Chapter 2

Elena.

“I am resigning, and I’d like it to take effect as early as tomorrow morning.”

“Of course, Luna, I’ll have everything ready the moment you walk through the door.” The HR answered. “Would nine o’clock work for your schedule? Grace usually starts her morning meetings closer to ten.”

“Nine works fine for me. And… it’s Elena from now on..”

“Is everything all right, ma'am?”

“Everything is fine.” I said, and ended the call before she could ask anymore questions.

I never imagined a day would come when I would resign or leave the life I did everything to build.

By eight the next morning I was standing outside Grace Sinclair’s office with the envelope tucked under my arm.

Grace looked up the moment I knocked, her reading glasses pushed into gray hair that had gone a shade lighter every year I’d known her. “Luna, come in and sit down. You look like you barely slept last night.”

“I didn’t sleep much.” I admitted, and set the envelope down on her desk instead of taking the seat she offered. “I’m resigning, Grace.”

She didn’t reach for the envelope right away, studying me in a way that made me feel nervous. “You’re one of the best clinical systems analysts this hospital has ever had, and you know that better than anyone.”

“I know that, and I’m still resigning.”

“Does any of this have something to do with the Ball last weekend?”

My stomach turned over, though I kept my expression as still as I could manage. Everyone had already seen that photo by now, there was no point pretending otherwise. “I need a fresh start somewhere else, Grace, that’s really all I can tell you.”

“Luna… please don’t get offended by this, but life doesn’t work that way. You can’t get up and run away. You are our Luna..”

“I am not running away, Grace.”

She studied me a moment longer before finally picking up the envelope and slitting it open. She read the letter quickly then set it back down on the desk between us.

“I won’t fight you on this, Luna, but the door stays open if you ever change your mind.” She paused, folding her hands together. “Can you give me two weeks at least?”

“I can’t give you two weeks, Grace, I need to be gone much sooner than that.”

“Luna, please, just talk to me.”

“I need to be gone,” I said again, softer this time, and something in my voice must have finally broken through her patience, because she stopped pushing.

She came around the desk and pulled me into a hug that lasted only a few seconds. “Take care of yourself, whatever this is that you’re walking into.”

“Thank you, Grace. Good luck.”

I made it all the way to the parking garage stairwell before I finally took a deep shaky breath. It’s done. I was glad this was out of the way.

I called Nora from there, my back pressed against the cold concrete wall behind me. “It’s done, Nora. I officially resigned.”

“Thank God, finally, though are you actually okay? You sound like you’re standing in the middle of a wind tunnel.”

“I’m in a stairwell.” I said, forcing myself to laugh a little. “Nora, listen, he isn’t going to fight this the way you’d expect him to.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean Ronan isn’t going to chase after me begging for another chance, that isn’t who he is.” I pressed my palm flat against the wall. “He won’t fight for me, not really, he’ll fight instead to keep the whole thing quiet.”

Nora went silent for a moment, and I could hear her breathe out slowly on the other end of the line. “You really believe he’ll just… let the bond starve?”

“I know he will. A scene is exactly what he can’t afford to make, not with his position.” My voice wavered slightly. “Think about what it would do to him in front of every allied pack if word got out that his own mate walked away from the bond. He’d rather starve it quietly than let anyone watch it fall apart in public.”

“Will you be fine on your own? My boss won’t let me take a break.” She complained, groaning.

“It’s fine. I do understand. Talk to you later” I said, forcing myself to laugh, before hanging up.

I left the stairwell and crossed the lobby, passing three nurses who dropped their eyes the moment they recognized me, whispering about something, as if my situation were something they didn’t want to catch. I crossed the skywalk without stopping, made it to the edge of the employee lot, keys already pressed into my palm.

Then a sharp pain arrived, somewhere deep beneath my ribs. My knees buckled before I understood what was actually happening to me, and the asphalt came up fast beneath me, gravel biting into my palms as I caught myself from falling further.

“Ronan.” I gasped, and pressed one hand against the pavement to keep myself from going down completely.

I knelt there in the parking lot for what felt like several long minutes, my breath sawing in and out, sweat gathering cold at the back of my neck despite the midday heat pressing down on the asphalt around me.

I heard footsteps approaching. I looked up and saw two of them standing in the gray uniforms Ronan’s father had put in place decades earlier. The older one had a pale scar cutting across his right knuckles; his hand was already moving toward the radio on his shoulder. The younger one flicked a glance toward the hospital entrance, then back to me, eyes narrowing, none of them moving forward to help me.

One of them reached toward the radio clipped at his shoulder, his eyes never once leaving where I knelt in the middle of the lot.

I forced myself upright before he could press the button, straightening my spine and steadying my face into something that didn’t look like a woman whose bond had just torn her apart in a hospital parking lot.

It didn’t work, because I could see it in the way his eyes narrowed, and in the way his partner’s gaze flicked toward the hospital entrance as though already thinking about how quickly word would spread.

They already knew something had happened, whether I wanted them to or not.

And by nightfall, so would everyone else in Hollowmere.

“Fuck me.”