Not yours to reclaim , unclaimed and unbothered

Chapter3

Berlina POV

I made it home at eleven-thirteen.

I know the exact time because I stood in the doorway of my childhood bedroom, the one my parents had kept exactly as it was when I moved out at twenty, same curtains, same desk, same shelf of board games I had beaten everyone in this house at so consistently that by the time I was sixteen nobody would play with me anymore, and I looked at the clock on the wall and thought: eleven-thirteen.

Eight days ago at eleven-thirteen I was choosing which earrings to wear to the gala. Standing in front of my mirror deciding between the gold ones Thorne had given me for my birthday and the silver ones I had bought myself. I chose the gold. I remember thinking it was a small thing but it felt right, like a gesture, like the kind of declaration people in love made to each other in the language of small choices.

I had worn his earrings to the ceremony where he rejected me.

I took them off now and set them on the desk. I looked at them for a moment. Then I opened the drawer, put them inside, and closed it.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

The bond has been hurting ever since the elevator, like a bruise that won’t decide if it’ll heal or scar. It’s not sharp, just a steady ache. I’ve been dealing with it for three hours by shutting it away, keeping moving, and not letting my face show what I’m really feeling.

I was home now. There was no public here.

I lasted approximately four more minutes.

Then I went to the kitchen because I couldn't sit still and the only thing I knew how to do with my hands when my mind was moving too fast was give them something to do, and I started making dough for a honey cake I had no intention of eating, and somewhere between measuring the flour and reaching for the butter my hands stopped shaking. I sat down on the kitchen floor and pressed my back against the cabinet door and let the tears fall.

It was not elegant. It was a twenty-three year old woman on a kitchen floor at midnight with flour on her hands with tears running down her face and four years of something she had believed in completely turning out to have been a story with an ending she had not been shown.

I cried for eleven minutes. I counted.

Then I stopped.

I stopped not because I was done, I wasn’t, and I knew I’d need way more time. I just gave it eleven minutes ‘cause that’s all I had. I’ve got a big decision to think over, a company to run tomorrow, 78 interest forms to check, and I need to focus on my dad’s explanation about how tonight was not a disaster.

My mother appeared in the kitchen doorway.

She looked at me on the floor with the flour on my hands and the cabinet at my back and she did not say anything. Did not offer comfort in words or ask me questions or tell me it was going to be okay, because Liora Armandi had always understood that there were moments when comfort was just noise.

She went to the kettle. Made tea. Set a cup on the floor beside me. Then she sat on the floor next to me with her own cup and her back against the adjacent cabinet and she waited.

We sat there for a long time without speaking.

At some point she reached over and covered my flour-covered hand with hers.

Eventually I leaned my head against her shoulder.

And my chest hurt less than it had an hour ago. It’s not fixed, just quieter, like a wound after the first sting fades and you start getting used to carrying it.

"Mum," I said.

"Mm."

"I'm not going to be okay tonight."

"I know."

"But I'm going to be okay."

She was quiet for a moment.

Then: "I know that too."

I sat up, saw the dough on the counter, and stood. The kitchen floor felt uncomfortable, like it always does after a while. I washed my hands and finished the honey cake because I don’t leave things unfinished, even at midnight, even on the worst nights.

Especially then.

My mother sat at the kitchen table and watched me work.

"Seventy-eight," I said.

"What?"

"Got a summary of expressions of interest from last night. Wren sent the report this morning with a ranking system. She’s got a “first impression” column and flagged a Creston Alpha for bragging about territory size.

"Smart girl."

"She is." I set the dough to rest. "I'm going on a blind date.”

The kitchen went quiet.

My mom gave me that look she always uses when she’s weighing how much to say. I’ve seen it my whole life—it means she has a strong opinion and is deciding whether to speak or just watch.

"That fast?" she said.

"It was a public announcement," I said. "But, I didn't think there would be a lot of applicants."

She stared at me, then gave a single nod like she’d made up her mind and grabbed her tea. “Pick the good ones,” she said. “Not just the interesting ones. The ones that are actually good.”

"You think there will be good ones."

She said, “I think you’ve spent four years with someone who never really understood what he was choosing. There are wolves here who would understand it fully. You should let them try.” I turned back to the counter.

Didn't say anything for a moment.

"He's going to be watching," I said. "Thorne.”

"I know," my mother said.

"I don't know if I can do it with him in the room."

"Yes you can."

She said without hesitation. “You grabbed that mic with the bond snapping and didn’t flinch. You can handle anything with or without him.”

I pressed my hands flat on the counter.

She’s right—always right, which is both comforting and annoying.

I put the honey cake in at one-fifteen am, then sat with Mom at the kitchen table, going through Wren’s report, the flagged candidates, and the two I picked for the first dates. She gave sharp, spot-on opinions on three of them, just like she always does.

At two-thirty I closed the laptop.

"Get some sleep," my mother said.

"After the cake."

She stood. Kissed the top of my head. Went back to bed.

I sat alone, the honey scent and that steady, quiet ache from the bond, the house dead‑silent, yesterday’s nightmare already behind me.

My wolf was awake.

Feeling that new edge in my wolf since the elevator, something that wasn’t there at the gala or with the mic or after I cried on the floor for eleven minutes and still finished the dough. For twenty-three years it’s been quiet, accommodating, making room for everyone else’s dominance because that’s what Omegas do in Tarr’s hierarchy, a world that set my rank’s ceiling before I was born.

My wolf was not making space anymore.

It was paying attention.

The oven timer went off.

I took the cake out. Set it on the rack. Stood back and looked at it, golden, even, exactly what I had intended when I started it, which was not nothing given the state of the hands that had made it.

I cut a small piece. Ate it standing at the counter at two-forty in the morning.

Then I went to bed.

My phone buzzed as I was lying down. I reached for it without thinking.

Expression of interest number seventy-nine. Timestamped at two-forty-seven, submitted through the formal channel Wren had set up. I should not have been reading submissions at this hour.

I opened it anyway.

Three paragraphs. The first introduced the sender, a name I did not recognise, a pack I knew distantly, a profession I found immediately interesting. The second explained why he was reaching out, which was direct and specific and showed he had actually read my stated criteria rather than simply reacting to the announcement.

Set my phone on my chest.

I looked at the ceiling.

The bond ached. My wolf stirred. The cake cooled in the kitchen and somewhere across the city Thorne Silverfang was having whatever version of a night a man had after doing what he did, and there were seventy-nine expressions of interest and an Inter-Pack Social in four days and a company to run in the morning.

I put my phone down.

I closed my eyes and slept.