Chapter 1

Emery

The alarm went off at three in the morning, and I jolted awake to rewarm the porridge. Then I spent another hour folding my mate’s favorite meat-filled dumplings, which I’d made from scratch.

Damian Anderson, Alpha of the Moon Stone Pack, always asked for them after returning from a long journey, especially one that took him beyond the pack.

With a smile on my face, I packed his favorite wine and tucked a new coffee flask into his travel bag after noticing his old one had gone missing during his last trip outside the pack.

Then before dawn, I left the quarters and made my way toward the pack house to surprise him before we leave for our trip together.

Only two weeks remained until my mating ceremony with Damian.

Two weeks until he would publicly claim me as his mate, and I would finally become his Luna.

For five months, I had poured everything into preparing for that day.

I’d personally chosen the ceremonial wear, assigned a ceremony planner, picked Damian’s shoes for that day and even asked his mother, Lady Hailey to stand in as my mother on the day of the ceremony.

I’d never really known my mother. She’d died when my original pack was attacked.

The Moon Stone pack had arrived too late to save others but they saved me. So I waited for the day I would become their Luna and devoted myself to the pack.

I helped in the kitchen, volunteered whenever there was work to be done.

I thought I was planning a home. Now I realize just how dumb I was.

I had just reached his door when it opened from inside and Chloe Nelson, an Omega, stepped out.

Unlike most Omegas in the Moon Stone pack, Chloe had never been treated as insignificant. Her parents had once saved Damian’s life when he was still the heir to the Alpha throne and because of that, the entire pack adored her.

But still, it didn’t make sense that she stood outside Damian’s chamber, wearing his black leather jacket. The same one I’d given him after his last birthday.

It hung loosely around her thighs, the collar stretched open. Her hair was disheveled, and the faint marks along her neck were impossible to mistake.

My stomach dropped. Just then she glanced back into the room with a smile, asking, “What if Emery actually comes as we are about to depart?”

Damian appeared behind her.

Chuckling, he slipped an arm around Chloe’s waist until she was flushed against his chest. “There’s no reason for alarm. I hid her travel papers already. She won’t be going anywhere with us.”

My inside went numb hearing that.

Almost as quickly, I looked down at the empty pocket of my trousers in search of the travel papers Damian had given me the night before.

Before leaving my room, I’d checked twice to make sure it was still in my pocket so I didn’t sabotage our trip, but now it was gone.

Damian had taken them.

I stood there silently as he reached up and adjusted the white scarf around Chloe’s neck, carefully covering the marks on her skin.

I caught the way his fingers lingered against her jaw, gentle and protectively.

He had never touched me that way for a second in the three years we’ve been together.

“I’ll keep my words to spend a week with you before the mating ceremony. I don’t plan to waste a single day.” He told her, his voice deep with assurance and something cracked in my chest.

But I moved away quickly, planting my back against the wall before either of them noticed me.

Their voices faded as they both walked out of the door, Chloe passing so close that her shoulder brushed mine.

Meanwhile Damian didn’t even look in my direction, his hands were busy planted around Chloe’s waist as they entered the car.

I waited until they disappeared before I hurried down the porch, his meal basket clutched against my chest.

I knew I should have gone home. Instead, I followed them like a fool.

Like some pathetic part of me believed I could reach the border’s gate before they left.

Like he’d see me and remember how he’d sworn to claim me.

Only as it struck 6AM, I watched limply at the edge of the woods and watched Damian’s car vanish out of the border with Chloe seated beside him.

The sun was slowly rising in the sky, enough for him to see me from where he was but Damian never looked back.

What about our plans?

Did I never cross his mind? Don’t tell me Chloe was all that clouded his brain…

I pulled the travel papers from my pocket and tore them in half, again and again. The pieces slipped from my fingers onto the damp floor.

That was it. I wasn’t going to chase a man who had chosen someone else.

I would not try to catch up with his car as he left me behind and I certainly wasn’t going to beg my own mate to remember the future he’d promised me.

I quenched that part of me and began to walk away.

His meal was still wafting warmly in my hands.

I’d made sure the porridge was cooked properly the way he liked it.

Then the dumplings… It’d taken nearly an hour to prepare, and I’d gone out of my way to find the fresh meat he preferred.

I stared at the basket for long enough and my nails nearly pierced through the handle to destroy it. But just then, I caught sight of an envelope stamped to the tree.

When I saw Damian’s name on it, I picked it and tore it open.

[Don’t make this difficult. Chloe is anxious enough about the journey and your temper will only make it worse. I’ll have your things brought to your quarters when I return.]

My jaw dropped at the words on the paper.

Then a laugh escaped my throat.

He was worried about making things difficult for Chloe, not about betraying his mate or sleeping with another wolf.

Not about leaving me behind just two weeks before our mating ceremony. Just the inconvenience I could cause.

I brought out my cellphone and began to type a reply to him. I erased it halfway as it dawned on me the deed was done. There was no more use.

I prepared to slip my phone back in my pocket when it began to ring.

One look at the caller ID made my blood run cold.

I thought about clicking the red button but I picked out of curiosity.

“Hey, Emery. Damian has left, and I thought to warn you not to make a scene,” She said and without allowing me a word, she added. “He’s mine for the next week so if you still intend to become Luna, you’d better stay away.”

With that said, she hung up.

My hand trembled and the basket’s cheap woven handle slipped from my fingers.

I tried to catch it before it hit the ground but the bowl inside tipped over, the hot porridge splashing across my hand and burning through my sleeves.

I hissed, letting the basket fall.

The dumplings scattered across the ground while the flask rolled several feet away, the porridge mixing with the dirt.

As I watched the mess, the burn on my hand barely registered. Not when the painful constricting in my chest was so much worse.

Ahead of me, the guards at the border raised a flag up, announcing the Alpha’s departure.

Damian was gone.

For what felt like forever, I stared at my reddening hand, the ruined food by my feet and the fading sound of the convoy following Damian out of the pack.

Then I scrolled through my phone, ready to delete every single one of their contacts when Hailey, Damian’s mother, tried to activate a mind-link between us.

Since Damian and I have been together, she’d been pampering and treating me like the daughter she never had.

She’d told me countless times how happy she was that her son had finally found his mate. I believed she would always love me.

As I answered the mind-link, I got ready to reveal everything to her and hear her take my side but that didn’t happen.

“I was told you caused a scene outside my son’s packhouse and even got on Chloe’s nerves. The poor girl has done nothing to you. Yet you’ve been accusing Damian of betraying you simply because of your insecurity. Did you even have any idea Chloe offered to let you accompany them? You ruined that chance because you’re immature. But let me tell you, if you jeopardize what they have together, I’ll forever hunt you down.”

As she continued yelling in my mind, I looked down at my hand to see the skin had begun to blister.

Different memories ran through my head and I stopped listening to Hailey.

After everything we’d done together, she was the last person I expected to switch up on me.

What about all those times I’d accompanied her to the leader when she wasn’t feeling well?

The gifts I’d always chosen for her on every of her important occasions? What about everytime I’d called her Mother because I’d foolishly believed we were that close?

Wolves moved around me, laughing and talking, carrying luggage and saying goodbye to their loved ones.

None of them knew my life had just fallen apart.

And suddenly, I didn’t want to explain myself anymore. I didn’t want to tell Damian’s mother what I’d seen.

I didn’t want to describe Chloe walking out of Damian’s chambers wearing his jacket.

I didn’t want to tell her about the marks on Chloe’s neck or the way Damian had touched her.

What would be the point? She had already chosen her side.

I cut off the mind-link. A single tear slipped down my cheek and I wiped it with my unburned hand. No, I wasn’t going to fight them to accept me in a life they didn’t want me in.

Let Damian have his seven days with Chloe.

Let them have whatever future they had already planned together.

As for me? I was done.

A transport carriage pulled up before me. “Where are you headed?” The driver leaned toward the open window.

“The Reynolds’s family house.” I replied firmly.

The driver frowned in recognition. “That’s an abandoned place.”

I nodded and got in.

It was a home my father had built before he died.

Where I had spent my childhood and where my father had taught me all I needed to know about controlling my wolf.

But unfortunately, when our pack was attacked, everything had been taken from me overnight. Except that house.

But I’d left it behind when I moved into Damian’s residence, foolishly believing I’d found a new home with my mate.

Now I knew better.

As the carriage pulled away from the Moon Stone pack, I opened my cell phone one last time.

Damian’s name was at the top of my favorites.

I removed it, blocked his contact then did the same to Chloe’s number.

It was time to start a new life.