“You’re giving him up?” he asked, stunned. “You once said you meant to claim him as your mate.”
“I don’t anymore.” I didn’t look back.
He didn’t stop me—not when my heels echoed down the marble hall, not when the heavy door closed behind me. But I knew he’d comply. He always did when it came to Elowen.
Let him. For once, I wanted something too.
My mother had died of madness the night she learned he’d taken another woman. The betrayal had shredded her mind, and she’d gone feral—howling, foaming, breaking until her heart simply stopped. I was there. I saw everything.
Since then, I had despised him. And Elowen most of all—the living proof of everything he’d stolen from us.
Maybe that’s why I’d clung to Kael. Because he’d been the one thing that still felt mine. Until tonight.
It was well past midnight when I reached my home on the edge of the Solari lands, the moon spilling silver light across the trees. Most wolves lived near the Pack Heart, close to the training fields and patrol stations. I preferred the outskirts. Distance was honest.
But as I neared the side hall, a sound stopped me—low, breathless, rhythmic.
Panting.
Then came the scent—raw desire, thick and undeniable.
Kael.