Chapter 1I fucked up on my bonding day.
My mom needed emergency surgery. Like, right then. And I had nothing.
So I grabbed Aldric right before the ceremony and asked him to cover it.
Two hundred eighty thousand dollars.
He didn't flinch. Just nodded.
"Okay."
That night, when he carried me over the threshold, he leaned in close. His breath was warm against my ear, but his voice?
Ice.
"Rank chaser."
That was three years ago.
Since then, he's made damn sure every wolf in this pack knows exactly what I am. The omega who latched onto an Alpha for security. He's taken other she-wolves to his bed openly. Never once shut down the rumors.
Tonight—our bonding anniversary—I'm curled up at the human clinic on the edge of pack territory with a stomach infection, staring at a bill I can't pay.
A hundred and fifty-two dollars.
Meanwhile, Aldric's in Harrow Point throwing a whole celebration for his latest she-wolf.
I call him.
"Aldric." I keep my voice flat. "I want to dissolve the bond."
---
He laughs.
"What is it this time? How much do you need?"
"Fifty grand?"
"A hundred?"
"One-fifty?"
Before I can get a word in, I hear her in the background.
"Babe, you literally threw fifty grand at that rogue dispute yesterday. Your mate only gets pocket change?"
Then his voice comes back.
"Some wolves are only worth what you pay for them."
The words hit like a fist to the chest.
Ever since that day, he's treated me like something he tracked in from the borderlands and can't scrape off his boots. I tried to fix it. God, I tried.
Once, I spent hours making his favorite meal from scratch. He walked in, looked at the table, and smirked.
"How much is this gonna cost me? Should I transfer it now, or—"
He'd do it in the bed too.
"What's tonight's rate?"
I've explained it a thousand times.
My mom collapsed that morning. Brain bleed. The pack medics wouldn't touch her without payment upfront.
So yeah, I changed the number. What else was I supposed to do?
He never believed me. Not once.
"You'd sell out your own mother for a rank upgrade," he said once, looking at me like I disgusted him. "Didn't think you had it in you."
Now I'm standing in a clinic hallway with celebration noise crackling through my phone, and I make myself say it again.
"I don't want your money. I want out."
"Fine. Get back here and we'll file the dissolution papers."
Then he scoffs.
"Walk away from all this? Sure. Pay me back first. Every. Last. Cent. Then maybe I'll actually believe you."
Click.
Gone.
I stand there staring at the bill in my hand.
Everyone thinks I hit the jackpot. That carrying the Stoneclaw name means territory rights, pack protection, the whole deal.
Nobody knows the truth.
He hasn't given me a single thing since the mating ceremony.
Three weeks after we bonded, I lost my position at the inter-pack trade office.
Apparently having an Alpha mate made me a political liability. Every other place I tried turned me away for the same reason.
I've been burning through savings I scraped together before the ceremony. Savings that ran out months ago.
Right now I don't even have a hundred dollars.
Where the hell am I supposed to find two hundred eighty thousand?
I'm still standing there, frozen, when I hear them—two pack girls next to me, glued to their phones, watching the Harrow Point stream.
"Oh my God." One of them grabs the other's arm. "He's literally looking at her like she's the only wolf in the world."
"She said she wanted something big for her birthday and he just—did that."
"Wait, doesn't he have a Luna?"
The other one shrugs. "Alphas always have someone on the side. Besides, his Luna's a rank chaser. She doesn't care who he's with as long as the money shows up."
I close my eyes.
The noise from the stream echoes in my head long after I stop listening.
Chapter 2
Everyone thought we were perfect together.
Aldric Stoneclaw. Old Alpha bloodline. The kind of pack that's been running territory so long nobody even thinks to question it.
And me? I was nobody. Just an omega barely keeping her head above water, taking care of a mom who'd been sick my whole life.
When we first got together, I laid it all out for him. Figured he deserved to know what he was walking into.
Most wolves ran the second they heard about the medical bills. The fact that I was one bad month away from losing everything.
But Aldric didn't.
He looked at me like I'd just told him the most normal thing in the world. Then he took my hand.
"You've been doing this alone?" His voice cracked. "You don't have to anymore."
One night he pulled me close and whispered, "You're stuck with me now. I'm not going anywhere."
Everyone said I was the luckiest omega alive.
I believed them.
I believed him.
I never thought the mating ceremony would be the day everything fell apart.
I ran to the clinic with the money, hands shaking the whole way.
But when I got there, something was off.
The doctor wasn't rushing. He was calm.
"Miss Dawnmere," he said slowly, "your mother is stable."
I stared at him. "What?"
"This was a test." He wouldn't quite meet my eyes. "Maret Stoneclaw wanted to see if you were... right for the pack."
He paused.
"She's not pleased with how today went. If you want to stay in this family, you'll need to prove yourself."
"She's arranged for your mother to have the best care available. But you can't tell anyone. Especially not Aldric."
I got it. Loud and clear.
Talk, and my mom's on her own.
So I didn't.
No matter how much Aldric hated me. No matter how many times he threw that day back in my face. I kept my mouth shut.
But then I found out he was bringing other she-wolves into the den.
I saw it myself.
I grabbed his shirt. I was crying so hard I could barely breathe.
"Aldric, please. Please don't do this!"
He looked at me like I turned his stomach.
Pulled my hands off him. One finger at a time.
"The second you pulled that stunt—" His voice was flat. Dead. "You embarrassed me. You embarrassed this pack."
"That's when you stopped being the woman I wanted."
He stepped back.
"Now you're just someone I'm covering the costs on. So don't act like you get to ask me for anything."
After that, he stopped pretending.
She-wolf after she-wolf.
The sleep aids in my nightstand kept running out.
Tonight I can't afford to refill them.
So I go home.
But when I pull up to the den gate, every light is off.
I hit the buzzer, clutching my stomach as another cramp rolls through.
"Edda?" My voice comes out shaky. "Can you let me in?"
Nothing.
Then her voice crackles through the speaker.
"Alpha Stoneclaw's set a hard curfew. No entry or exit after ten p.m."
I check my phone.
10:01.
"I'm sorry, Luna," she says quietly.
"You'll have to come back in the morning."
Chapter 3
I dig through my pockets. Seven bucks. That's it.
I sit down on the front steps, arms wrapped around myself, trying to stay warm.
Trying to hold it together.
I keep thinking about this one night, years ago.
I'd worked a closing shift and got back to the dorms after lockout. Stuck outside in the cold with nowhere to go.
Then Aldric showed up.
He brought me here. Made me tea. Told me, "This place is yours now. You'll never be locked out again."
Now I'm staring at the same door.
Locked out by his order.
I sit there all night.
When Edda opens the door the next morning, I try to stand and my legs just... don't. Everything's gone numb.
"Oh my God—" She grabs my arm before I can fall. Her hand jerks back when she feels how cold I am. "How long have you been out here?"
I don't answer.
Her face goes pale. "Inside. Right now."
She gets me through the door, one hand on my elbow the whole way. Once we're in the entryway she looks at me, and something in her expression just shifts.
She stops asking questions.
Disappears into the kitchen. Comes back a few minutes later with hot coffee and buttered toast.
"Drink," she says, pressing the mug into my hands.
Three years in this den, and Edda's the only one who's never treated me like something that wandered in off pack territory uninvited.
"You're not what they say you are," she told me once, early on. "I don't know what happened. But I know you're better than that."
She'd barely known me a month.
She believed me anyway.
Aldric—who swore in front of the whole pack he'd stand by me no matter what—never did.
After I eat, I drag myself upstairs.
I'm almost to my room when I hear voices.
A woman laughing. Light. Flirty.
"You're such an ass. I can barely walk after last night."
And his voice. Low. Amused.
"Yeah? Want me to do something about that?"
He's laughing.
I stop.
I can't remember the last time I heard that sound.
I grab the dissolution papers off my nightstand and step into the hall.
Aldric has Thessaly Vorn pressed against the wall, his hand halfway up her skirt.
I clear my throat.
"Hey. Can I talk to you?"
He turns. The smile drops.
Thessaly straightens up, adjusting her top slow enough to make sure I see the marks on her neck.
"Oh, Eska." Her voice goes all soft and concerned. "Didn't realize you were home. Thought you got locked out and had to find somewhere else to sleep."
I don't look at her.
I walk straight up to Aldric and hold out the papers.
"I want to dissolve the bond. I'll pay you back. It'll take time, but you'll get every cent."
He glances at the papers. Then at me.
"Pay me back?" He almost laughs. "You don't even have a job. What are you gonna do?"
So he knows. He's always known. That I can't work—that every door closed the second his name got attached to mine.
I keep my voice steady. "How I handle it isn't your problem."
Before he can say anything else, Thessaly swipes the papers right out of my hand.
She flips through them, and then she actually laughs.
"Oh my God. Did you write this yourself? Look at these typos." She holds one up. "Did you just Google 'free bond dissolution forms'?"
