Chapter 1

I was plating the last of the rosemary roast when the comm crystal on my wrist started flashing like mad.

Top-priority message. From the Temple.

I wiped my hands and tapped the pale blue screen open.

Dear Ms. Lia: Following this year's review by the Sacred Spring, the mate bond recorded between you and Alpha Kael has been found to be an error. Your true match rating is zero. The bond is void as of today. Please report to the Temple within thirty days to file for dissolution. We wish you all the best.

I looked at that zero for a good thirty seconds.

Something I'd been holding on to for three years finally let go.

Three years ago I'd landed in this world out of nowhere. Werewolves, vampires, mages, the whole mess. I had no magic at all, and in my first week a stray wolf nearly tore me apart in the street.

Kael was the one who saved me.

He was the strongest Alpha in the city. Cold, controlled, completely out of reach. That day the water in the Sacred Spring lit up bright enough to hurt, and the Temple announced I was his fated mate.

So I held on to him with both hands. It was the only way to survive here. For three years I played the perfect fiancée, humble and attentive and never any trouble.

He didn't like noise, so I walked around the house on tiptoe. He didn't like the way humans cooked, so I taught myself to sear a whole cut of meat until the outside was dark and the inside still ran red.

He was cold to me. He'd vanish from the territory for a week, two weeks at a time, and I never said a word about it. I messaged him every single day to ask if he'd eaten, if he was getting any sleep.

Because I knew what would happen without the mate bond. A human with no magic wouldn't last three days on these streets.

And now the Temple was telling me the bond had never been real.

I wasn't his mate.

I stood there for a long time. So that explained it. Three years of him keeping me at arm's length, never so much as touching my hand on purpose.

He'd known the whole time. The great Alpha had worked out from day one that I wasn't his type.

I let out a long breath. My shoulders felt lighter than they had in years.

If I wasn't his simp anymore, what was I still cooking for?

I picked up the rosemary roast I'd spent all afternoon on and dumped it straight in the trash.

Then I pulled off my apron, went to the bedroom, dragged the suitcase out from under the bed, and started throwing clothes into it.

I was leaving.

Better to walk out on my own than wait for Kael to come home and throw the fake fiancée out. At least this way I'd keep a little dignity.

Heavy footsteps at the front door.

That familiar cold scent of his filled the living room.

Kael was home.

He was wearing a well-cut black coat, the shoulders still damp from the night air. Under his short silver-grey hair, those amber eyes looked sharp enough to see straight through me.

The old me would have gone to meet him, taken his coat, asked him softly if he was hungry.

This time I didn't even turn around. I kept folding sweaters into the suitcase.

The footsteps stopped in the bedroom doorway.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"What are you doing." Kael's voice was low, with a faint rasp in it.

I zipped the suitcase shut, dusted off my hands, and turned to face him.

"Packing. As you can see."

His eyes narrowed. He looked at the suitcase on the floor, then at my face, bare of any makeup.

"Where's dinner."

"In the trash."

His brows pulled together. For the first time, that blank expression of his cracked.

"In the trash?" He repeated it like the words didn't make sense.

"Yes. In the trash." I started wheeling the suitcase toward the door. "You got the Temple's report too, I assume. Since the whole thing was a mistake, I'll stop being an eyesore. Thank you for putting up with me these three years, Alpha Kael. I'll work out what I owe you for rent and food at market rate. I can't pay it right now, but I'll write you an IOU."

I got all of that out in one breath. Honestly, I thought I sounded pretty great.

Kael didn't move out of the way.

He filled the doorway, his shoulders taking up nearly the whole frame. He looked down at me, and there was something churning behind his eyes that I couldn't read.

"Are you sure?" He took a step forward, and the weight of him pressed in on me.

I backed up half a step before I could stop myself. My nerve was going, but I kept my face straight.

"Very sure. Kael, we don't fit. There's no reason for you to keep forcing yourself to put up with a human who can't even do magic. Let's let each other off the hook."

He looked me over. In the end he didn't say anything at all. He took off his coat in silence and tossed it onto the couch.

"It's late. We'll talk tomorrow."

Then he walked into the bathroom and shut the door.

I stood there staring at it, completely lost.

That wasn't how this was supposed to go.

Wasn't he supposed to look relieved? Write me a check and tell me to get out?

So why did he look angry?