Chapter 3

The next two days, rumor spread like fire in dry brush.

At the hall, a woman murmured, “I heard she wrecked the coronation—nearly attacked the new luna.”

In the corridor, two guards muttered, “Alpha had to mark her twice to settle her. Wolf's too wild—”

Even the clerk granting my removal pass eyed me with pity. “Leaving might be best.”

Each word was a knife; I knew whose hand guided them.

I said nothing. I emptied my rooms and my memories. One thing left: the album.

Tonight was a spillover feast from winter rites: roast smoke and laughter in the air. None of it touched my courtyard—no one wanted to look at the ‘former,' save for glances laced with pity and gossip.

The leather album dragged at my hands—eight years inside it. 9,999 photos, 9,999 moments, 9,999 reasons he loved me—now, reasons he used to.

It read like a clumsy joke.

I built a small pyre. Flames licked, eager.

Page one: two pups wrestling in snow. His gold eyes bright with laughter; my nose red, my eyes crinkled shut with it.

Reason 1: You are my first snow—pure and alive.

His strong hand, the little paw doodle.

I tore it free and fed it to the fire. It curled and blackened to smoke.

Page after page. First kiss in the snow. Our first stag. The crown I set on him the day he became alpha. The four seasons, four promises at a time. 9,999 moments, all ash.

Paper sliced my finger; I didn't feel it. The hole in my chest swallowed pain whole.

The flames rose; my shadow stretched thin, warped.

He came.

“Stop.” Asher's voice—anger barely held.

I didn't turn. Another page tore free—the kiss under moonlit arches.

Reason 512: Your scent smells like forever.

How droll.

“Leona, I order you to stop.” Alpha voice. Pressure punched the air.

My wrist shook, but the page still fell into the fire. “Your orders don't work on me, Asher. Remember? I'm already exiled.”

The courtyard parted for him. He strode to my side, gold eyes flickering with firelight. “You don't have to do this.”

“Don't I?” I looked at him at last and laughed. “What then? Hug this book every night and sob over how you chose someone else?”

His jaw locked. “It isn't what you think.”

“What is it, then?” I held up the album. “Of these 9,999 reasons you loved me, which one lets you mark another? Which lets you choose Viola?”

He watched me—fire dancing in ice. No answer.

Viola appeared, hands at her chest. “Leona, please don't… These memories are precious.”

They brought a crowd—of course they did. No show without an audience.

“Precious?” I echoed, eyes on Viola's rehearsed tremble. “Like your luna's crown? Like Asher's vows?”

Murmurs rose—rebuke for me, defense for her.

I lifted the whole album to pitch it—

Asher grabbed. We grappled a heartbeat, then he wrenched it free—by thrusting both hands into the flames.

The stink of scorched flesh flooded the square.

Gasps. Viola shrieked, lunging. “Asher—your hands!”

He didn't spare himself a glance. He clutched the album. “Enough, Leona. It ends here.”

I looked at those hands—hands that had been tender with me—burned now to save the relic of our love.

“If a promise can't bear betrayal,” I said, my voice a blade of frost, “it isn't worth keeping.”

Viola sobbed and clutched his arm. “My wrist—when we struggled—I must have twisted—”

Every eye swung to her. Her fine wrist was faintly pink—nothing beside Asher's seared palms.

But he turned at once, voice rich with concern. “Are you hurt?”

It was absurd. He burned to keep our album—and first worried over her feigned twinge.

“Leona, apologize,” he said, face cold. “You hurt her.”

I stared. I hadn't known his talent for reversal outstripped his leadership. “I didn't touch her.”

“It's not her fault,” Viola whispered, weeping prettily. “It was an accident… but it really hurts…”

The murmurs thickened: jealous, mad, dangerous.

“Apologize,” Asher commanded, alpha voice crushing the air.

I looked at the face I'd loved, at Viola's tremor behind him, at the ring of judgment and fear.

The last light went out.

I laughed. It rang in the square like a cracked bell. “Fine. I'll apologize.”