Chapter 4

The burn on my cheek and the iron taste at my mouth were brands of humiliation, reminding me with every breath of what had just happened. Beneath the frozen ashes in my chest, nothing stirred—only a ruthless clarity that drove my hands.

I returned to the stone villa on the edge of tribal territory. Moonlight poured through towering windows onto a cold floor, illuminating a luxurious prison with no warmth. Everything here—rough stone walls, hanging pelts, trophies in the corners—was steeped in the stench of lies and betrayal.

A thought surfaced, clear as moonlight.

No hesitation. I went straight to the study. My fingers skimmed the coarse stone until they found a loose brick. I pushed it open. In the hidden niche lay an old roll of hide and a bone awl stained a dark red.

I unrolled the hide. Our ancient tribal totem was carved there—an oath of glory I’d etched with my own hands when Fitch became Alpha. How ridiculous.

A small sting pulsed in my fingers—the cut from earlier. I looked at the dark red and remembered the blood at my mouth.

Without a pause, I took the bone awl and drove it into my own palm. Warm wolf-blood surged out, alive with breath and a metallic sweetness.

I pressed my bleeding palm hard into the upper left corner of the hide. A clear, full print—like the mark of a wolf’s claw—burned itself onto the totem of “glory.” Red, blindingly so. White, despairing beneath it.

Then I dipped my fingers into my blood, mixed it with the ink I’d ground on the stone table, and began to write beneath the bloody clawprint—between the symbols of power and oath. Not a vow, but my last accusation and farewell.

The bone awl scraped over hide with a soft rasp, like an unsung dirge.

“When this blood moon rises, I will have fallen into the abyss—or turned to dust.”

“Five years of deceit. ‘Cherishing’ was a chain. ‘Perfection’ was a lie. All to cover the filth behind the curtain.”

“Diary. Cord. Evidence in plain sight. My merits—my final funeral song.”

“Fitch, your love is noise. Alyssa, your friendship is poison.”

“Don’t look for me. There will be no crossing paths again. This filthy stage is yours to direct and perform.”

“May you, in endless lies, fall forever into hell.”

Tears slid down in silence, dotting the blood and ink before they could dry, bleeding them into deeper stains. I watched the smears without expression. There was no sorrow left, no joy—only a dead, frozen plain.

When I finished the last word, I set the awl down. The blood-and-ink letters on the ancient hide looked like a savage wound—an unsounded lament.

I didn’t look back. I placed the rolled “blood oath” at the dead center of the massive stone table in the living room, carved with a wolf-head emblem. It was too glaring, too wrong—like a stone tossed into still water, destined to raise a storm.

After that, I surveyed the place I’d lived for five years. No nostalgia. Only the cold relief of finally unshouldering a crushing shackle.

I went to the bedroom and stripped off the silver wolfskin—stained with blood—that marked me as an “Alpha’s mate.” I changed into the simplest black linen shirt and trousers. I hoisted the unremarkable pack. Inside were only cash, an ID tag for my new identity, and a few necessities.

At last, my gaze fell on the carved bone box on the vanity. Inside was the wolf-fang necklace Fitch had given me when he proposed—the beginning of a vast lie.

I picked it up. The cold fang gleamed in the moonlight with counterfeit shine. Without hesitation I carried it to the living room and set it gently beside the “blood oath.”

The wolf-fang necklace lay on top of my blood-stained accusation.

That was the “perfect” ending to my marriage.

I went to the entryway and extinguished every moonstone lamp in the living room and corridor. The entire first floor sank into darkness, leaving only the pale light from outside to trace the furniture’s blurred silhouettes.

I pushed open the heavy oak door. The cool early-autumn air rushed in, carrying the scent of freedom.

The door closed softly behind me. A quiet click—like the last note of a dirge finally falling into place.

I stepped out of the cage called “home.” I never looked back.