The Wedding's Still On. You're Still Not Invited.

The yacht docked at Blackwater Port just after dawn, its sleek hull cutting through the mist like a blade, and yet not a single soul aboard looked in my direction. Not the Alpha of the Blackwell Pack, Damon Blackwell. Not his brother, his beta Malric. Not even Nina, whose sobs had echoed so theatrically into the night that for a brief, treacherous second, I almost believed she meant them.

Almost.

I descended the deck in utter silence, the sound of my boots on wet wood the only proof I was still here—soaked to the marrow in salt and shame, with skin chilled not just by the frigid sea I had been thrown into, but by the memory of betrayal that seeped deeper than any ocean ever could. The night before had changed something inside me—fractured the mortal girl I used to be and awakened something buried far beneath. Something ancient. Something wild.

Damon had shoved me without remorse, without hesitation, straight into the black, freezing waves, his hand as cold as his eyes. And after I surfaced—after I had fought the darkness with every ounce of strength I had left in me—he had stared down at me like I was nothing but dirt beneath his heel.

“That’s what you get,” he had said coldly, his voice devoid of any shred of guilt, “for being jealous. For acting like the world owes you something.”

No apology. No outstretched hand. Not even the cowardice of regret. Just those words, bitter and dismissive, spoken like a sentence from an Alpha who had already forgotten what it meant to bleed for someone.

And the stranger who had pulled me from the water—whose arms were strong and otherworldly, whose presence had felt not quite human and yet achingly familiar—had disappeared before I could even see his face. No name. No explanation. Just a scent that lingered in my senses like the edge of a howl on the wind. Like moonfire.

I returned to the apartment in silence, shaking, teeth clenched against the sobs that clawed at my throat. But I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I didn’t howl. I packed.

Drawers flew open like wounds torn apart. Suitcases filled with the pieces of a life I was now abandoning. Clothes. Documents. A battered hard drive with secrets they’d kill for. My grandmother’s silver crescent-moon necklace, a relic forged in the old ways—wolf-forged, bound by ancestral blood. Everything was untouched by them. Everything is not poisoned.

I was folding my last coat when the buzz of my phone broke the silence, its vibration sharp and smug against the wood floor.

A message from Nina.

No apologies. No remorse. Just cruelty dressed in glitter and filters.

“Hey Lyra~ Check out my Insta! New pics!”

I tapped the screen, already knowing what I’d see—but not expecting the raw, vicious spectacle of it.

There she was, in my robe—the pale pink silk from Milan that I’d left aboard the yacht, now clinging to her like a trophy. Alpha Damon beside her, bare-chested, half-asleep, his arm draped over her shoulder, his nose grazing the curve of her nearly exposed breast like he was already marking her in front of the entire pack. Malric sat on her other side, his arms around her waist, all of them wrapped in sheets and secrets, tangled in a pose that screamed possession.

“Best night ever with my fav boys. Thanks for making my birthday unforgettable. I loved every whip and bit of cream you gave me.”

Then the final blow:

“Oh, and guess what, Lyra? Alpha Damon gave me your brand-new car. Said it was his money anyway, and the color suits me better. But don’t worry—I’ll let you borrow it… If you say please.”

I stared at the screen, laughing under my breath—not because it was funny, but because it was done.

I tapped the little red heart beneath her post and tossed my phone onto the bed, its glass screen gleaming like a severed tether. Tomorrow, I will vanish. I wasn’t taking ghosts with me.

**

That afternoon, I walked into the firm—my human job, my perfectly constructed mortal life—and handed in my resignation with a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes. I shook hands with people who would never understand what I was burning down. Then I went home.

Alpha Damon’s silver necklace, engraved with a phrase in the old tongue of our kind—words that once meant mate and now meant nothing. Malric’s broken lighter, which he’d once lit beneath the full moon as we’d sworn to protect each other’s secrets. A cracked luxury watch, once Damon’s prized gift, is now as useless as the promises it symbolized. Letters, so many letters—words scrawled in devotion, tucked beneath my door during heat-cycles and sleepless nights.

The jacket Damon had sworn was mine forever still smelled like his cologne, now sickeningly sweet—Malric’s dented motorcycle helmet. The music box that played our shared song… silenced now by dust.

I struck a match.

The flame danced like a spirit, curling into the past with hungry precision.

I fed it the jacket first—watched it curl and blacken, watched the scent of false memories burn away. One by one, I fed the fire. Letters. Jewelry. Photos. The old map we’d drawn for our future.

By the time Alpha Damon burst into the room, his face wild, the room was filled with smoke and fire.

“Lyra—what the fuck are you doing?!”

I didn’t look at him. “Getting rid of mold.”

“These aren’t just things!” he shouted, stepping forward, his voice cracked with disbelief. “They’re us.”

“No,” I said, my eyes locked on the flames. “They were lies.”

Luther stumbled in behind him, lunging toward the burning pile—but recoiled when the fire kissed his fingers. “You’re insane. You just destroyed everything.”

I turned to him, my voice like a blade. “You gave my car to Nina. She gets the gifts. She can keep the ghosts, too.”

“You’re really doing this?” Alpha Damon asked, trembling. “Because of one mistake?”

“You shoved me into the sea,” I said, quietly but firmly, “knowing I couldn’t swim. You let me drown.”

“She was crying. You were cruel—”

“I was dying!” I roared, my voice cracking at last, my wolf surging beneath my skin, claws itching, bones aching to shift. “And you watched.”

The room fell still.

“You ruined her birthday,” Malric, who also just came into the room, hissed. “All because you couldn’t stand sharing the spotlight.”

I smiled bitterly, the last tear drying before it ever had the chance to fall. “Yeah. I’m done. This is the last time… you’ll ever see me.”

The fire roared as I turned away, its smoke curling toward the ceiling like the final breath of the past. Behind me, Alpha Damon and Malric stared in stunned silence, watching everything they took for granted turn to ash.

It was funny, in a way. They had almost burned the city down for Nina’s staged tears. But when I was drowning, when I was breaking apart—not one of them even asked me if I was okay.

And now they cried over what they had lost in the fire.

Let them.

Because from now on, I would no longer be the girl they tried to bury.

I would become the wolf they never saw coming.