BOUND BY MOONLIGHT

Untitled Episode

[ELENA’S POV]

I made it to the parking lot before my hands started shaking.

The rational part of my brain was screaming that I’d just destroyed a critical pack alliance, embarrassed my family, and thrown away five years of… whatever Adrian and I had been.

But the rest of me felt lighter than I had in months.

My phone buzzed with messages:

*Mom: What are you doing?! Get back here!*

*Dad: Elena Marie Sterling, this is not how we raised you.*

*Aunt Claire: Honey, are you okay? I’m coming to find you.*

I ignored them all and opened my rideshare app. The wedding venue was an hour outside the city—plenty of time to figure out what the hell I was going to do next.

Those strange floating messages appeared again:

*[Go girl! But this is going to hurt later…]*

*[The Alpha will come after her for sure]*

*[Ten bucks says he shows up at her apartment within 24 hours]*

A car pulled up—black sedan, license plate matching my app. I slid into the back seat.

“Airport, please. International terminal.”

The driver nodded and pulled away. Through the rear window, I watched the elegant stone venue disappear behind trees. Somewhere in there, Adrian was probably having a meltdown. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was relieved.

My phone rang. Adrian’s name flashed across the screen.

I declined the call.

It rang again immediately. Declined.

Then text messages started flooding in:

*Adrian: Pick up.*

*Adrian: Elena, this is childish.*

*Adrian: I know you’re upset, but we need to talk.*

*Adrian: Don’t make me track you down.*

The last message made my wolf stir uneasily. Adrian was an Alpha—and a powerful one. If he wanted to find me, he absolutely could.

I opened a browser and searched for red-eye flights. London looked good. I’d always wanted to visit the British packs, and my college roommate had extended an open invitation to her family’s territory in Cornwall.

The floating messages reappeared:

*[Ooh, running away to England? Classic!]*

*[The Alpha is definitely going to follow her]*

*[This is getting good…]*

“Excuse me,” I asked the driver, “how fast can you get to the airport?”

He glanced at me in the rearview mirror, took in my wedding dress and probably my frantic expression. “Faster if you tip well.”

“Done.”

Twenty minutes later, I was power-walking through departures in a $10,000 Vera Wang gown, pulling my emergency go-bag (thank god for paranoid personality traits) behind me, and booking a one-way ticket to London Heathrow.

My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. Adrian’s calls mixed with my parents, pack elders, even some of the wedding guests. I turned it off completely.

The gate agent’s eyes widened when she saw me. “Miss, are you—is everything alright?”

“Wedding emergency,” I said, which wasn’t technically a lie. “I need to get on this flight.”

Something in my face must have convinced her because she processed my ticket without further questions.

I found my seat—thank god for first class and last-minute bookings—and finally allowed myself to breathe.

I’d done it. I’d actually walked away from Adrian Blackwood.

The woman in the seat next to me was staring. “Honey, are you running from or to?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Both.”

She laughed and ordered us both champagne. “Story of my life. I’m Margaret.”

“Elena.”

“Well, Elena, I don’t know what he did, but any man who lets a woman walk away in that dress is an idiot.”

If only she knew the half of it.

The plane pushed back from the gate. I watched through the window as Boston grew smaller below us, then disappeared entirely into clouds.

My phone, which I’d turned back on for airplane mode, showed 47 missed calls and over a hundred texts. The most recent from Adrian simply said:

*You’re going to regret this.*

I deleted it and closed my eyes.

For the first time in five years, I was completely, utterly free.

[ADRIAN’S POV]

Three days.

Elena had been gone for three days, and I was losing my goddamn mind.

“Alpha, the Sterling pack representatives are here,” my beta, Marcus, said carefully from the doorway of my office.

I didn’t look up from the contract I’d been staring at for the past hour without reading a single word. “Tell them I’m busy.”

“Sir, this is the third time we’ve rescheduled—”

“I said I’m busy!” The papers on my desk flew everywhere as my control slipped. Marcus’s eyes flashed gold as his wolf responded to the Alpha command, but he held his ground.

“With all due respect, you’re not busy. You’re obsessing.” He stepped inside and closed the door. “You need to fix this or move on. The pack is starting to worry.”

Move on? My wolf snarled at the suggestion, clawing at my insides. We hadn’t slept properly since Elena left. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face at the altar—calm, composed, utterly done with me.

“I know where she is,” I said quietly.

Marcus sighed. “Adrian—”

“London. Cornwall specifically. She’s staying with some college friend’s pack.” I’d had my trackers working overtime. It had cost me three favors and $50,000, but I’d found her.

“And what exactly are you going to do with that information? Drag her back? That worked so well the first time.”

I finally looked up at him. Marcus had been my best friend since we were kids. He was one of the few wolves who could talk to me like this.

“I made a mistake,” I admitted. The words felt like pulling teeth.

“You think?”

The floating messages appeared again, glowing in my peripheral vision:

[The Alpha is spiraling!]

[He hasn’t eaten in three days]

[Someone needs to tell him the female lead is actually happy in England…]

Female lead? These messages were getting weirder. Ever since that meteor shower last month, I’d been seeing them. At first, I thought I was going crazy. Then I started to realize they were… predictions? Commentaries? I still didn’t understand it.

But they’d been right about one thing—I’d pushed Elena too far.

“What about Sophia?” Marcus asked.

I growled. Sophia had been calling nonstop, convinced we were actually engaged now. “I never wanted Sophia. It was supposed to be a test—”

“A test Elena didn’t know about and didn’t agree to take.” Marcus crossed his arms. “You treated your mate like a game, and you lost. Accept it.”

“She’s MY mate!” The windows rattled with the force of my Alpha voice. “The bond—”

“What bond? You never completed the mating ceremony. You never even told her you felt the mate pull, did you?”

I looked away. The answer was no. I’d felt the bond snap into place six months ago, the moment Elena had walked into the alliance negotiation meeting wearing that green dress that matched her eyes. It had nearly knocked me on my ass.

But I hadn’t told her. I’d thought… I’d thought if she didn’t know about the bond, I could make her choose me anyway. Make her fall for me on her own. Prove she wanted me, not just the mate bond.

Stupid. So f*****g stupid.

“The pack merger is falling apart,” Marcus continued. “Elena’s father is furious. Your father is threatening to step back in as Alpha if you can’t handle this. And Sophia is telling everyone who’ll listen that she’s going to be the next Luna.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Then do something about it.” Marcus headed for the door. “But maybe this time, try actually talking to Elena instead of playing mind games.”

After he left, I pulled up Elena’s contact on my phone. The last message I’d sent—You’re going to regret this—glared back at me.

I deleted it and typed something new:

I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please come home so we can talk.

I stared at it for a long moment, then deleted that too.

Words wouldn’t fix this. I’d spent months using words to manipulate, to test, to push. Elena wouldn’t believe anything I said now.

I needed to show her.

I opened my laptop and booked a flight to London.