Not His First Choice

Chapter 2: The Broken

Mira pov

The pack hall smelled like pine smoke and roasted meat, and every lantern in Ashwood territory seemed to be lit that night.

I stood near the front with my parents, watching Deacon greet Elders and hunters and half the pack kids who used to chase us through the woods. He looked good in his dark jacket, hair pushed back, laughing at something one of his cousins said. Every so often his eyes would find mine across the crowd and he'd smile like the two of us shared a secret nobody else was in on.

I smiled back every time. I couldn't help it. My whole chest felt full, like it might spill over.

The Elders called for quiet a little after moonrise. Alpha Voss, Deacon's father, stood at the front of the hall with his hands raised, his voice booming out over the crowd the way it always did at pack gatherings.

"Eighteen years ago, my son was born under this same moon," he said. "Tonight, he becomes a man, and his wolf will show him the truth his instincts have been waiting to tell him."

I remember gripping my mother's hand.

Deacon stepped forward into the open space at the center of the hall. His shoulders were tense, his jaw tight the way it always got right before he shifted for the first time in a new season. I watched him close his eyes.

I want to be honest about what happened next, because for a long time I tried to convince myself I imagined it, that maybe I misread it, that maybe there was some other explanation. There wasn't.

Deacon's whole body went still. Then his head turned — not toward me, not toward where I was standing with my parents — but toward the other side of the hall, toward a cluster of girls near the food tables. His nose lifted slightly, the way a wolf's does when something pulls at their instincts stronger than anything else in the room.

His eyes landed on Brielle Carter.

I knew Brielle. Everyone did. She worked with the healers, kept mostly to herself, and had never once, not one single time, been part of any conversation about me and Deacon. She wasn't scheming. She wasn't trying to take anything from me. She looked just as shocked as I felt, her hand halfway to her mouth, her eyes wide.

Deacon crossed the hall toward her like his feet weren't fully his own anymore. The crowd parted without meaning to, the way crowds do when something big is happening and nobody wants to be standing in the middle of it. He stopped in front of Brielle, and I watched him breathe her in, watched something settle into his face that I recognized because I had spent years imagining that exact same look pointed at me.

Nobody announced anything. Nobody needed to. A match doesn't need a formal declaration when every wolf in the room can smell exactly what's happening.

I don't remember deciding to leave. I remember the hall getting too loud and too quiet at the same time, sound rushing in my ears like water. I remember my mother's hand tightening around mine, her voice saying my name from somewhere far away. I remember turning and walking — not running, not yet — toward the door, keeping my spine straight because some stubborn piece of me refused to fall apart in front of the entire pack.

I made it outside before the first sob broke loose.

I don't know how long I stood behind the pack hall, one hand braced against the cold log wall, trying to remember how to breathe normally. Long enough for the party noise to pick back up inside, laughter and congratulations swallowing up whatever I'd just lost. Nobody came to check on me. I think, looking back, everyone assumed I needed space. Or maybe nobody knew what to say to the girl who just watched her whole future choose someone else in front of two hundred witnesses.

I walked home in my flower-braided hair and my careful dress, and I packed a bag before my parents even made it back from the party.

My mother found me by the front door, breathless from running. "Mira, wait — talk to me, don't just—"

"I can't stay here," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "I can't watch this every day. I can't be the girl everyone feels sorry for at pack dinners."

"You don't have to decide anything tonight."

"I already decided." I pulled the bag strap over my shoulder. "I need to go."

She didn't try to physically stop me. I think some part of her understood that nothing she said would land, not that night, not with the wound still that fresh. She hugged me hard enough to hurt and made me promise to send word once a month so she'd know I was safe. My father, standing in the doorway with his jaw tight and his eyes wet in a way I'd never seen before, just nodded once and said, "Come back stronger than you left."

I didn't know yet what that would cost me. I only knew I couldn't stay in Ashwood territory one more day, watching Deacon and Brielle build the life I had already measured curtains for.

Before the sun rose, I crossed the northern border of Blackridge Territory and didn't look back.