When a little pup trip and scrape her knee, Madelyn was already there before anyone else. Kneeling in the dirt, pressing a cloth to the wound and whispering something so gentle the girl stopped crying. I forgot myself.

I moved before I thought about anything and walked straight towards her. I didn’t say her name, I don't have to.

She looked up, her eyes a little surprised to see me that close to her but not angry nor cold. When I opened my arms, she stood and stepped into them with no hesitation nor bitterness.

Her head rested against my chest for a brief second and her hands clutched my sides like she still knew they belonged there.

And I…I held her like an idiot, like a man who still thought he had the right.

My heart cracked open.

This is what peace feel like. This, this is what our love used to be. When I closed my eyes, I could almost believe we were back there before the war, before the bond and before everything fall apart.

Angela’s voice shattered the moment like ice breaking across stone.

“Oh!” A small gasp then soft sound of her stumbling feet.

I turned instantly.

She stood not far behind us, holding her ankle as she winced in pain, her face twisted in discomfort.

“I, I didn’t see the root,” she said, her eyes wide and watery. “I was looking for you and I… I tripped.”

The others rushed toward her, concerned. A few omegas murmured her name. They reach to help her but she looked past them, right at me.

“I think I twisted it,” she added, her teeth biting her bottom lip.

Madelyn have already stepped back with her arms falling to her sides and her expression unreadable.

I hesitated then crossed the space between us and lift Angela gently into my arms.

Her hands wrapped around my neck, trembling slightly. “Thank you,” she whispered.

I didn’t look at Madelyn again, I couldn’t but I felt her silence like a brand against my back, felt the shift in the air.

When I carried Angela away, I told myself it was the right thing to do, that, it's my duty and the bond. That it's what I had to do but why did it feel like a betrayal?.

~

Later that night, when the packhouse was quiet and Angela was asleep in my bed, I sat on the edge staring out in the window.

The same one Madelyn used to hum beneath. The moon was high, pale and cold, I hated it because I kept thinking…

What if fate got it wrong? What if Angela’s bond was never meant to be mine? What if the one I chose first, the one I loved before destiny interfered was actually the one the Goddess would’ve given me.

I buried my face in my hands. I wanted Madelyn to hate me, it will be easier if she do but she won’t. She kept on being good, healing pups and wearing her smile like armor, giving the world a version of herself even I don’t deserve anymore.

She’s still her and I, I don’t even know who I am anymore.

~

Angela's POV

She was smiling, giving and standing tall like the world haven't crumbled at her feet.

I watched from the corridor shadows with my arms crossed and my silk robe whispering against my legs as Madelyn passed through the training wing with maddening grace, nodding politely to the elders and offering her hand to a nervous pup.

Her face serene like she haven’t just been replaced, like she didn’t understand she's already forgotten.

It annoys me.

She should be weeping in her chambers and packing her things. She should’ve run by now, that’s what Luna's does, when they’re rejected, they vanish quietly without grace but not her.

She’s clinging, pretending, performing, like some noble martyr. She even made him smile. I saw and I felt it.

Jace’s face. His weary and haunted face lit up like the sun peeked through his ribs for the first time in months because of her, because she played nursemaid to a pup with a scraped knee and wore a damned smile like a weapon.

And when he hugged her? Oh, I tasted iron in my tongue.

“Is something bothering you, Luna Angela?” asked sweetly by one of the healers as she passed me in the hall after attending to my needs.

I smiled tightly.

“No,” I said. “Not at all.”

~

Later that evening, I waited for her in the sacred garden or what remained of it. The air still smelled of burnt vines and ash. The stone path cracked where the moon roses once grew. I made sure of that.

It was symbolic, really. A garden passed from mother to daughter, Luna to Luna burned to the ground, just like her reign.

She came walking barefoot as if summoned by fate itself. Madelyn always walked softly like the earth might shatter if she stepped too hard. She walked so fragile, tragic and so annoyingly pure.

When she saw me, she didn’t flinch.

“Angela,” she said calmly. “Out for a stroll?”

I turned slowly, smiled wider.

“This place used to be so beautiful,” I said, crouching to run my fingers through a pile of charred petals. “Your roses were famous, weren’t they? Passed down through Luna blood.”

She said nothing.

“I wonder,” I continued, rising to meet her gaze, “what else ends with you?”

Madelyn narrowed her eyes, just slightly. “What do you want?”

“Let’s not pretend anymore,” I said, stepping closer. “No more sweet smiles, no more gracious bowing. You’re not the Luna anymore. You’re just a woman clinging to a title that no longer fits.”

“I didn’t come to fight you,” she said quietly.

“No,” I breathed. “You never do, you just exist, don’t you? Like a ghost in the halls and whisper in Jace’s chest.”

She stiffened, just a fraction.

I smiled wider.

“Five years you were with him,” I said softly. “Five long years before the war and yet… no child, no heir, not even a spark.”

Her lips parted but didn’t speak.

I tilted my head. “Maybe, just maybe, if you’d given him that, you might’ve had a reason to stay, a purpose. But now…”