Chapter 1
I taught my six-year-old son to stop calling for his father.
Not out of spite.
When a wolf pup is frightened, he calls for his father in his heart.
It's written into the blood. Every pup in the world does it.
That night there was thunder.
Theo woke out of a nightmare, soaked through.
He didn't cry.
He did what any wolf pup does on instinct — shut his eyes, followed the invisible thread in his blood, and reached for his father.
I felt it.
Mothers always feel it.
I felt that small mind go out, shy, hesitant, knocking at that door. Once. Again.
Daddy. Daddy. I'm scared.
On the other end of the thread was a wall.
Kane had shut us out.
I knew where he was.
This time of night, he was at Sable's.
An Alpha feels the heartbeat of every wolf in his pack.
There was no way he couldn't feel his own son calling him.
He'd just closed the door.
Too noisy.
Theo kept reaching. Once. Again. Eyes shut, lashes trembling.
He was waiting.
Waiting for something to come back through that door.
Anything at all.
Nothing came.
I gathered him into my arms.
For the first time, I didn't say Daddy will be home soon.
I took his small hand and pressed it flat against his own chest.
"Theo. Listen to Mom."
"Don't call for him anymore."
"That door — you close it yourself."
"Close it, and it stops hurting."
Theo opened his eyes and looked at me.
There was something in them a six-year-old should never have.
He understood.
He closed his eyes.
And I felt it — that thin thread he'd been holding out all this time, drawing slowly back in.
Like a small wolf pulling a hurt paw back under himself.
That night, Theo learned something no pup should learn so young.
How to close a door, in his own heart, against his own father.
Six months earlier, on his sixth birthday, Theo lay on the floor and drew a picture.
Three people. A big one, a middle one, a little one.
It was a terrible drawing.
He went up on his toes and taped it to the wall.
Then he dragged a stool over to the dinner table, sat down, and waited.
Eight o'clock. Kane didn't come home.
Nine. I reheated the food a second time.
Ten. The door opened.
Kane stood in the entryway wearing another woman's scent.
He glanced at the table.
"Something came up at Sable's."
"She's raising my child alone. It's hard on her."
"Cut her some slack."
My child.
Theo slid off the stool and ran over, pointing at the drawing on the wall, trying to say something.
Kane was already changing his shoes.
He never once looked at that wall.
He didn't even know it was his son's birthday.
I cut her some slack. Once.
Twice.
By the thirtieth time, it stopped hurting.
A woman doesn't give up on a man while she's screaming and crying.
She gives up when she can't be bothered to cry at all.
The next day, I went to see the Elder.
Seven years ago, the day Kane set his mark on my throat, I thought it meant forever.
Seven years later, I sat in front of the Elder and asked how to undo it.
There's an old law in the pack. Almost no one has ever used it.
The old law says a Luna may follow the blood and send a summons to her Alpha.
It isn't a plea.
It's an order.
The whole pack feels it. He can't hide from it. He can't pretend he didn't know.
If he refuses three times —
then I can ask the Elders to witness, and in front of everyone, bite through the thread between us.
The old man heard out what I meant to do. His cane rested on the floor a long time.
"Elara."
"Be sure."
"A bond like this — break it once, and it's for life.
I didn't answer right away.
I was trying to remember the last time I made a decision for myself.
I thought about it for a long while.
I couldn't remember.
I lifted my head.
"I know."
Starting tomorrow, I'll summon him three times.
Three.
Not one more.
I want to see —
whether he comes.