The Alpha Who Threw Her Away

old bruises. She'd done this at every pack gathering since she was nine - counted exits, counted faces, made a small private inv

etracted, jaw working at something rigid he was clearly trying

he said, "reject Elena

words, but the silence that came after them, ordinary and unsurp

can't see. Her knees understood it before her mind caught up - a looseness under her, a gap where four years of quiet, constant aw

Beta, not looking at her. "

ing. She stood. Her legs held, which su

, toward the tree line, and that told her more than the sentence he'd

Renner went on, flipping to the next item like this was a zo

he front check

e that wasn't the thing happening in her chest. Four years of being introduced at every function that mattered as *the Alpha's mate

out, duffel bag hitched under one arm, be

aid. No preamble. She n

na said. "Apparently

le

Elena said, "because I'll lose it, and

l the way to the border herself - past the checkpoint guards who suddenly found the ground very interesting, p

when the silence had gone on lo

't kno

ike you. You

red here." Elena adjusted the duffel on

stood a man Elena had seen exactly twice in her life. An unranked elder. Always alone, always at the tree line, never close enough to speak to. He didn't approach her now ei

ot a farewell. Somethin

t didn't fit - behind the eleven minutes, behind Renner's zoning-meeting voice, behind Mira's silence at the b

-

scent had thinned past the point his wolf could still track it. He ha

id from the doorway. Not quite an

first wolf I claimed publicly, the same week they found out what runs in her blood?

. Instead of humiliating her in fr

or one three days ago - the night Thorne showed up at his door with a warning Kane still hadn't fully a

ng the right questions. Longer if you're lucky. Either way, Alpha -

et fire to the one good thing he'd built and was calling it m

t, waiting for something that didn't come, t

out a destination for the first time in her lif

more times before she came a