After My Alpha Chose My Sister, I Walked Away

The pain in my chest was unbearable. It wasn't the physical pain from the fall—that was healing. This was something deeper, more primal. The mate bond, torn and bleeding inside me, punished me with every breath.

I stumbled back to my room, locking the door behind me. The celebration continued below, laughter and music floating up through the floorboards like needles piercing my skin.

"They're celebrating," I whispered to the empty room. "Celebrating while I die inside."

My hands trembled as I pulled out my journal—the one place I'd ever been honest. The pages were nearly full now, years of pain and hope and desperate love recorded in my careful handwriting.

I opened to a fresh page and stared at the blank paper. Something was crystallizing inside me—a decision I'd been avoiding for too long.

"I can't do this anymore," I said to myself, my voice breaking. "I can't be this person anymore."

The pen felt heavy in my hand as I began to write:

"I, Margot Brown, reject you, Alpha Hayes Bryant, as my fated mate."

The words burned onto the page like a brand. I felt something tear inside me as I wrote—the mate bond itself protesting, fighting against my will.

"I reject the pain you've brought me. I reject the humiliation. I reject a love that was never real."

Tears splashed onto the paper, blurring the ink. I didn't stop writing.

"I reject Skye's cruelty and my mother's hatred. I reject being wolfless. I reject being invisible."

The pain intensified with each word, but something else was growing alongside it—a terrible, wonderful sense of freedom.

When I finished, I read the words once more. They were my declaration of independence. My suicide note to the life I'd endured for too long.

I packed quickly—a single duffel bag with essentials. Clothes. A few books. The small savings I'd hidden away. Nothing that would be missed.

The pack house was still distracted by the celebration as I slipped out through the servants' entrance. The night air hit my face, cool and sweet with promise.

I moved silently through the territory, keeping to the shadows. The border patrols were sparse tonight—most warriors were at the feast. I found a weak spot in the perimeter, a place where the scent markers were old and fading.

With one last look at the lights of the pack house in the distance, I stepped across the boundary.

The moment my foot touched neutral ground, something shifted inside me. The mate bond stretched, thinned. It didn't break—not yet—but it was the first step toward freedom.

* * *

"The electroconvulsive therapy isn't a cure-all," Dr. Chen explained gently. "But for cases like yours, where the depression has become life-threatening, it can be a powerful tool."

I nodded numbly from my position on the hospital bed. The human psychiatric facility was clean and bright—so different from the dark, oppressive pack house.

"You understand the risks?" she continued. "Memory loss is a possible side effect. Sometimes permanent."

"Good," I whispered. "I want to forget."

She studied me with concerned eyes. "Margot, I need to be sure you understand—"

"I understand," I interrupted. "I want to forget everything. Please."

The first treatment was the worst. The electricity coursed through my brain like lightning, scrambling everything I was. When I woke up, hours later, there were holes in my memory—small ones at first.

But with each session, the holes grew larger. Days disappeared. Then weeks. Then years.

I embraced the emptiness. Welcomed it.

"Your progress is remarkable," Dr. Chen noted during our final session. "But I'm concerned about your decision to continue with the intensive protocol."

"I'm not going back," I said simply. "I need to be sure nothing remains."

She didn't understand what I meant—couldn't understand. But she honored my request.

The last treatment wiped away the final fragments of my old life. When I woke up, I knew my name. I knew basic things—how to read, how to speak. But the details of my past were gone.

In their place was peace. Blessed, empty peace.

* * *

Back in the pack house, Skye paced nervously in my empty room.

"She's gone," she hissed to herself. "She actually left."

Finding the journal was an accident—she'd been searching for anything valuable she could claim as her own now that I was gone.

But when she flipped it open and saw the rejection letter, her eyes widened with horror.

"No," she whispered, snatching up the pages. "No, no, no!"

She read it twice more, her hands shaking. If Hayes found this—if he knew I'd rejected him before I left—he would search for me. He would find me. And then everything she'd worked for would be lost.

With trembling fingers, she pulled out a lighter and set the pages ablaze. They curled and blackened in the sink, my final words to him reduced to ash.

Then she had an idea—a way to ensure Hayes would never look for me.

Working quickly, she gathered my bloodied clothes from the laundry where they'd been forgotten after my fall. She took them to the treacherous river that marked the eastern boundary of pack territory.

There, among the rocks and rushing water, she carefully arranged the scene—my clothes torn and bloody, a forged suicide note weighted down with stones.

She added rogue scents she'd collected from previous attacks—enough to convince any tracker that I'd been taken or killed.

As she worked, a smile spread across her face. By morning, Hayes would believe his mate was dead. And no one would ever question it.

No one would ever look for me again.