, each cut a warning that burned instead of healed.

Pain seared up my calf as thorns pierced skin. The wounds flared hot, immediate, alive.

I stumbled deeper by mistake, vision tunneling.

My hands shook as I reached inward, groping for the bond.

Kade— I tried. Please.

The connection answered with nothing.

No voice. No pull.

Not even anger.

Just silence, like a line that had been severed and left to dangle.

My legs gave out. I hit the ground hard, breath punching out of me. The moon above looked too bright, too indifferent.

Footsteps approached—fast, human.

A guard's scent hit me—pack leather and iron.

“—Omega!” someone hissed, dropping to their knees beside me. Hands lifted my shoulders carefully, like I might shatter.

I clung to consciousness long enough to feel the heat building under my skin, a slow, creeping fever.

And in the hollow place where my wolf should have been, I realized the worst part.

The bond didn't scream.

It didn't fight.

It simply went quiet—

like it had already accepted I was alone.