Too Late, the Luna Has Already Moved On

Angela's POV He didn't hold me after s*x. He lit a cigarette instead. “Let's sever our mate bond.” His voice was flat. The same tone he used to approve supply requisitions. I sat up so fast the room spun. "What?" Five minutes ago, this man had been inside me. His hands in my hair, his mouth on my throat, telling me I was his. Now he wanted to cut our bond like he was canceling a damn meeting. I stared at him. "You're serious." “Adrienne's been diagnosed,” Jake said. "Terminal. The healers give her six months. Maybe less. "He took a slow drag." "It's her dying wish. To be my mate." The smoke drifted between us. "We'll resume the bond after," Jake said. "Six months. It's only to comfort her, Angela. You understand that." It wasn't a question. It never was with Jake. I stared at him. Really looked at him. Sharp brows. Straight nose. That mouth I used to think was perfect. Now it just looked hard and selfish. One stormy night, the wind howling, he had stepped between my stepfather and me. In his hands was a rotten plank. Knuckles turned white. “Touch her again, and I’ll make sure you regret it!” he had snarled, teeth bared. I couldn’t forget it. The look in his eyes that night. After that, I fell head-over-heels in love. Nothing was too much. Whatever he asked, I’d hand it over. Seven years. That was how long I had loved this man. Before the altar. Before the mark. Before I was ever called Luna. My wolf had chosen him when I was seventeen. I'd spent seven years orbiting a man who treated my devotion like background noise—a ruffle of my hair when I did something right, a feather kiss that landed and disappeared, and warmth rationed out as it cost him something. People called me a simp. I called it love. I wore both labels and told myself the difference mattered. A year ago his grandfather fell to Alpha madness. The elders passed the succession to Jake overnight, and suddenly there was a Luna position to fill and elders to satisfy, and I was the obvious candidate—seven years devoted, no complications, already trained to want nothing from him. He brought me to the altar. We marked each other under the Moon Goddess's eyes. On our ceremony night, he turned away from me in bed. I told myself he was tired. The year we became mates, the more I attached myself to him, the more distant he grew. I could even taste his impatience in the air. "Angela." His voice cut through. "Are you listening?" "Do we have to do this?" He exhaled. Long and slow. "She's dying." “I heard you.” Impatience flashed in his eyes. "She loves me. She's always respected our bond—never crossed the line, even when—" He stopped. Started again. “She's a good person. She's suffered enough. Don't make me believe you're the kind of woman who'd deny a dying girl this one thing.” I looked at him then. The same face I had memorized a hundred times. Sharp brows. Straight nose. Thin mouth, pressed flat. Just a man who wanted what he wanted and expected me to step aside and smile about it. I didn't have an answer for him. But it had started the day that she appeared in our lives. "If we sever the bond," I said carefully, "it won't come back the same." "I know what I'm asking." "Do you?" Something moved behind his eyes. Not guilt. Impatience. He waited three seconds—I counted—then said, "Yes. You—" "Fine." He blinked. I had never cut him off before. Not once in seven years. His jaw tightened. "You timed this. You're trying to force my hand, aren't you?" I said nothing. Jake stubbed the cigarette out. Got dressed without a word, each movement clipped and precise, and walked out without looking back. The door slammed. The sound went through the room, and then there was nothing. I don't know how long I sat there. Long enough for the sheets to go cold beneath me. Long enough to run the whole conversation back twice, looking for the moment I'd misunderstood. There wasn't one. The bond tugged once, low in my chest, tracking his footsteps down the corridor out of pure habit. Seven years, my wolf had known where he was every hour of every day. I pressed my hand flat over my sternum and waited for it to settle. It settled. The silence after was worse than the slamming. I got up because I couldn't stand that bed another minute. Shoved my arms into a sweater and went downstairs. The foyer light was still on, and on the floor just inside the front door lay a white envelope. No name. Nothing written on it at all. I'd gotten envelopes like this before. Blurry photographs, inanimate objects. This one was different. I knew it before I opened it. One photograph. Clear. Crisp. Jake's profile caught in the foyer mirror—sharp and undeniable. His expression was open in a way I had never once seen it directed at me. Something in his eyes that I didn't have a word for, because he'd never looked at me like that. Tender. I turned it over. He came to see me again. My hands kept moving. More photographs beneath the first. I went through them one by one, flipping each to the back, reading each inscription in her neat, unhurried hand—the writing of a woman with nothing to hide. He told me I'm the one in his heart. Two figures sharing an umbrella in the rain. Rainy nights are cold, aren't they? Not for me. He keeps me warm. A blurry shot of a man mid-laugh, head thrown back, every line of him unguarded. The real mistress is the one who isn't loved. Angela, you were a spur-of-the-moment choice. He admires me. He shares my passions. I'm the one he loves. I set that one down. Adrienne Jenson. I had known her name for months. Celebrity florist. The bouquet in our living room that Jake swore he'd chosen himself. I'd touched them and thought how strange it was that he'd noticed what I liked. He hadn't. She had. I looked at the photographs spread across the bedsheet. My hand moved to my stomach. Three days ago, a healer had pressed warm hands there and smiled. Congratulations, Luna. Jake's pup. Growing in me right now, while he slammed doors and called his dying lover a good person and asked me to simply step aside. A tear hit the photograph. Then another. I didn't wipe them. I picked up Jake's lighter from the nightstand. The first photo caught fast. Her handwriting went first—the one he loves—curling black at the edges, then collapsing. I fed the rest in slowly, one by one, watching seven years of evidence reduce to ash in the glass tray. The last ember died. I set the lighter down. He had no idea what he'd just agreed to. He thought he knew me—the Angela who chased and forgave and swallowed her own hurt and stayed. He thought that woman would be here when he came back. She wouldn't. Seven years of my life. Every last one of them repaid tonight. I made a decision. I’d no longer love him.