Chapter 3

Elena.

“You are an embarrassment to this pack, do you understand me?”

“Hello to you too, Margot.”

“Don’t take that tone with me. I heard you resigned, and you almost passed in front of the hospital. I heard you’re also packing. Are you seriously doing this? What is wrong with you? Haven’t we done enough for you, Elena?”

“You sure have a lot of spies and yes, I am doing this.”

“After everything my son gave you? The mark, the title, a place at his side that girls would kill for, and you’re throwing it away over one photo? What is wrong with you?!”

“It wasn’t one photo, Margot.”

“It was nothing. Vivian is pack business, she has been for months, coordinating the alliance dinners, nothing more. But you… you can’t even do anything right. You are such a disgrace.”

I set down the sweater I was folding and pressed the phone harder against my ear. “If Vivian is so wonderful, tell Ronan to mark her instead. I’ll give them my blessings. I’m sure you’ll like that too.”

Margot went quiet for a second, but I could hear her heavy breathing.

“Watch your mouth. I am not your mother. Don’t you dare disrespect me.”

“Oh please, Margot. You should be the one watching what you say.” How dare she bring up my mom?

“You ungrateful little girl. Do you have any idea what you’re throwing away? Do you know what happens to a Luna who walks out on her Alpha?”

“I’m not the Luna anymore. I’m just Elena.”

“You were never fit for that title in the first place. I told him so on his bonding day, and I was right.”

“Then you’ll be glad to know your son gets to fix that mistake. I am hanging up now. Goodbye, Margot.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me. You will regret this.”

“Maybe, but it’s my regret to have.” I ended the call before she could say another word, my heart still hammering as I set the phone face down on the dresser and made myself breathe.

The den was half boxes already, my clothes folded into stacks on the bed, books pulled off the shelves in the hallway. I moved through it fast, because slowing down meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering things I didn’t have room for anymore.

That was when I found it, wedged between a stack of old journals and a shoebox of photographs I hadn’t looked at in years. The anatomy textbook, the one I’d bought Ronan the year before his surgical boards.

I sat down on the edge of the bed with it in my lap and opened the cover before I could stop myself.

To Ro, the inscription read, in my own handwriting from a version of myself that felt like a stranger now. Whatever happens after this exam, I already know you’re going to save people for the rest of your life, as a doctor and an Alpha. I’ll be right here when you do. Yours, always. Elena.

My throat tightened, but I blinked away the tears. I’d already cried enough for one week.

I ran my thumb over the ink, over a promise I’d meant with my whole heart back then, back when Ronan still looked at me like I mattered. I thought about leaving it on the shelf where it belonged, letting him find it and remember what he’d thrown away.

Instead I closed the book and set it on top of the box I was taking with me. He didn’t deserve that version of me.

My phone buzzed again.

Nora: You okay? Margot just texted me asking if I knew you’d “lost your mind.” I told her yes, gloriously.

I laughed for the first time in what felt like days. I typed back.

Elena: Almost done here. Meet you at the new place in an hour.

Nora: Bring wine. A lot of it.

I finished packing the last box myself, taping it shut, stacking it by the door with the others. The den looked strange already, half empty, and cold.

I walked through the kitchen one last time, past the counter where Ronan and I used to eat breakfast standing up because we were always running late for something, pack meetings, hospital shifts, each other.

I set down the box I was still carrying and stood in the middle of the empty kitchen, letting myself feel the life I was about to leave behind. There was one more thing I needed to do.

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath.

“I, Elena Ashford, reject Ronan Ashford, Alpha of the Ashford Pack, as my mate.”

Pain ripped through my chest so hard my knees nearly gave out. I slammed a hand against the counter to stay upright, breath punching out of me in short, broken bursts. My wolf recoiled hard, then went deathly still.

I stayed like that until the worst of it passed, until I could straighten without shaking.

I set the signed divorce papers down in the center of that counter, squared them so he couldn’t miss them, and placed my den key on top.

My wolf stirred low in my chest.

I sighed, turned and left. I locked the front door out of habit, then remembered I didn’t need to, and left it unlocked instead. Let Ronan walk into whatever he wanted to walk into.

Outside, the evening air was cooler than I expected, and for a second I just stood on the porch, breathing it in, letting it fill a chest.

I loaded the last box into my car and slid into the driver’s seat.

My phone lit up on the passenger seat, one new message, and my whole body went still before I even looked at it.

Ronan.

I stared at his name for three full seconds before curiosity won out over pride, and I opened the message anyway.

Ronan: Are you home yet? What are you doing, Elena? We should talk before you do anything you can’t undo.

I turned the phone face down on the seat beside me and started the engine. Whatever he had to say, he could say it to the papers on the counter.

At the end of the street, two pack enforcers in gray stepped out of the shadows. The older one lifted his radio the moment my taillights cleared the property line.

“Luna is leaving the den, with multiple boxes. Inform Alpha Ashford.”

I didn’t slow down.