Chapter 2

Ava's POV

Jake saved me when I was still young, sparing me from falling into the hands of a pack of rogues. He moved with the strength and grace of a war god. From that moment on, I fell in love with him.

Years later, when I met him again and recognized him, I never thought of confessing my feelings. I hid my identity, suppressed my wolf nature, and joined his pack as an Omega, becoming his servant.

That way, I could stay quietly by his side.

I cared for his injured eyes and legs, soothed his increasingly volatile temper, and used my family connections to help him deal with the pack's troubles.

I watched with my own eyes as the blazing love between him and Emily flared and then burned out. I knew how deep his obsession with Emily ran, and after she left, I never once dared hope that I could become his mate.

I only wanted to stay with him when he needed someone beside him the most.

That night, he drank to drown his sorrows, and in his drunken haze, he mistook me for Emily. Everything changed after that. The powerful Alpha scent radiating from him wrapped tightly around me, and I was so overwhelmed by the fierce attraction that I nearly fainted.

Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was loneliness. Maybe it was because he had finally accepted that Emily was truly gone. He gave me his mark and possessed me night after night with an almost frenzied hunger.

He said we were the Moon Goddess's second chance. He said he had learned how to love me.

He proposed to me with the grand ceremony he had once carefully planned for Emily, only adjusting a few details to suit my preferences. He said he wanted to spend his life with me and form an eternal spiritual bond.

I believed him.

I began to dream of becoming his Luna, bearing his pups, and growing old by his side.

Now reality had dealt me a crushing blow. It turned out that everything I thought I had was never truly mine—or perhaps I had never had it at all.

"I understand," I said softly. "I'll break the mark with you and leave. You don't need to feel guilty…"

Jake roughly lifted my chin, his eyes icy. "I won't feel guilty. I'll only worry that you'll ruin what's meant to be between Emily and me."

His words cut into me like a silver blade.

I wanted to ask whether he truly felt nothing, whether the wolf inside him completely rejected the bond between us.

Perhaps there was no need to ask. Deep down, I had always known the humiliating answer.

Jake was going abroad to find Emily, and he had ordered that I was not to follow him.

He had abandoned me.

I returned to the pack house alone and began packing the few pitiful belongings I had.

It had been five years since I moved from the Omega dormitory into Jake's bedroom. It sounded like a long time, yet the things I could truly call my own would not even fill a small suitcase.

"Take down all the ceremony decorations," I told Emma, the pack's housekeeper. "Redecorate everything according to Emily's preferences."

Emma stared at me in shock. "Luna Ava, you and Alpha…"

"I'm not the Luna, Emma. Emily is. Make sure everyone knows that, or Alpha Jake will fly into a rage."

Emma lowered her head, her eyes brimming with tears. "Luna Ava, why won't you fight for yourself? We all saw how much you sacrificed for him. How can he go back to someone who rejected the mating bond years ago? It's not fair…"

Emma's words made the pain almost unbearable. Even others could see everything I had given. But Jake? Why was he the only one who refused to see it?

But fairness had nothing to do with mate bonds. It had nothing to do with who came first, or who deserved what. It was all in the Moon Goddess's hands, in the mystery of true love.

I could not make Jake's heart choose me. Letting go seemed to be the only choice I had left.

My phone rang. It was my father calling.

Worry tightened his voice.

"Ava, are you really going through with this ceremony? Spending the rest of your life as his eyes and his servant?"

I forced a faint smile. "Dad, Jake was in a car accident today. He got his sight back…"

Relief flooded his voice. "Thank the Moon Goddess! I've been so worried you'd have to spend your life caring for a blind Alpha. Your mother and I will attend the ceremony tomorrow…"

"Dad, don't come. He lost his memory because of the accident. The ceremony is canceled." I drew in a shaky breath, trying to keep my voice from breaking. "He went to find Emily."

The sound of glass shattering came from the other end of the line. "That bastard! He forgot you and ran straight back to his former mate?"

I changed the subject, trying not to let my misery show. "Dad, accept the marriage alliance with the Blood Moon Pack. I'll come home in a week for the mating ceremony."

"Are you sure?" My father sounded stunned, as if he could not believe I would give in so easily.

"Yes. I'm sure."

The Silver Lake Pack and the Blood Moon Pack had been allies for generations. Decades of shared interests had already woven our bloodlines together.

The marriage alliance they proposed would strengthen both territories, and Alpha Marcus was renowned across the packs for his honor and strength.

Maybe he would never love me the way Jake loved Emily, but perhaps that was for the best.

At least with Marcus, I would never have to stand by and watch my mate love another woman while I remained nothing more than a servant at his side.