Chapter 2

I spent the night at a small inn near the pack border.

Early the next morning, the main house manager called and dragged me out of sleep.

"Miss Vale, the large packages you sent are piled up at the entrance. Pack members have already complained. Please come handle them as soon as possible."

When I came back this time, I had never planned to leave again.

I had packed seven years of my life and shipped it all back to Blackthorn Pack.

Clothes. Documents. Old letters.

And all the memories I thought I would carry into my future home.

Now the boxes had arrived.

Now they had arrived.

And just like me, they had nowhere to go.

I rushed back to the Blackthorne estate in the rain.

There was nothing at the entrance.

Lila was in slippers, about to head upstairs.

"Selena, what took you so long?"

She pointed toward the trash area behind the house.

"Those boxes were blocking the door."

"Adrian said you two had already broken the mate bond. Your stuff was trash, so I threw it out for you."

My ears rang.

I turned and ran to the back.

Rain poured down hard.

The cardboard boxes had gone soft. My clothes and documents were scattered everywhere, soaked in muddy water.

I dropped to my knees and finally found the little wolf plush.

It was swollen with rainwater. One eye had fallen off.

It was the first gift Adrian had ever given me.

The first proof I once had that he thought of me when I was not there.

For seven years, whenever he could not come to the border to see me, that plush stayed with me.

Last year, I was injured on border patrol and fractured my leg. Adrian had promised to come.

Then Lila sprained her ankle during training.

On the phone, he only said one rushed sentence.

"I'll come see you after she's better."

I was in too much pain to sleep, so I held that little wolf until dawn.

I hugged it to my chest and saw a broken high heel nearby.

I had bought those shoes half a year ago.

That day, someone deliberately deleted my supply proposal. I hid in the garden behind the division office and cried so hard I could barely breathe.

Adrian's phone would not connect.

He called me back at dawn.

"What's wrong on your side now?"

"Lila fought with her roommate. I just brought her back to the main house."

The next day, I went into the city and bought those heels.

I told myself, Selena Vale, stand steady.

If no one comes to take you home, walk home yourself.

For seven years, I traveled between the border and Blackthorn Pack.

I lived alone.

I survived every breakdown alone.

Those things had kept me going until today.

Now they were all in the trash.

"Lila Hart."

I held the soaked wolf plush tighter and looked up at her.

"Who gave you the right to throw away my things?"

Adrian's voice came from behind me.

"Selena, why are you yelling at her?"

He stood in front of Lila with an umbrella, shielding her from the rain.

"It's a few boxes of junk," he said. "So what if she threw them out?"

Lila's eyes reddened as she looked at me.

"I thought you didn't want them anymore."

Adrian looked at the mess on the ground, and his face darkened.

His thoughts slammed into my head.

[Why are there so many boxes?]

[Wasn't Selena only coming back for a few days?]

[That little wolf... she still kept it?]

His gaze landed on the plush in my arms.

But the words that came out of his mouth were still full of disgust.

"You broke the bond and still sent your stuff to my house."

"If your things aren't trash, what are they?"

Rain streamed down my face as I looked at him.

"Adrian, my things are not trash."

"You are."

Pack members began gathering around us.

Their whispers rose through the rain.

"Isn't that Alpha Adrian and Lila?"

"Haven't they been living together for half a year? I always see them patrolling together and going to the market."

Someone looked at me with open contempt.

"Then who is she?"

"An ex who got dumped?"

"Or some outsider trying to come between the Alpha and his future Luna?"

The part of my heart I thought had gone numb twisted hard.

So they had been living together for six months.

For six months, they bought groceries together, returned to the main house together, shared umbrellas, and stood under the pack's gaze together.

In everyone's eyes, Lila looked more like his Luna than I ever had.

And I, the woman who had waited seven years for him, had become the shameless outsider in their story.