For Our Anniversary, I Returned His Mark

The moment Riven Ashton’s message appeared on my phone, a faint warmth stirred beneath the numb frost in my chest. After days of feeling nothing but the cold rhythm of survival, seeing his name brought a flicker of something like comfort.

[Okay.]

That was my reply—simple, final, safe.

‘Yeah, a month is too long,’ I told myself, staring at the message like it could ease the ache. ‘One week will do.’

Seven more days under this roof. Seven days to mourn the ashes of a bond Alpha Darius had already burned. Then I’d be gone. For good. No farewell, no final howl beneath the moon. I’d sever myself from this territory, this pain, and the Alpha I once thought was fated for me.

The moment I stepped into the pack house, I smelled her.

Lexie.

Her scent—a toxic blend of lilac and synthetic lust—clung to the air like spoiled wine. It wrapped around the walls of the home that was once mine. I followed it into the main hall, and there she was.

Lounging on the velvet couch like a queen in conquest, wearing my nightgown. The white one is lined with silver thread. The one Darius had once torn off me during our mating moon. Seeing her in it felt like being slapped. My wolf stirred restlessly but remained silent.

The door closed behind me, and she glanced up. Her lips curled into a sneer.

"Back already?" Her voice dripped with mockery. "You look like a mess."

She rose slowly, her bare feet soundless against the marble. Reaching me, she tilted my chin with her fingers—bold, defiant.

“Tsk,” she said, studying me like a cracked mirror. “Pale as death. If I didn’t know better, I’d say your wolf is dying too.”

She leaned in, letting the silk slip from her shoulder, revealing the mating marks across her chest. “See these?” she whispered. “All from Alpha Darius. Last night was… intense.”

My jaw tightened, but I didn’t pull away. My silence only encouraged her.

She dropped her voice, her words aimed at the wound. “He said I make him feel like a real man. That you lie there like a corpse. Cold. Weak. That your wolf hasn’t surfaced in months—probably bored of you too.”

I didn’t remember moving. One moment her breath was on my cheek, and the next, my palm connected with her face. The slap echoed. Her head snapped, blood rising to the surface.

Her gasp of shock was far more satisfying than it should’ve been.

“Know your place,” I said, my voice low—not from fear, but fury. “I’m still Luna. You’re just the servant’s daughter who clawed her way into a bed that was never yours.”

She snarled, showing her fangs, but then her gaze shifted. She went still.

And as expected, just a few moments later, Alpha Darius arrived.

I felt him before I saw him. The shift in the air, the weight of his aura pressing down like gravity. And as if almost instantly, Lexie dropped to her knees like prey caught in a predator’s gaze.

“L-Luna Avelyn, I’m sorry!” she wailed. “I should never have come back! I’ll leave—I’ll die if it means I’m not in your way!”

Alpha Darius moved fast. Lexie bolted toward the marble column, but he caught her just in time, pulling her into his arms like a fragile thing.

“Lex…” he said gently, “I invited you. If anyone has a problem with you… they’ll deal with me.”

Something cracked inside me then. Not all at once—but slow, splintering, final.

I didn’t cry.

Not even when he turned to me, cold and unfamiliar. “Avelyn Moonveil,” he snapped. “Apologize to her.”

I looked at him, my voice flat. “I didn’t do anything wrong. You’re not even curious where I was last night?”

“Did you—” he began, frowning.

“Don’t you want to know who I was with?” I interrupted. “What I’ve done?”

“I don’t care,” he said. “You don’t get to hurt Lexie. Apologize, or you’re suspended from your role. Out of Council. Out of everything.”

He thought I’d be devastated.

He never knew I only carried the burden so he didn’t have to. I bore his failures, hoping he'd one day choose me again.

Darius turned away with Lexie. Just before they disappeared upstairs, he told the maid, “Don’t let her eat until she apologizes.”

And just like that, the mate I had loved for three years walked away.

I stood frozen, staring at the space he left behind. Slowly, my body caught up with what my heart had already accepted.

I didn’t love him anymore.

Not after this.

--

The days bled into silence.

I was confined to the pack house, treated like a rogue. Three times a day, the maid asked if I’d realized my mistake. Three times, I said nothing. I counted the days. Five. Four. Three.

My phone buzzed with messages from Lexie.

In the morning I planned to leave, another message came.

[Bitch, you couldn’t win our mother, and you can’t win a man. One word from me, and Darius won’t come home for a month.]

She was right.

My mate never returned.

But Lexie made sure she sent daily videos—kissing on the beach, cooking in the kitchen, writhing beneath him under the moon. In the past, I’d have curled up and cried until my wolf howled.

But it was all in the past… Now, I felt nothing.

Darius had never been mine. He only borrowed my love until it became inconvenient.

By the fourth day, I’d survived on nothing but water. My limbs trembled. My vision blurred. But I refused to beg.

I refused to apologize for something I didn’t do.

That evening, I stepped into the garden, needing air—even if it was laced with lies.

Then it happened.

A golden retriever barreled out of nowhere, slamming into my side. I collapsed onto the stone path. I should’ve stayed standing—but I was brittle, hollow.

A sharp pain exploded in my abdomen.

Then I felt the wet warmth, I looked down, I wanted to scream, and cursed at the moon, but I couldn’t do anything but let blood soak through my pants. My knees buckled. The scent of iron filled the air. I couldn’t move.

No…

I knew instantly.

Two months ago, Alpha Darius and I had shared one last hollow night. His mother and elder Alpha Fenric wanted an heir. We hadn’t used protection. I had hoped.

Now, I feel that hope is dying inside me.

“Help,” I whispered.

Only the driver moved. He rushed me into the car, driving like hell toward the hospital. I clutched my stomach, my breath shallow.

Then the car stopped.

“Why—?”

“Luna Avelyn,” he stammered, “it’s Lady Lexie Moonceil’s birthday. Alpha Darius shut down the roads for her party. We… we can’t get through.”

I turned my head toward the window, and what I saw nearly broke me all over again. Fireworks burst across the sky in vibrant colors, laughter echoed in the distance, and the entire territory seemed to pulse with celebration.

And me?

I was bleeding out in the back seat of a car—forgotten, discarded, alone.

That was Darius, Alpha of the Nightbane Pack’s love out there.

Not quite. Not intimate. But loud, extravagant, and meant for someone else.

Each explosion of light in the sky felt like a dagger to my chest, a cruel reminder that while he lit up the heavens for her, I was left to suffer in silence.

With what little strength I had left, I reached for the ring on my finger—the symbol of three years of loyalty, of sacrifice, of believing in a bond that was never real.

My hands trembled as I pulled it free.

I rolled down the window, the cold night air cutting across my skin like truth itself, and without hesitation, I let the ring slip from my fingers into the darkness.

Let the wolves howl.

I was finished.

No more mourning. No more waiting.

Whatever love I had carried for him died in that moment—alongside everything else he’d taken from me.