He said the words in front of the entire pack. Calmly, like he was reading out a debt. "I reject you, Lyra Vance." The bond didn't snap quietly. It tore through me while three hundred wolves watched the Omega they'd always ignored crumple at their Alpha's feet. By dawn I was banished, half-dead, with nothing left but a wolf that had never once answered me. Until it did. I came back with silver in my eyes, a power that was supposed to be extinct, and a name that wasn't mine. Kael didn't recognize me. The bond did, and it has been eating him alive ever since. Now the Alpha who threw me away is begging for a chance he doesn't deserve. I'm not sure I'll give it to him. And the real reason he cast me out isn't about me at all. It's buried inside his own pack, with someone who needs us both broken. Some mates are forgiven. Some have to earn their way back, one scar at a time.