Chapter 27
Chapter 27
Alpha Peter left me behind.
The roar of engines echoed in the underground garage. A message popped up on my phone:
[While I’m away, pack up all your belongings from the residence.]
I didn’t reply.
Silently, I began clearing traces of myself from the home I had lived in for eight years.
I stopped at the wine cabinet and pulled out the bottle of Blood Moon wine we drank after his championship victory. His clumsy handwriting still etched on the glass:
“For My Luna.”
Then I spotted the lighter he gave me.
On my eighteenth birthday, Peter was still just an Alpha candidate lingering at the edge of the
combat arena.
That night, under the moonstone altar, he cornered me with the lighter in his hand, his fingers brushing over the crescent birthmark on
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“Chloe, when I become Alpha, you’ll be the first
I mark.”
Tina, my wolf soul, whispered like falling leaves:
“Throw the lighter away. We’ve already
shattered ourselves for him.”
I clutched it tighter.
“Let’s just stay one last night. After sunrise tomorrow… let’s pretend the lone wolf we found in the silver birch forest at eighteen has finally been reclaimed by the Moon Goddess.”
After a long silence, the phone lit up again.
Peter had probably found poor little Faye by then, trembling with fear.
He was finishing our eight–year love with
something he thought was graceful.
[You can still contact me if you need anything.]
[Aside from giving you a title, we’re still
friends.]
I had loved Alpha Peter for eight years.
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And all I got in return was a casual “friend.”
Autumn dusk, near the abandoned dueling arena, in the silver birch forest–I met him
again.
I knelt in the mud, fingertips brushing the deep gash on his shoulder, bone visible through
flesh.
“There’s silver powder in the wound–who did this to you?”
“… Mind your own business. Betas shouldn’t
approach an Alpha’s dueling ground.”
I tore off a strip from my dress, pressing it against his bleeding collarbone.
“Well, your blood got on my shoes.”
As I leaned closer, the crescent birthmark on my wrist began to burn.
Tina howled inside me:
“It’s him! Your fated mate!”
I stuffed the moonstone into his palm, holding
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“Let go! You don’t understand what bonding with someone like me means. In the next duel, I could die out there. And if I do, you’ll be exiled
as a traitor’s mate—”
Tina roared inside:
“Tell him! Look at the golden gleam at the corner of his eyes–he’s holding back the urge to mark you!”
Peter’s voice came out hoarse:
“Chloe… think carefully. Life with me means bloodshed, blades, silver poisoning. No flowers, no ceremony, maybe not even a proper home
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But I nodded stubbornly.
“Alpha Peter, I don’t care about the future.”
“I only want you.”
I held guns with him. Held knives with him.
Spent nights reeking of bandages and antiseptic.
Tina murmured:
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“Eight years. Every wound he dragged home from the arena, you treated with silver birch
bark and laurel oil.”
Over and over, I passed out from his grip around my throat–only to wake and hold him
again.
He said, once he became the greatest Alpha in
the Southern territories, he’d bond with me.
Now that he had finally done it…
The first thing he chose to do–was push me
away.
I’m twenty–six.
Not young anymore.
I can’t keep being reckless.
Even my own pack… they’ve raised a fine male
wolf, just waiting for me to give a title.
