Chapter 4

Cain's hand was still locked around my wrist. My question landed like a slap—I watched his pupils contract, the mask slipping for just a second.

"Mara, you need to trust me." His voice dropped low, urgent, stripped of its usual authority. "That's over. It's been over for years. You're the only one I—"

Something in his eyes looked close to genuine panic. A crack in the armor I'd never seen before. For one stupid, treacherous heartbeat, I wavered—maybe he actually gives a damn.

Then his gaze snapped to something over my shoulder, and his whole body changed.

"Cain!" Celeste's voice rang out from the lodge doorway behind me.

The hand gripping my wrist vanished. He stepped back so fast it was like a reflex—the same instinct that made him shift at the sound of a branch snapping in the dark. One second he was holding me, the next there were three feet of cold air between us, an invisible line drawn as cleanly as if he'd bared his teeth.

And in that moment, everything crystallized. Five years of sharing his den, his secrets, his life—and none of it could outweigh the sound of her voice.

I took two steps back, widening the gap myself. "Go. She's waiting."

I didn't give him the chance to answer. I turned and pushed through the lodge's heavy front door. The night air hit me like a wall—sharp and pine-cold, carrying the scent of rain-soaked earth and the distant tree line. My hands were trembling. I shoved them into my pockets and kept walking.

I'd thought I was ready for this. I'd spent weeks building walls, rehearsing indifference. But when you actually watch the man you love flinch away from you like you're a liability—when his instinct is to hide you the moment she calls his name—no amount of preparation softens that blow.

The den was a mile north through the compound. I walked for two hours.

Back paths. Empty clearings. Past the training grounds with their dark equipment and the perimeter sentinels who didn't look twice at a she-wolf moving through the dark. The pack's territory had a way of swallowing people whole, and tonight I let it.

By the time I got back, the clock above the entryway read well past one.

I folded myself onto the couch, face lit by the pale glow of my phone. Without thinking, my thumb found Celeste's profile.

Her latest post was twelve minutes old.

The photo showed her perched on Cain's shoulders at the ridge overlook—arms thrown wide, head tipped back mid-laugh, the night forest blazing behind them in the fire of someone's camera flash. His hands braced her thighs, his face tilted up toward her with an expression so unguarded it made my ribs ache. Completely unshifted. Completely at ease.

Who says alphas can't have fun? ? #PackLife #RidgeNights

A memory surfaced unbidden. Last summer, during the solstice gathering—the whole pack loose and laughing around the bonfire, music and the smell of woodsmoke everywhere. I'd watched a pair of young wolves spin each other in the firelight, and I'd reached for Cain's sleeve. Playful. Lighthearted. Just wanting one moment of being something other than his Beta.

He'd pulled his arm back, jaw tightening. Not here, Mara. Someone could see.

So it was never about being seen. It was about being seen with me.

Affection, it turned out, was always conditional. It just depended on who was asking.

I killed the screen. A tear slid off my jaw and landed on the back of my hand. I wiped it away immediately. Crying over a man who didn't deserve it was just another way of losing.

I got up and went to the closet.

Cain's side was meticulously ordered—gear, jackets, the good shirts I'd picked out on supply runs to the city because he had no patience for shopping. Tucked in the back, still wrapped in brown paper, were matching pieces I'd found at a market in Edinburgh the year he took me on a cross-territory summit—his and hers, tags still on. We'd never worn them. Couldn't risk someone seeing us in the photos.

When things calm down, he'd said. When it's safe.

Standing here now, I understood those clothes were never coming out of that paper.

I pulled his things off the hangers one by one and folded them with the same care I'd used choosing them. The Edinburgh pieces went straight into a bag—no ceremony, no hesitation. Some things didn't deserve a ritual.

Then I turned to my own.

The Ironhollow safe house was already set up. Aldric had arranged it. I only needed the essentials. I dragged the largest pack bag down from the top shelf and started filling it—clothes, documents, the silver-edged blade I kept wrapped in cloth at the back of the bottom drawer. It felt heavier tonight than usual, or maybe my hands were just tired.

Cain came back just before three. I heard the door, then his footsteps slowing as he reached the bedroom. His eyes went straight to the bag propped against the wall.

"Packing at this hour?"

I pulled the drawstring tight without looking up. "Checking the northern border posts next week. Figured I'd get ahead of it."

He nodded. No suspicion—why would there be? In his mind, I'd always be here. That was the luxury of taking someone for granted; you never had to wonder if they'd leave.

He crossed the room, crouched beside the bag, and cinched the side buckle I'd left loose. He'd always done this—a small, possessive habit, securing my things the way he secured everything else in his world. Making sure what was his stayed intact.

"Get some rest." He tapped the top of the bag twice, like closing a negotiation, then straightened and moved toward the bathroom.

I stared at the bag he'd just fastened for me, and my throat closed.

He had no idea what was inside. Not gear for a border run—but everything I needed to disappear from his life entirely.

Water ran behind the bathroom door. The sound was so ordinary it was almost cruel.

I pressed my palm flat against the worn canvas and held it there. Beneath my hand, the mate bond hummed faintly—that thread connecting my wolf to his that I'd spent five years trying not to think about too hard, because thinking about it meant admitting what he'd never once tried to name out loud.

Some bonds are chosen. Some are simply endured.

Five years of us. Reduced to one packed bag and a thread I was finally ready to let go slack.