Chapter 2

Gemma.

I went back for the suitcase an hour later, because leaving Hunter to enjoy his oatmeal in peace was never actually the plan. I wanted him to suffer.

My wolf had spent that hour pacing under my skin, like some part of her still believed if she waited long enough he would come find me and fix all of it himself. He never called, or asked about us ending things. The bond, what was left of it, stayed quiet, and that silence told me more than anything he could have said.

Harmony was still curled up on the couch in my pajamas when I let myself back in. Hunter had traded the apron for a shirt, standing in the kitchen like nothing about that morning had rattled him at all.

I rolled the empty suitcase across the floor and started pulling things off the shelves, my photo frames, the paperback novels I had never gotten around to reading twice, the things that made this place feel like mine instead of just a house I got with Hunter, a house that smelled more like her now than it did like either of us.

Harmony’s spoon paused halfway to her mouth when I reached the closet and started pulling my clothes off the hangers, folding them.

She mumbled something about washing the pajamas and giving them back to me eventually, like that would fix anything at all, like that would change the fact she had spent an entire night sleeping in my bed, in my scent, wearing it over like a claim she had no right to make.

I straightened up and looked at her for a long moment before I answered.

“Keep them.” I said. “They’re all yours now.”

Harmony froze, eyes wide, like she genuinely could not believe I would give up a fight over a pair of pajamas that had cost me nothing.

Hunter set his mug down hard enough that coffee sloshed over the rim and onto the counter. He pushed off the kitchen island like he was preparing to scream at me.

“Can’t you be a little less harsh about this?” He said angrily. “She’s trying to apologize to you. You don’t have to be a bitch about it.” Wow.

I let out a short laugh, slapping my hand on my thigh. “I’m giving them to her instead of making her wash and return them. That's about as decent as I'm willing to be this morning, Hunter. Don’t push me, you'll hate me.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, watching me zip the suitcase shut like he still expected me to change my mind halfway through.

“You know my mother’s birthday dinner is in four days. Don’t make this into some big pack drama before then, Gemma. Whatever this is between us can wait until after that.”

“I wasn’t planning on discussing anything at your mother’s dinner." I hauled the suitcase off the bed and set it upright on the floor. “Unless you give me a reason to.”

“Just don’t embarrass the family.” He said, like that was the only thing either of us should be worried about right now. “My mom worked hard on this one. Half the pack council is coming, and many important people. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Then I’m sure she’d want everything about tonight to be honest and perfect.” I said it lightly, almost like an afterthought, and watched something flicker across his face before he straightened up.

“What’s that supposed to mean? What are you planning, Gemma?”

“Nothing yet.” I picked the suitcase back up. “Enjoy the rest of your morning, Hunter.”

I did not answer him further, giving Harmony a small smile. I grabbed the handle of the suitcase and walked out.

I got as far as the trailhead behind our old street before I pulled the car over instead of driving straight to Nicole’s.

My wolf had been clawing at the inside of my chest since the moment I’d left, and I was tired of holding her back for the sake of looking composed.

I left the car at the edge of the treeline, stripped out of my clothes and folded them under a rock the way I'd always done, and let her out.

The shift took the ache with it, at least for a while. Four legs hit the ground and the whole world sharpened into something simpler, my nose filled with the scent of pine and wet earth and my own breath loud in my ears.

I ran until the burning in my chest was exhaustion instead of grief, until the house and the pajamas and Hunter’s voice had vanished.

Then I found a flat rock near the ridge, it still held a little of the morning’s warmth. I sat there as a wolf for a long time, watching the valley below without really focusing on it.

I tried to figure out how everything started, where we went wrong, where she came into the picture and ruined everything. When the sun had shifted far enough that the rock had gone cold under me, I got up, shifted back, and made my way back down to where my clothes and the rest of my life were waiting.

Nicole Hughes met me in the parking lot of her building twenty minutes later, took one look at my face, and disappeared back inside before I had even parked the car.

She came back out with two mugs and a bottle of something that smelt stronger than tea, already talking before I had my seatbelt off, her wolf pacing so close under her own skin I could practically feel the agitation rolling off her.

“Tell me everything, and then tell me where he lives so I can go set something of his on fire.”

She handed me the mug and sat down on the curb beside my car like we were seventeen again. “I mean it, Gemma. Start talking, or I am going to find him and kill him.”

I told her everything, from the beginning, when Harmony came into our lives to everything that happened this morning. Nicole’s expression got darker with every sentence, until she was gripping her own mug hard enough that I worried she might crack the ceramic.

“He is genuinely unbelievable. That piece of shit. Fuck, I wish I'd been there.” She shook her head slowly. “An Alpha who can’t even keep his hands off some stray his pack barely knows, and he wants you to stay quiet about it at his mother's birthday dinner? That’s insane, even for him.”

“He didn’t ask me to stay quiet.” I stared down into my mug, watching the steam curl off the top of it. “He asked me not to embarrass the family. As if the two things are somehow different.”

“They’re not.” Nicole said flatly. “Same thing, different words, just made to sound reasonable.”

We sat there long enough for the sun to shift behind her building before my phone rang again, Hunter’s name lighting up the screen.

Nicole raised an eyebrow at me, silently asking if I wanted her to answer it and tell him exactly where to go, but I waved her off and picked up, bracing for whatever he wanted this time. I was genuinely curious about what he had to say.

“Where did you put the moonstone necklace you got my mom last year?” Hunter did not bother with a greeting first. “Harmony’s dress tonight has an open neckline, and I want her wearing something perfect with it, like the necklace.”

That necklace had belonged to my grandmother, worn by every matriarch in my family's line during the full moon ceremonies for three generations before it ever reached my hands.

I had given it to Gloria for her birthday last year because I genuinely believed our two families were about to become one pack, that the necklace would stay somewhere close to me even if it was around someone else’s neck for a while. It was never meant to end up on a stray Hunter had picked up.

Now Hunter wanted Harmony wearing it instead, at his own mother’s party, in front of everyone.

When I did not answer right away, his voice got louder with impatience. “Gemma, don’t be difficult about this right now. We need to pick it up before tonight.”

I set my cup down slowly on the curb beside me and looked out at nothing in particular. I wanted to be angry, but he wasn’t worth it. Nicole watched me, probably waiting to see what I would do.

“Hunter.” I called.

“Yeah?” He sounded relieved already, certain I was about to give in the way I always used to.

“It’s your mother’s birthday tonight. Let me give her a real gift for once.”

“What is that supposed to mean? I thought we already spoke about this Gemma. Harmony doesn’t mean anything. Why are you trying to ruin everything? You promised not to embarrass us at the party. What are you planning?” The wariness crept back into his voice immediately.

I let a smile spread across my face, the kind that promised I was about to burn something down and enjoy every second of watching it happen.

“Wait and see.” I said, and ended the call before he could say anything else.

Nicole leaned forward, grinning happily. “You’re about to ruin that entire party, aren’t you? This is going to be fucking fun.”

I did not answer her directly. I was already scrolling through my contacts for my father’s number. The one man who could tell me exactly what it would mean, politically and otherwise, if I stood in front of the entire pack council tonight and formally rejected my own mate.

Hunter had built half his standing on being bonded to a Bennett. Every pack that had ever looked at Ashwood Wolves and decided Hunter was worth backing had done it knowing my family stood behind him.

Tonight, in front of everyone, I intended to remind him exactly how much of that standing belonged to me and how fast it could disappear.