The Unmarked Luna

Chapter 3 Erasing the Past

The Beta took the cup with an unsteady hand and carried my blood to Selene. The Elders closed around her while I stood bleeding beside the table. No one stopped me when I left.

I had the time I needed.

I returned to my chambers without meeting a single guard in the corridor. Inside, I closed the door and set the latch for the last time.

I dragged a wooden chest from under the bed. It held Kael's council-meeting carvings, dried flowers from the woods, and a tarnished silver locket that would not close.

I had kept every piece because he had made or chosen it, even the flowers he forgot the day after picking them.

Now I laid the carvings on the burning logs and dropped the flowers and locket on top.

The petals blackened first. Heat split the carvings, and soot covered the faded silver. I stayed until the locket's chain sank between the logs and nothing could be taken back.

I traded my healer's robes for coarse wool trousers and a sturdy leather tunic bought from a traveling merchant weeks ago. Neither carried the Shadow Pack crest.

On the desk, I unrolled my *Contract Dissolution and Pack Withdrawal Statement*. The wording was formal, legal, and irrevocable. I signed and pressed a b****y thumbprint beside my name.

I left the document in the center of the desk, on the clear patch where Kael always put his gloves when he visited.

At the edge of Shadow Pack territory, the Moon Altar stood inside a ring of ancient stones. Cold clouds covered the moon, and Kael had posted no sentry at the old boundary.

I took a small, sharp silver blade from my pack and opened the vial of wolfsbane. The poison clung to the edge in a thin, clear film.

My fingers found the raised scar at my neck. Kael had made that one-sided mark to bind my loyalty. The academy texts named silver and wolfsbane as the only way to cut it out.

I closed my eyes and sliced.

Silver and poison burned through skin and into the false bond. My sight went white. The scream came when the last thread of Kael's command tore loose.

A second scream answered from the manor.

Kael's howl rolled over the trees from the direction of the manor. The bond had carried the cut back to the wolf who made it.

My knees buckled, and blood ran under my collar, but I caught one of the altar stones. I waited until I could stand without turning toward the manor.

With one hand pressed to my neck, I followed the tree line to the old road. The midnight carriage waited at the marker stone with both lamps burning gold.

I climbed inside and sank against the worn leather seat. The coachman checked the blood on my collar, asked no questions, and snapped the reins toward the Capital.

Through the rear window, the Moon Altar vanished behind the first bend in the road.