After a difficult delivery, I was diagnosed with severe pelvic floor dysfunction. I'd lost almost all muscle strength, and my husband eventually stopped touching me because he claimed he couldn't feel anything. When our marriage finally fell apart, I had nowhere left to turn but to Daniel—the man who had raised me. Then one night, he found me crying on the floor, convinced there was something fundamentally wrong with me. He told me I wasn't broken. He told me I could heal. And he offered to help me rediscover the part of myself I'd spent years believing I'd lost—the part that still wanted to feel desired, wanted, and alive.

I knew the pattern before Damon even lifted the lid off that velvet box. Two pendants lay inside. One glowed with ancient pack magic—the Bloodstone, obsidian and ruby, passed through Blackthorn Alphas for seven generations. The other was dead metal, an Ironridge Chain, stamped out by the dozen in Greywood's forges. Luna's claws scraped the table as she reached. She always reached first. Her wolf scent spiked with satisfaction. Before her fingers closed around the Bloodstone, I shot my hand out and pointed. "I want that one." Damon's palm pressed down on my head, heavy and condescending, the same way he'd calm a nervous yearling. "Luna's wolf-blood runs pure. The Bloodstone would burn through your weaker veins. You know that." I didn't answer. My chest collapsed inward, a cave-in I'd felt a thousand times before. At Ashford Manor, Luna always sank her teeth into the first kill of the hunt. She claimed the warmest corner of the den. My mother said her silver fur carried our pack's honor; my father said favoring her was simple pack logic. The binding between our families had been sealed in blood before Luna and I could even stand on four legs—Ashford and Blackthorn, a union of territories. Every wolf assumed Luna would be the one bound to Damon. But Luna refused. She said she wouldn't trade her independence for a mate's collar, not even an Alpha's. So Damon's gaze shifted to me. To the shadow that had trailed her for 20 years. I pushed the Ironridge Chain across the wood. The metal scraped raw. "She can have both." I wasn't going to feed on scraps anymore.

The Prez of the Iron Vipers MC noticed it first when he found out I'd already signed the transfer papers for the club's out-of-state charter. I'd filled out all the paperwork before I even remembered I was supposed to ask his opinion. Then there was my best friend's wedding. Every other woman at the clubhouse party brought her old man. I showed up alone. Even the hospital procedure. I booked the appointment myself. I arranged the bed myself. I handled everything myself. He'd cornered me in the clinic corridor, his voice flat with that familiar impatience. "You sick?" He'd snatched the file from my hands before I could stop him. "Give me the file. I'll arrange it." The words came out before I could stop them. "I got it covered. Thanks. Wouldn't want to bother you, Prez." The sound of my own voice—so polite, so distant—made both of us freeze. After all, half a month ago, I was still the "clingy bitch" in his eyes. The one who couldn't decide what to wear to a club run without texting him. The one who couldn't choose which bar to hit without asking for his opinion. Something had shifted. And we both knew it. I just didn't care anymore.

After our son died, I killed every habit Lorenzo hated. Never again blowing up his phone. Never again sobbing when he didn't come home all night. Never again making a scene. Even after a collision, when the doctor asked whom to call, I just said, "No one's coming."

The wedding had been postponed eighty-one times. I sat in the study of the penthouse I shared with Damian Sterling, staring at my laptop screen. Outside, the Manhattan skyline glittered like a thousand false promises. Inside, the air was thick with Jasmine & Sandalwood—the scent Camilla Roth had chosen for our home. I opened my email and typed a single message to the wedding coordinator: "Effective immediately, change the bride's name on all materials to Camilla Roth. Send the updated invitations to the printer within the hour. No further consultation is required." The cursor blinked. Then the reply came, almost immediately: Ms. Vance, are you certain? Mr. Sterling specifically instructed us to— I typed back: I am certain. From the very beginning, Damian had given only one directive for our wedding: Let Camilla handle the aesthetic decisions. She has a natural eye. He claimed she was merely a consultant. But the peonies instead of roses, the harpist instead of a string quartet, the ivory satin instead of champagne, even the silhouette of my wedding dress—every detail bore her signature. She had smiled at the final fitting, tilting her head, and said, "A trumpet cut would elongate her frame better, don't you think, Damian?" He had nodded without looking at me. He was too busy scrolling through photos of Camilla's latest trip to Florence. So today, I decided to give them what they both wanted. The wedding, the penthouse, the life they had been curating together since she returned from London last year. And I would give myself the exit I should have taken long ago. I closed my laptop and stood. The city stretched beneath me, endless and indifferent. Let him keep his childhood dreams. I was finally ready for my own uncharted horizon. **

His hand found my thigh before I could say no. "Do you want me to touch you?" he asked, but his fingers were already sliding higher, pushing the fabric of my shorts aside. I didn't answer. My body never lets me. That's the thing about hypersexuality—your mouth says stop, your hips say more. And he knows it. He's been watching me tremble all night, watching me soak through my underwear in the dark of the tent. He's my best friend's brother. The man I should never want. But I forgot my patches, and now my skin is on fire, and every accidental brush of his knuckles against my bare stomach makes me gasp. I tried to run. I made it three steps before my knees gave out. He caught me, pulled me close, and I felt how hard he was against my lower back. "I won't hurt you," he whispered. But he's already hurting me—the good kind, the kind that makes me forget why I ever wanted to escape.