My wolf went still inside me. Not growling, not pacing. Just still. The kind of still that comes when something breaks so cleanly there's nothing left to fight.
Elara's gaze settled on me.
"You could have gone after anyone. But not him."
Her voice was ice.
"As of today, you and I are no longer mates."
Because I'd poached her beloved's wolves, she'd sentenced our bond to death.
I laughed. Bitter and hollow.
"Good. I didn't want to be your mate anyway."
In the span of half a year.
I'd endured two bond rejections.
Everything I'd earned through my own trade routes. By pack law, it all belonged to the Alpha Heir's household.
Elara tossed me half without a second thought.
She was just like my brother.
She looked down on every moon-coin I'd made.
I secured an Alpha Trade Seal for a river route. And started a trading operation along the Riverbend Territories.
After that public beating in broad daylight, almost no wolf in Moonhaven dared work for me anymore.
I had no choice but to hire workers from beyond the territory borders.
Edric, on the other hand, had it easy. With a pack princess backing him up, he had leverage I didn't. Workers were conscripted from the lower dens and forced to labor under his command. But at two moon-coins a month, people started fleeing before long. Some masked their scents, disguised themselves as outsiders, and came to work on my supply caravan instead.
With no one left at the estate, the businesses under Pack Princess Elara's name had no goods to move. Edric couldn't even put food on the table.
That was the day he showed up with soldiers. All of them under Elara's authority.
He stared at my massive trade convoy, loaded and ready for the southern route, a sneer curling his lips.
"Seize it."
I stepped in front of him.
"Brother, how can you be so unreasonable?"
He scoffed.
"If you hadn't been out here throwing moon-coins around and disrupting the market, the princess's businesses would never have failed! Buying loyalty with coin. You've dragged the Duskborne name through the mud! The only way to stop you from lining your own pockets is to hand all this cargo over to me."
He was about to give the order again. I blocked his path.
"Brother, this is my cargo. My business. You ran yours into the ground, so now you come to steal mine?"
"Steal?" He sneered. "I'm simply purifying your soul, little brother. Do it."
"No!"
I scrambled to stop them.