Chapter 2

After that day, Mira never set foot in the hospital again. Not once. She didn't call. Didn't text. Didn't reach through the mind link to ask how he was healing.

Let Ivy play nurse.

Let Adrian enjoy her sensitive, fragile company.

Without his mate by his side, Adrian's recovery moved at a crawl—slower than any Alpha wolf had a right to heal. It took him nearly half a week just to walk on his own. The pack began to whisper. Mira could feel the weight of their stares, their speculation, their quiet judgment.

She didn't care.

From the moment Adrian had told her she didn't deserve to be Luna, something inside her had already started packing its bags. She was a Sterling's daughter. And a Sterling never forgot a wound.

Not even one wrapped in bandages.

The growl of Adrian's car engine faded outside their home. Mira didn't move from the bedroom sofa. Her tablet glowed in her lap, screen filled with legal archives and old ritual texts—anything that might tell her how to break a blood vow without tearing herself apart in the process.

She heard the front door open. A pause. Then footsteps.

Adrian stepped inside and immediately went still. The house was spotless—it always was—but for the first time in three years, his Luna wasn't waiting in the entryway to greet him.

"Mira."

His voice echoed through the mind link, sharp with expectation.

Silence.

"Mira, answer me."

Nothing.

She heard him climb the stairs, two at a time, and didn't bother looking up until the bedroom door swung open. His scent hit her first—sandalwood and pine, dark and warm and infuriatingly familiar. Her wolf stirred. Mira's grip tightened on the tablet until her knuckles went white.

Adrian's jaw was tight as he took in the sight of her sitting there, still dressed in lounge clothes, hair loose, clearly not having moved all day.

"I've been calling you," he said, voice low. "Why didn't you answer your Alpha?"

Mira set down her pad and forced her expression into something light. Something careless.

"I thought you wouldn't be lonely," she said. "After all, don't you have your excellent assistant to keep you company?"

The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them. They sounded bitter. Small. Jealous.

But it was too late to take them back.

Adrian's frown deepened. He stepped into the room, and the air thickened around them. "You know Ivy has been through a lot. She's sensitive. Fragile. You shouldn't have snapped at her."

Ivy. Ivy. Ivy.

Mira's pen clattered against the table.

"Right," she said, standing abruptly. The chair scraped against the floor. "She's sensitive. She's fragile. She needs protection. So go protect her! Why do you even come back here?"

She looked up at him then, eyes wide and burning with tears she refused to let fall.

Adrian blinked—a flicker of surprise crossing his features before it vanished behind that familiar cool mask. "Watch your tone, Mira."

His hand came down on her shoulder. Firm. Possessive. Commanding.

"You are my mate," he said quietly. "You should never have turned your back on me."

Mira's lashes fluttered. So he does remember she's his mate.

Adrian leaned closer. His breath brushed her cheek, warm and slow. "I need you, Mira."

Her heart clenched.

Not "I miss you". Not "I'm sorry". Not even "I want you".

I need you.

Tattered and strained, but the bond was still there. And he needed its strength to heal. The finest doctors, the strongest wolfsbane tonics—none of it could quiet the ache of a blood vow left cold. It demanded submission from her, yes. But it also demanded something from him.

To be a worthy husband.

And lately…

He had failed.

Adrian tilted her chin up, his thumb brushing her lower lip, blind to the tears gathering in her eyes. He wanted her mouth. Her warmth. Her submission.

He didn't want her.

And Mira had never felt more alone in her entire life. Her hands slammed against his chest. "Don't touch me!"

Adrian's eyes flashed gold. "Mira. My patience has limits. You can't hide behind shadows forever."

He stepped closer, his Alpha dominance flooding the room like a suffocating tide, and before she could move away, his arms wrapped around her, pulling her against him with the certainty of someone who had every right to do so. The bed caught her hard as he pressed her back onto it, his weight pinning her down as panic bloomed through her chest like poison.

"Submit to your Alpha," he growled. "That is your duty as Luna."

Mira's heart cracked clean in two.

This was the man she had married?

Not the gentle one who had held her through nightmares. Not the patient one who had promised her safety. This one—the one who thought her body was a right, not a gift.

She had known darkness before.

Three years ago, a week before their wedding, rogues had taken her. They had held her captive for three days in an abandoned warehouse, days filled with fear and uncertainty. Her mother had died trying to save her. The memory of that helplessness, that terror, that complete loss of control—it lived in her bones, in her blood, in the way her body convulsed whenever she felt truly trapped.

Adrian had found her. Held her. Promised her she would never have to feel that fear again. "I will never force you, Mira. Never. You're safe with me."

But now his weight pressed her into the mattress. His hands tore at her clothes. His strength held her down while she squirmed beneath him—and suddenly she wasn't in their bedroom anymore.

Darkness swallowed her vision. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. The walls closed in.

She didn't remember reaching for the lamp.

But she remembered the crack of ceramic against skull.

Adrian reeled back with a snarl, blood streaming down his temple. "What the hell is wrong with you, Mira?"

She didn't answer. Didn't stop to see the damage.

She shoved him—hard—and scrambled off the bed, crawling across the floor to the farthest corner of the room. Her fingers tore at the torn blanket draped over the armchair and she wrapped it around herself like armor, like a shield, like something to hide the girl still screaming inside.

Her whole body shook.

Adrian froze. His wolf went still.

He didn't need to ask. He could smell it—the sharp, sour terror flooding off her skin. The bond between them pulsed with her panic, ragged and raw.

Panic attack.

Again.

"Mira," he said slowly, raising one bloodied hand. "I wasn't going to—"

"Get out!" Her voice cracked, splintered, broke apart. "GET OUT!"

For a moment, something flickered across Adrian's face. Not quite guilt. Not quite regret. Something harder. Colder.

He wiped the blood from his brow and looked down at her—curled in the corner, wrapped in a blanket, shaking like a trapped animal.

His jaw tightened.

"You can't live in fear forever, Mira." His voice was flat now. Exhausted. Done. "I am your Alpha. You have to move past this eventually. Three years, Mira. I've waited long enough."

He pulled the door open.

"This is the last time."

The door clicked shut behind him.

And Mira sat alone in the silence, hugging the blanket to her chest, finally letting the tears fall.

Mira didn't know how long she sat there. The tears had dried sometime in the dark. Not because the pain had faded, but because her body had simply run out of salt and sorrow.

Then her phone buzzed.

She blinked at the screen, vision blurry. A delivery confirmation. The cake.

Her stomach turned to ice. It was their anniversary.

The irony crashed over her like a wave of ash.

Three months ago, her doctor had finally given her hope. "Your symptoms are improving, Mira. The avoidance response is weakening. With time and trust, you're making real progress."

She had been so happy she'd nearly cried in the examination room. That night, she had lain awake planning. Their anniversary. A candlelit dinner. Soft music. And then—if she was ready, if the courage held—she would finally give Adrian what he had been waiting for.

A wife who could be touched without shattering.

And maybe, if the moon blessed them, a child.

She knew he wanted an heir. The whole pack did.

But now?

Now there was only the cold bite of the blanket's torn edges against her fingers, the echo of his weight pressing her down, the memory of his voice saying, "This is the last time."

The shame burned deeper than any wound. She had been making progress. The doctor had said so. And then one moment of weakness—his touch, her fear, his impatience—and it all came crashing down.

How, she wondered, did they get here?

She stayed in the corner long after midnight bled into dawn. The first grey light of morning crept through the curtains, thin and lifeless, like the hope she had once carried in her chest.

Her phone buzzed again.

She glanced down, and her brow furrowed.