But I couldn’t stay. Not in this house. Not in this pack. Not with the man who had never truly been mine.
Dragging my suitcase down the stairs, I halted when I saw Ronan carrying Adeline in his arms. She looked up at him, her hands curled around his neck as if she belonged there. And maybe, in his eyes, she did. He walked past me without so much as a glance, setting her down on the couch with the kind of tenderness I had never received.
"Anastasia Leclair," his voice was cold, indifferent. "Is this just another one of your dramatic stunts?"
Adeline, feigning innocence, sighed. "Anastasia, I twisted my ankle, and since Ronan said the Obsidian Howl Pack was close by, he brought me here to take care of it. You don’t mind, do you?"
I watched as he tended to her injury, his hands careful, his touch reverent. A twisted ankle—that was all it took for him to drop everything and run to her side.
I remembered when I had been injured. A rogue attack had left me with a broken leg, and in my desperation, I had reached out to him through our mind link, hoping—stupidly—for some concern.
"A broken leg isn’t life or death," he had said. "You already escaped the rogue. Why bother me?"
That was when I knew. Ronan had never cared. Not for me. Not for Kieran. His wolf should have sensed his mate’s pain, should have felt my suffering—but he had remained indifferent.
And now, as I stood here watching him dote on my sister, the truth had never been clearer. I had never been his priority. I had never been his exception. He was forced to take me as his mate, but his heart had always belonged to Adeline.
If it had been her instead of me, she would have been Luna of the Obsidian Howl Pack by now. But it was me—me, who had given him the power to become Alpha. And still, I was nothing more than a placeholder. A name on paper. Nothing in his heart.
My fingers curled around the handle of my suitcase. I had made my decision. There was no turning back.
At last, I spoke the words I had been rehearsing for days. "Alpha, as you wish, I'm leaving."