Kiara.

There was no expression on his face. Nothing.

Kaiser just looked at me for a moment, and then he tried connecting to our bond. Since he never truly rejected me, the bond was still intact.

I could feel Kaiser reaching for the bond. Testing. Searching. Probing me with the soft invisible thread that once pulsed between us like a lifeline.

He was sniffing for madness.

For sickness.

For something to justify the way they were all looking at me.

His brow furrowed. Confusion flickered in his eyes. He breathed in deeper this time, and I felt the moment it hit him.

There was nothing.

No disease.

No madness in my scent. No rot in my spirit. Just me—scarred, yes. Gaunt. Hardened. But whole.

Stronger than before.

Stronger than most wolves he knew.

His jaw tensed.

His voice, when it came, was quiet. “Hmm, weird,” he said, almost to himself. “There's no madness in her scents, no sickness in her spirit.”

The words hit the ground like dead leaves. No one moved.

Not even my family.

My mother’s expression didn’t change. My father stood like stone. The guests had long gone, but the air still felt full of their judgment.

They didn’t believe him.

Didn’t want to believe him.

I took the blow in silence.

Then, calm as snow, I met Kaiser’s eyes.

“If you’re so sure that you want to be with my sister,” I said, “then reject me.”

His eyes widened.

The words hit him harder than I expected. He flinched, almost imperceptibly—but I caught it.

Shock. Hesitation.

He looked at me like I might shatter. Like I was glass barely held together, and one rejection would make me explode into pieces.

Then, of course, came Lyla.

Stepping forward, her lip trembling and her lashes wet. I almost rolled my eyes, but I didn’t flinch. Let her play her part.

“She’s… suffered so much,” Lyla whispered. “Kaiser, please just end it gently. Don’t hurt her.”

Her voice cracked perfectly on the last word. She knew exactly how to use her pain like perfume—subtle, sweet, poisonous.

Kaiser’s jaw clenched. He turned to me again. This time, the guilt was etched deep into every line of his face.

“Kiara,” he said, softly, “I’m sorry.”

My heart didn’t move.

“I can’t let you ruin her future,” he went on, quieter now. “You’ve changed. You’re not the girl I remember.”

I stared at him. At the man I once dreamed of. The mate I had loved so fiercely it nearly consumed me.

I nodded once. Flat. Dispassionate.

“Fine.”

He blinked, startled by how easily I let him go.

Then I felt the snap. That ancient bond between us stretched, then tore clean in half like silk sliced by a dagger.

It was done.

The mating bond was broken.

And I didn’t flinch.

Kaiser stood still, staring at me like I had just done something impossible. Like he expected me to collapse.

But I didn’t even sway.

In fact, I’d never stood straighter in my life.

And maybe, just maybe, that terrified him more than if I had begged him to stay.

I turned on my heel, ready to leave the wreckage behind and find a bed. My body was begging for rest. My legs ached with every step.

I made it halfway to the staircase before I heard her voice.

“Wait—”

My mother stepped in front of me, blocking the way.

I stopped.

Her smile was tight. Forced. Every muscle in her face was tense with polite horror.

“The servants will prepare a room for you,” she said.

The words were right. The tone was all wrong.

I knew that tone. The “please don’t embarrass us any further” tone.

As if I hadn’t already ruined everything just by existing.

“As you wish,” I said coolly.

I didn’t spare Kaiser another glance.

Let him linger with his grief. Let him simmer in the silence I left him in.

My mother gestured toward the house. “Follow Marta,” she said, pointing to a young servant girl with wide eyes and trembling hands. “She’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

I nodded, then followed the girl.

But I started wondering why we didn’t go up the stairs.

We didn’t even stay on the main floor.

She led me through the parlor, down a hallway I hadn’t walked in years, and past the kitchen.

She turned again.

Into the back pantry.

I stopped walking.

The air was colder here. Dustier. Forgotten.

She glanced at me nervously, then opened a narrow wooden door.

I looked inside.

It was a storage closet.

Lined with cleaning supplies—mops and rusted buckets stacked on cracked tiles. A few old suitcases were shoved into the corner, one covered in cobwebs. And on the floor… A thin, tattered blanket. And a blanket spread over bare stone.

A water jug in the corner. A small, flickering bulb on a cord.

I stared at it, stunned. My throat burned.

Slowly, I turned around. My mother stood in the doorway behind me, watching.

And then I muttered. “You want me to sleep here?”