Natalie’s POV I called Renee back. My hands weren’t shaking, which was a small miracle, and my voice was cold, devoid of hope and heartbreak. “It’s done. I’m leaving.” A pause stretched across the line. “Nat… what happened?” Renee wasn’t just the pack healer I worked with. She was my only friend. She’d stitched up the silver wounds Sharon had given me and later, was the one who listened when I gushed over Jensen. She knew almost everything. I didn’t have the energy for the whole story. ”Jensen blood-bonded with Sharon. He did it yesterday. He thinks I’m too stupid to know what’s going on because he believes I don’t understand the Old Tongue.” A sharp breath. “Oh, Nat.” She didn’t need more; she’d seen him getting distant, taking more night patrols. “The Greycrest offer is real. Their Alpha, Lysander, is a historian, and he cares about the old ways. You won’t just be a tool there. You might actually have a voice.” A voice. That was the cruelest joke of my existence. I had the rarest voice of all, the one that could hear the true meaning in ancient texts, yet in this pack, I was expected to be silent. To listen and translate, but never to speak for myself. My value was in my silence. “Yeah,” I said. “Just get to the border. I’ll make sure the path from the healer’s lodge is clear. No one will see you leave from here.” We hung up. *** After the call, the storm finally broke. Rain hammered the windows. The wind screamed, rattling the woodwind charm hanging in the main room. That charm, I’d made it. During the long nights of Jensen’s silver sickness, I’d sat by his bed, whittling. My fingers had carved small shapes from sacred oak twigs—a crescent moon, a running wolf, and a protective knot, with each one being a silent prayer for his life. When he finally woke, he took them all, strung them on a leather cord, and hung them in the center of the den. So the pack can see the hands that saved me, he’d said. So they’d remember. Now, the clacking sounded like mocking whispers. I reached up to rip it down, and my elbow hit a photo frame on the wall. It fell, and glass shattered everywhere as two photos fell out of the frame. I froze. Two? I picked them up. The first showed me beside Jensen. One of the few photos I’ve taken with him from five years ago. I was dressed in my favorite blue dress, holding his hand, grinning like an idiot. The second… Sharon and Jensen. Sharon posed as a powerful wolf, head thrown back. Jensen stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder. His face was soft. Tender. A look I’d never seen aimed at me. A look meant for an equal—a mate. Under the picture was a note written in the Old Tongue; he’d written: Farewell, My First Howl. The date mark was from the night after his recovery. Seven hours before, he came to me with a moonflower and asked me to be his. My hands were cold. Every good memory turned to dust. I yanked the chime down. The wood charms scattered. I didn’t care about the time and effort I had put into it. It means nothing to me now. My phone buzzed. Renee had forwarded the official Greycrest invitation—a digital scroll with their mountain-and-moon seal. I grabbed my papers and went out into the rain to the Pack Council outpost. The clerk was an old wolf, half-blind. He took my papers. “Transcriber Summers. Sanctioned passage is logged. Greycrest escort meets you at the border stone at dawn in three days.” “Thank you.” As I stepped back into the rain, my phone rang. Jensen. “Rogue scent on the western ridge. I’ll be out with the patrol all night. So don’t wait up.” He hung up. A message popped up. From Sharon. Two videos. First video: Sharon and Jensen under the sacred oak. They cut their palms and pressed them together—the blood-bond ceremony. Dated yesterday. Second video: Jensen tying a leather cord around Sharon’s neck. On it hung a small, carved stone wolf—the exact design I’d sketched for my own mate-bond charm. He was giving her my design. My secret. Timestamp: five minutes before he called me. Of course he wasn’t coming home. It was his bonding night. A cold, hollow sound escaped me. Then a voice message from Sharon played: “Jensen is my true mate now. Stay away. If you don’t, you’ll regret it. And it won’t be like last time in the cellar.” I didn’t hesitate. I typed back: “Don’t worry. You can have him. I’m not the stand-in.” I blocked her. The moment he chose her, it was over. In three days, I’d be gone. And I would finally be free. *** I took the long way back. Near the storage sheds, I grabbed three empty boxes. Back in the pack house, I filled them with everything that smelled like him or reminded me of him. Gifts, clothes, even the wood charms. I dragged them to the trash pit and pushed them in. Only the valuable things were left—a ceremonial silver dagger and a heavy gold torque. I’d return them. By midnight, I was done. Too tired to feel. I washed and fell asleep. The next morning, I took the valuables to the pack vaults. I rented a locker, put the stuff inside, and told the keeper to give the key to Jensen in three days. Back at the den, I started packing my real things—my notebooks, my inks, and the old documents I was still working on. The door opened. Jensen walked in, smelling like rain, pine, and something I couldn’t put my finger on. He stopped in his tracks, looking around. “You cleaned up?” “Got rid of old things,” I said, not looking up at him. “Alright. If you need anything new, let me know.” He tossed his wet cloak over a chair. His eyes landed on my open bag. On the corner of a parchment sticking out is the Accord of the Howling Peaks, a treaty that could unite three packs if translated correctly. It was the most important work the pack had right now. “The Conclave is tomorrow,” he said. “The Alphas are meeting to finally sign the Accord. You should come.” I froze. I’d been transcribing the Accord for six months. The whispers in that parchment were tangled and angry, and I was the only one who could smooth them out. But he’d never taken me to a Conclave. No one knew the pack’s famous Transcriber, the mysterious “keeper,” was me—a wolfless woman. My work was always presented by him. This invitation was probably him feeling guilty. A bone thrown to a dog. “Okay,” I said, my voice flat. Before I left for good, I’d take back my name. My phone buzzed on the table. An unknown number, which meant that it was out of this territory. Jensen’s head snapped toward it. His nostrils flared. “Why,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous, “is an outsider calling you?”