After Rebirth, I Left the Mate Who Once Died for Me

Chapter 2 A Clean Break

The laboratory floor chilled my feet. The severed bond ached under my ribs, but the packing could not wait.

I unlocked the steel cabinet behind the false wall. Caleb had never known about it. I packed the master serums and my handwritten research journals into a cushioned case.

Elara’s simplified recipes stayed on the workbench. None of them could produce the master serums.

The heavy oak door to the lab slammed open, crashing against the stone wall.

Caleb.

He filled the doorway, shoulders tense. His eyes found the bandage on my left hand and stayed there for a beat.

"Your hand." His voice caught. "It’s still bleeding."

For one beat, he looked worried. Then his lip curled, and Alpha Caleb was back.

"Stop this ridiculous act, Serena." He came toward me. "Packing your things? Is this another game? You hurt yourself, and now I'm supposed to come running?"

I snapped the case shut and faced him.

"I’m not playing a game, Caleb."

I held out the sheet from my desk. He took it after a brief pause. The pack’s administrative office had stamped the Declaration of Departure an hour ago.

His breath hitched. "What is this?"

"It’s my departure form. You’re free too."

He stared at the paper, then at me. "You can't be serious. You wouldn't survive a week outside Wind Valley without my protection."

"Watch me."

I picked up my case and headed for the door. Elara waited in the hallway, wearing the worried look she used whenever Caleb was watching.

"Serena, please." She reached for my arm. "Don't leave like this. Caleb is upset. He needs you."

I pulled my arm away and walked past her into the night air.

A car waited at the edge of the territory with its headlights on.

Caleb laughed from the laboratory doorway.

"Let her go," he called to the guards. "She'll come crawling back within three days. They always do."

I settled into the back seat. The driver pulled away, and Wind Valley’s lights disappeared behind the trees.

The car was headed for Crescent City, a neutral zone.

He expected me back in three days.

The three-day deadline passed without me.

Exactly one week after I left, Caleb was presiding over a council meeting when the great hall doors burst open.

A patrol captain stumbled inside. His face had gone gray, and black sores covered his arm. Purple smoke lifted from the open wounds.

"Alpha!" He collapsed. "A new toxin from the Shadowfen spiders. Elara’s antidote does nothing!"

(Caleb's POV)

The great hall went quiet around the patrol captain's last words. *Elara’s antidote does nothing.*

I kicked my chair back and stood. The laughter from the night Serena left came back to me word for word.

I ran to the medical wing. Burnt potions had buried the usual smell of herbs. Pack members lay moaning on the cots, their skin gray and the sores on their limbs leaking purple fluid.

Elara stood among scorched cauldrons and wilted herbs, twisting her hands while tears ran down her face.

"The reagents are wrong! The moon was in the wrong phase!" she cried when she saw me. "It's not my fault!"

"You can't even brew a simple cooling draught." One of the elders pushed himself up in the corner and looked straight at me. "This never happened when Lady Serena was in charge. Her remedies worked."

Serena had never lost a pack member to poison or illness. I had never asked how she managed that.

I kicked the nearest table. Vials and mortars hit the floor. Then I went to Serena’s laboratory.

Her laboratory.

The room was cold and empty, though Serena’s floral soap still clung to the towels. Every drawer held the same simplified recipes she had left for Elara.

Something white showed through the ash in the fireplace.

I dropped to my knees and pulled a scorched scrap from the cold hearth. The edges broke under my fingers, but Serena's precise handwriting remained clear.

A chemical formula covered the page. I could not follow half of it. In the margin, she had written one note.

*Elara's substitute compound is unstable. In the presence of spider venom, it will accelerate cell decay. Fatally flawed.*

I read it twice. Elara’s compound made the venom worse.

Elara had copied Serena’s work without understanding it. I had still put her in charge, and my pack lay sick a few doors away.

The poison was spreading. We were running out of time.

I sent an appeal through official channels to Crescent City and S Group, the pharmaceutical company that had appeared in the last few months.

I left my title out of it. I offered any price and asked to speak to whoever was in charge.

That evening, a courier brought the reply: a heavy invitation card stamped with a silver ‘S’. S Group was hosting a gala that night. If I wanted to plead my case, I could do it there.

My hands shook when I reached the gold lettering at the bottom.

*Hosted by the President and Founder of S Group,*

*Serena.*