"You're really doing this?"
"Orion." I held his gaze without flinching. "You took the only thing our daughter had left. Do you understand what that means?"
He didn't answer.
"It means Mia might die." I let that sit. "You chose Lily's survival. That was your call to make. I won't pretend I have the right to judge you for it. But from this moment on—you've also lost the right to call yourself my mate. Or Mia's father."
I let go of the papers and turned for the door.
"Elara."
He was there in two steps, one hand closing around my arm—strong, certain, the grip of someone who had never really believed I could leave.
I turned back. I didn't fight it. I just looked at him.
"Go be with Lily," I said. "She's your family."
* * *
He wasn't a heartless man. He never had been.
Over five years
