Nothing. Not even false concern from those who once swore loyalty.
By the second night, I found myself holding my crystal communicator without purpose. Some part of my wolf still believed the Alpha or the Beta would reach out. Instead, what appeared were images.
Selene. She stood smiling in a new crimson gown, glowing beneath lantern light, pressed between Alden and Draven. Moonwine cups were lifted high. Her smile carried that same satisfied curve she always wore when she knew she had won.
“Grateful to Alden and Draven for the greatest nameday under the moon! I will treasure this always! Look at our new bond cords!!!”
I stared at the three identical woven cords that circled their wrists. And then I noticed that they no longer wore the old bond cords we once shared.
I turned the crystal communicator down and placed it beside the stone bed. Silence returned to the healing chamber. My heart beat slowly, but there was no pain now. Only a hollow space where it used to live.
Two days later, I returned to the manor, the same stone dwelling we had all entered after leaving the Lunar Academy. It was meant to be a den for a bonded pack. Instead, it became proof of betrayal.
I crossed the empty main hall and went straight to my private chamber. I opened the closet and began to pack my belongings.
When I bent to collect my boots, I stopped. Beneath the shelf rested the memory coffer. That foolish little box I once called my moon-treasure.
I lowered myself to the floor and drew it closer, dust clinging to my fingers. Inside lay parchments, old, worn letters written by Alden and Draven when we were pups. Simple drawings. Awkward poems. Healing notes they sent when I was ill.
And a single image crystal. The three of us, me, Alden and Draven, kneeling beside a half-built tree platform, dirt smeared on our clothes, smiling widely.
The memory rose clearly. The summer when I was nearly mauled by a Moon Beast. I had always feared them and one had broken free near the outer dens. I froze in terror. Alden and Draven stepped in front of me without thought. Alden was bitten protecting me, his arm bleeding, so I could escape.
After that, everything changed. They became my shadows. My guards.
And over time, I fell for Alden, while Draven treated me as his she-wolf sister.
Until Selene entered the pack and shattered it all.