"Don't worry. This time, I absolutely won't postpone the mating ceremony again. I'll give you the answer you deserve."
With that, he pushed open the door and strode out of the chamber without a backward glance.
He never saw how pale her face had gone.
Lyra spent only one day in the pack healer's den. The moment the binding salve was removed from her foot—the wound still raw, each step sending a dull throb up her leg—she gathered her few belongings and walked out alone.
Moonlight filtered through the canopy above, casting silver patterns across her shoulders, but it couldn't quite reach the cold that had settled somewhere deeper in her bones. She was standing at the estate gates when her identity token hummed against her palm. A scent-sealed message from beyond the borders.
She opened it, and her breath caught.
A formal acceptance scroll filled her vision, the Cresthaven Academy's ancient sigil gleaming against the pale parchment. The academy—the elite program she'd poured everything into, her one lifeline out of this territory and everything it held.