Chapter 3

Blood slid down my wrist and dripped onto the gravel.

Victor did not notice.

He was too busy checking Mira's scalp, too busy listening while she sobbed into his chest.

"I didn't mean to upset her," Mira cried. "I only asked why she came so late. She suddenly grabbed me. Victor, I'm scared."

"It's all right," Victor murmured. "I'm here."

He looked at me then, and the softness vanished.

"Do you have any idea how a Luna should behave?"

The question might have hurt if I still believed I was his Luna.

"She insulted my grandmother."

"Mira would never."

I laughed once. It sounded strange even to me.

Victor's eyes narrowed. "I simply proposed to her to comfort her dying mother, and you're already acting like this?"

"Grandma is dying too," I said.

His expression did not soften.

"Don't."

The word was quiet, warning.

I stared at him. "Don't what?"

"Don't use your grandmother to pressure me."

For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

"She's in the hospital."

"Mira's mother is in danger," he said. "You know that. You know her only wish is to see Mira settled. Now you come here with the exact same story?"

"It isn't a story."

"Selena, stop."

The Alpha command in his voice pressed against my skin. It was not strong enough to force obedience, but it was strong enough to disgust me.

"You think I would lie about Grandma?"

He looked away.

That tiny movement answered me.

Mira sniffled. "Maybe Miss Selena is just upset. I understand. If my mate gave someone else a ring, I would be hurt too."

Her words were soft. Her eyes were not.

Victor held her tighter. "You have nothing to apologize for."

I looked at his arms around her, the ring on her hand, the roses at the door, the swing that had been mine.

The man before me had once climbed through a storm to bring Grandma medicine. He had once stood outside my school because he heard a wolf from another pack had threatened me. He had once kissed the scars on my palms and said no one would ever hurt me while he lived.

Now he was the one hurting me.

And worse, he looked annoyed that I was bleeding on his gravel.

"Victor," I said, my voice strangely calm. "If you choose Mira as your Luna, say it clearly."

He frowned. "Why do you always twist things?"

"Say it."

"I am marrying her temporarily."

"There is no such thing as a temporary Luna."

"There is if I say there is," he snapped. "I am Alpha."

The words settled between us.

Yes. He was Alpha.

And he believed being Alpha meant reality would bend around his desires.

He wanted Mira's tears and my patience.

He wanted to kneel to another woman and still keep my devotion waiting at home.

He wanted to break me and then call me unreasonable for bleeding.

Slowly, I reached into my bag.

Victor's expression shifted when he saw the necklace in my hand.

It was ugly now from age and wear, a braided cord threaded through a small silver charm. When I was eighteen, I had climbed Sacred Mountain to obtain it for him. The mountain was forbidden to unmarked wolves, but I had gone anyway because an elder told me the charm carried the Moon Goddess's blessing.

I had returned with torn hands and frostbitten lips.

Victor had cried when I tied it around his neck.

"Selena," he said now. "Don't be dramatic."

I smiled faintly.

"This blessing was given to the wrong man," I said.

I threw the necklace at his feet.

It struck the stones and lay there between us.

Mira's eyes widened, delighted despite herself.

Victor stared at it as if I had thrown a blade.

"Pick it up," he said.

"No."

His jaw clenched. "Selena."

"From this moment on, Victor Blackwood, I return every promise you made me. I release every dream I built around you. I want nothing from you as a mate, as an Alpha, or as a man."

"You don't mean that."

"I do."

His eyes flashed gold. "Fine. Then don't regret it."

"I won't."

"Whether as my Luna or my friend, there will be no place for you beside me again."

I looked at Mira, then at him.

"There hasn't been a place for me beside you for a long time."

I turned and walked away.

Behind me, Victor shouted my name.

I did not stop.

At the gate, Mira's voice drifted after me, low and cruel, carried by my wolf's sharp hearing.

"Run along, Selena. Let's see who dares marry Victor Blackwood's discarded mate."

My wolf stirred inside me.

For years, she had curled small around the mate bond, trying to preserve what the Moon Goddess had given us.

That night, she lifted her head.

And growled.

I returned to the hospital before dawn. Grandma was asleep, her breathing shallow. I sat beside her bed and cleaned the blood from my palm with shaking hands.

The caregiver looked at me in alarm.

"Miss Selena, what happened?"

"Nothing that matters anymore."

I watched Grandma's chest rise and fall.

Three days.

I had three days to give her peace.

If Victor would not be the Alpha standing beside me, then I would find another.

I had been raised to survive.

Now I would prove it.