Chapter 9
990 Words
Aurora's POV
Logan stares at me.
The slap still rings in the air between us. His hand is pressed to his own cheek — not from pain, I think, but from the shock of it.
"Let's get a divorce," I say again. Tears slide down my face, and I don't stop them. I don't wipe them away.
"You've lost your mind."
"I want a divorce, Logan."
"Lost your mind." He says it again, like repetition will make it land differently. Then something shifts — the shock on his face was replaced by contempt. "And go where? You walk out of this pack and then what? No wolf. No protection. You know what happens to a lone wolfless woman out there? How many days do you last?"
"Better than staying here."
His jaw locks. "Is this you playing games with me? Is that what this is?"
I look at him.
I almost smile.
"Don't." His words come out low. "Don't even think about it."
"My mind is made up."
"What about Noah?" His eyes narrow. "You'd just leave him?"
"I'm taking him with me."
Logan goes very still.
"Say, That, Again."
The red bleeds into his eyes slowly, from the edges in — Canis surfacing behind them, that flat, animal fury that has nothing to do with reason. His nostrils flare. The closed room fills with something I feel before I understand what it is: the Alpha's aura, pressing down, filling up the space between us.
I know better than to push an Alpha wolf that close to the edge.
"I know this isn't easy to hear," I say, keeping my voice level. "It's the first time I've said it. You don't have to accept it tonight." I take one step back. "We can talk about it later."
I turn and walk out.
***
The grounds between the pack house and the Luna suite are dark and quiet, and I keep my head down and let the tears fall.
I held it together in that room. I kept my voice even and my hands still and I walked out without running. And now, with no one to hold it for, I can't stop.
I press the back of my wrist to my mouth and keep walking.
I never thought it would come to this. I never thought I'd be walking across dark grounds at midnight with a divorce on my lips and photo pieces still caked into the cuts on my palms, trying to remember how to breathe.
I remember the boy who used to take the blame for me. Twelve years old, standing in front of both our parents with his chin up, saying it was his idea, it was his fault — whatever it was I'd done that day. His face when he looked at me afterward, like he could do anything as long as it was for me.
I remember the night he ran twenty kilometers through the dark to see me at Hawthorne Pack before school started. He showed up at my gate at six in the morning, out of breath, told me he just missed me. I remembered the way his eyes used to light up, the warm smile.
I remember his hands holding mine under the white veil, and his voice saying: "I will protect you. Always."
That man is gone.
I don't know when it happened — maybe all at once the night Eileen walked in — maybe it had started even earlier, when he began to examine me the way everyone else did.
I stop walking. I tilt my face up to the dark and breathe until the crying stops.
Then I go inside.
***
I sit at the small desk in the corner of the Luna suite and work it through the way I'd work through any crisis — methodically, from the outside in.
I am leaving this pack. I've known it since I’m in the dungeon, maybe before. But leaving without a signed divorce agreement isn't leaving. It's running. And running gets me sent back.
The moment Redmoon issues a warrant, any pack that finds me hands me over. An Alpha has the authority to put a Luna on trial directly. Without that document, I'm still legally bound to this place regardless of where I go.
There's another reason. Without the divorce filing, Eileen can't be formally registered as Redmoon's Luna. A woman like that — I've seen what she'll do to protect what she wants. If I leave without the paperwork finalized and stamped, she'll never stop looking. She would make sure I was dead, not merely missing.
And there's Noah. I need his custody written and witnessed and submitted before I go anywhere. Without it, I have nothing.
Once both signatures are on the documents and they reach the werewolf court, the marriage is dissolved. That's it. No warrant. No grounds to pursue me. No legal claim on my son.
I know a route from the east border — a path through the old logging trail that the pack doesn't patrol, because it leads into human territory and wolves generally don't bother with it. Even if they came after me, they can't maintain wolf form in the middle of a human city. Therefore, large-scale searching becomes nearly impossible.
I'll need the gun. I'll need to move fast. But I've run supply routes in worse conditions than this.
The timing matters. In fourteen days, it's the full moon — the first shift ceremony for the year's new wolves. Every member of this pack with any rank will have their eyes on it, on the young ones going through their first transformation.
It would draw everyone's attention away from the Alpha and Luna's relationship troubles—and from the border inspection.
Fourteen days. That's how long I have to get Logan to sign.
I rest my chin in my hands and think about how.
And then, slowly, it comes to me.
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