After Eight Winters of a False Mate Bond, I Walked Away

(Marisel’s POV)

My younger brother’s moon sickness flared up again, and he needed an elder healer immediately. But every healer and every sacred herb in the territory had already been sent elsewhere.

For the ninety ninth time, I finally managed to reach my mate, Alpha Trevian of the Silverthorne Pack.

“Trevian, my brother, he…”

“Marisel, behave. I am occupied right now. I will return to you later.”

Before I could finish speaking, the call went silent.

I refused to give up and called again.

This time, the bond stone showed that my link had been blocked.

A second later, the spirit monitor behind me released a long, broken sound. At the same moment, Trevian’s new lover, Frista Briarclaw, updated her Moonbook feed, celebrating that her spirit cat had just given birth.

So this was the urgent matter he spoke of. Helping his mistress welcome a litter of kittens into the world.

In my despair, I finally sent a message to the one man whose name I had never saved.

[You once told me that you owed me a debt, and if I ever asked, you would grant me anything.]

[I need your help to create a new identity and find me a territory where I can stay.]

His reply came almost at once.

[One month from now, I will wait for you at Crimson Howl Skyport.]

——

I opened Frista’s latest post again. It was a picture of a newborn spirit kitten. The caption read:

[Thanks to someone’s care, a new little life has entered this world~]

But in the silver mirror behind the photo, I saw a familiar figure.

Trevian.

The gentle gaze that once belonged only to me was now resting on Frista.

On her side, a new life had begun.

But my brother…

He would never have another chance beneath the Moon Goddess again.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed the framed portrait resting beside my bed. In it, my brother looked lively and full of youth. I was smiling brightly beside him.

And the young Trevian, staring at me with quiet affection, carried tenderness in his eyes.

At the time that portrait was painted, Trevian had not yet been recognized by the Silverthorne Alpha Clan.

Back then, he was only a stray wolf from the lower districts, surviving through fights and bloodshed.

Seven winters ago, I found him in a dark alley within the outer territory, his forehead covered in blood after a brutal fight.

I had not planned to interfere, but even in the darkness, his eyes still shone like silver flames. On impulse, I brought the wounded young wolf back to my tiny stone cottage.

Everything after that felt as if time had rushed forward. Trevian rose from a rogue wolf to the feared and respected Alpha of the Silverthorne Kingdom. And I moved from the crumbling lower territory into a grand alpha estate.

My younger brother no longer had to struggle through polluted market streets while dragging along his weak and sick body.

Back then, I used to circle around the alpha chamber again and again, asking him repeatedly, “From now on, this will always be our home, right?”

Trevian never became impatient. He would simply pull me into his arms and murmur, “Mm. Our home.”

But now, my brother was gone. And that home…

It had already disappeared long ago.

I collapsed onto the floor, clutching my brother’s still warm hand as I cried until my chest felt torn apart.

I could not even remember how many ritual documents I signed that night.

All I knew was that my once lively younger brother, reduced to skin and bones by illness, had finally become nothing more than a small urn of ashes.

Taking a shaky breath, I opened my chat with Trevian again. The last messages between us were from half a month ago.

That day, I had asked him when he would return to the territory.

He sent me a voice message that lasted nearly a minute, only to explain at the end that urgent matters within the alpha council were keeping him away.

That day had been our first mating anniversary.

And he had forgotten.

But in Frista’s Moonbook story, he appeared smiling beside her, accompanying her to the southern sea territories to watch the moonlit ocean together.