Ronan's jaw tightened. He raked a hand through his dark hair, as if steeling himself for what came next.
"Everything you said is true. But you make people uncomfortable. Your scent upsets Ruth. So you have to go."
His tone was iron. Absolute. No room for argument. The voice of an Alpha giving a command.
It felt like a nightmare—but the ache in my chest told me it was all too real. The mate-bond between us twisted painfully, even as he rejected me.
I couldn't stop my voice from shaking. "You mean it?"
I rose to my feet, my eyes locked on his. I refused to submit, refused to look away first.
Ronan hesitated for three seconds. Then his resolve hardened, and I watched something in his golden eyes go cold. "I mean it. Every word."
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. I swiped it away with the back of my hand.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides. I gave myself a moment to breathe, to steady the trembling in my limbs.
Then I spoke, my voice steady despite everything. "Fine. If you've already chosen another to claim, I won't stay where I'm not wanted."
"But we're settling this tonight. A Bond Dissolution Oath, witnessed and recorded. Territory rights and resource caches split equally between us."
"Ronan, you agree to that, and I'll walk out through those den doors into the storm."
Love couldn't be held onto by force. But our shared territory? The resources we'd built together? That I would fight for.
We'd built those hunting grounds from nothing. I wasn't walking away empty-handed.
I could fall apart later—when no one was watching. When I was alone in the cold.
Ronan said nothing, his expression unreadable.
Rowena cut in, her voice sharp with authority. "Let's not talk about territory division. After all, our son built this pack's wealth himself."
Something short-circuited in my brain.
"Excuse me?" My voice climbed before I could rein it in.
What a joke. Since when had Ronan built anything on his own?
I pulled out the old pack records I'd kept, scrolling back through five cycles of seasons.
"Five years ago, when we started expanding our territory—the first resources came from me. Fifty thousand in trade goods and hunting rights. I borrowed them from my birth pack, putting my own family in debt."