Chapter 2

BIANCA POV

I drove home in silence, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white. The house was dark when I arrived, exactly as I’d left it—the forgotten cake still sitting on the counter, the candles I’d bought still in their package, the birthday I’d hoped might finally matter nothing but another day that proved how little I did.

Just then, a notification popped up on my phone: Mia had posted something new. My thumb scrolled mechanically through Mia’s F******k album, titled “Our Journey – 47/100.”

Forty-seven activities down, fifty-three to go. The new post is a photo. There they were: Matthew, Theo, and Mia. His hand rested on Mia’s shoulder, protective and tender. And, Theo sat on her lap, his arms wrapped around her neck. The caption read: “My amazing birthday!”

I sat in the empty house, staring at a photo on my phone until my eyes burned. I could not believe this, that my husband and son would hurt me like this, showing no regard for my feelings.

Where did the kind, attentive husband of mine go? And my sweetest son?

This wasn’t what my family was like before Matthew’s first love came back. Matthew and Theo was once treating me like I was invincible. Especially Matthew, back then he actually cared about me, took care of me even when he told me from the onset that what we had was a marriage of convenience and he doesn’t love me, he still stood up for me, when the pack questioned my integrity as a rogue wolf.

Those moments had kept me going. Until now.

Perhaps the Moon goddess had corrected all the mistakes. Matthew and I were never meant to be on the same path. Our meeting had been nothing but a mistake…

The first time I’d met Matthew, I’d been running through his territory, half-dead from wounds inflicted by the pack that had cast me out. I’d been born a rogue, my mother having been expelled from her pack before my birth. We’d survived on the fringes, never belonging anywhere, always moving. When she’d died, I’d been seventeen and alone, using the healing skills she’d taught me to trade for food and shelter wherever I could.

That night, I’d stumbled upon Matthew lying in a ravine, poisoned by silver and bleeding from multiple wounds. His pack had left him for dead after an ambush, unable to find him in the darkness. I should have kept walking. A rogue helping an Alpha was dangerous—it created a debt, a connection, and connections could be used against you.

But I’d never been able to walk past someone in pain.

I’d spent three days nursing him back to health in a cave, using every technique my mother had taught me. When he’d finally opened his eyes, strong enough to speak, he’d looked at me with gratitude and something else—something that had made my foolish heart hope.

“You saved my life,” he’d said, his voice rough. “I owe you.”

I’d left before he could fully recover, before he could feel obligated to do more than heal. I’d learned early that debts owed to rogues were rarely paid with kindness.

But fate, it seemed, had other plans.

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