LYRIC POV
Her lungs were on fire.
Lyric's legs gave out somewhere deep in the woods where no sensible pack wolf would ever go. The rogue territory. The dangerous place. The nowhere land between packs where predators hunted and wolves disappeared and nobody asked questions.
She didn't care.
She collapsed hard against a massive tree trunk and the impact knocked the remaining air from her chest. Her whole body was shaking. Not from cold. From the absence of something. The bond was still there, she could feel it like a phantom limb, but it was broken now. Shattered. Gone.
A few hours ago it had been alive inside her. A constant pull. A constant presence. For six months it had beat like a second heart, telling her that somewhere in the universe, her other half existed. That she mattered to someone. That the universe had marked her as belonging to him.
Now there was nothing but silence and emptiness and the terrible knowledge that she had never mattered to him at all.
Lyric pulled her knees to her chest and let the sobs come. They were ugly sounds. Gasping, broken, desperate. She cried so hard her whole body convulsed. The borrowed dress was torn from the branches. Her feet were bleeding. Her braided hair had come loose and hung around her face in tangled strings.
She looked like she felt inside.
Broken.
Time stopped having meaning. The moon moved across the sky. Wind picked up and died down. Stars flickered. Lyric stayed pressed against the tree, crying until her throat was raw, until her eyes were swollen, until there was nothing left inside her but an empty, hollow ache.
She didn't know how long she had been sitting there when she heard the footsteps.
Her head jerked up. Every muscle in her body tensed. Out here, alone and vulnerable, sounds in the darkness meant danger. Predators. Rogue wolves. Things that hunted the weak and broken.
Maybe that was fine. Maybe being hunted was better than going back.
A figure emerged from between the trees. Lyric's breath caught, but it wasn't a predator.
It was Iris.
The old healer moved slowly, her gray hair catching what little moonlight filtered through the branches. She was wearing her sleeping clothes and a heavy shawl. She must have come straight from the packhouse the moment she realized Lyric had fled.
Iris didn't say anything. She just settled down on the ground beside Lyric with a groan, her ancient bones creaking. For a long moment they sat in silence. Iris didn't ask questions. She didn't demand explanations or try to convince Lyric to come home. She just sat there like she had all night, like there was nowhere else she needed to be.
Like Lyric mattered.
Dawn came slowly. The sky turned from black to gray to soft pink. Birds started singing in the branches above. The forest came alive around them while Lyric and Iris stayed motionless against the tree.
Lyric's voice was barely a whisper when she finally spoke. "He didn't even look at me."
Iris didn't respond right away.
"All those months. The way the bond pulled me toward him. The dreams. The way my wolf screamed every time he was close. I thought he felt it too. I thought somewhere deep inside, the bond was pulling at him just as hard."
Lyric's voice broke. "But when he announced her name, he didn't even look in my direction. Not once. Like I was so invisible that I didn't even register as something he needed to avoid. Like I was less than nothing."
Iris reached out and took Lyric's hand. Her grip was strong despite her age.
"He did not feel the bond," Iris said quietly. "Or he felt it and chose to ignore it. Either way, the result is the same. He rejected you."
The word hung in the air between them like poison.
Rejected.
Lyric started crying again, but silently this time. Tears just rolled down her face while she stared at nothing.
"What do I do?" she whispered. "How do I live in the same pack as him? How do I watch him with her every day? How do I feel the ghost of this bond every time he walks past me?"
Iris was quiet for a long time. The sun climbed higher. Pack wolves in the distance started their morning routines. Somewhere in that packhouse, Kade was probably waking up next to his perfect Luna in his perfect position as the perfect Alpha.
Finally Iris spoke.
"You have two choices, child. You can stay. You can go back to the packhouse and do your kitchen work and laundry. You can watch him and ache for him and spend the rest of your life being the invisible omega who loved an Alpha that never loved her back. You can be the girl he rejected, and that is all you will ever be."
Lyric looked at the old woman.
"Or you can leave," Iris continued. "You can walk away from Shadowpine and everything you know. You can find something bigger than your broken heart. You can become someone so powerful, so extraordinary, that one day when he sees you again, he will finally understand what he threw away."
"He will never see me again," Lyric said. "I am omega. I am nobody. I will spend my whole life being nobody."
"Not if you do not want to be," Iris said. Her eyes were fierce despite her wrinkled face. "I have been teaching you healing for a year. You have a gift, Lyric. A real gift. Not the kind that comes from bloodline or status. The kind that comes from inside. The kind that cannot be given or taken. The kind that changes people."
Iris squeezed her hand. "If you leave, I cannot promise you will ever be happy. But I can promise you will become strong. I can promise you will build a life that is yours. And I can promise that someday, when he realizes what he lost, he will regret losing you for the rest of his life."
Lyric stared at the old woman. Part of her wanted to stay. Wanted to crawl back to the packhouse and hide and pretend tonight had never happened. That was the easy choice. The safe choice. The choice that didn't require her to face the unknown.
But another part of her was already transforming. The part that had felt the mate bond. The part that had believed in something impossible. That part was already angry. Already determined. Already done with being invisible.
She looked down at the torn dress. The borrowed thing that had never fit right anyway. The dress of a girl who did laundry and took up space and apologized for existing.
That girl was about to cease to exist.
"How long will it take?" Lyric asked. "To become someone different?"
"As long as it takes," Iris said. "Years probably. Maybe the rest of your life. Growth is not quick. But it is possible."
Lyric nodded slowly. Then she looked at Iris with eyes that were no longer soft. Something had shifted inside her while they were sitting against the tree. Something hard and bright and unbreakable.
"I need to go home for three days," Lyric said. "I need to pack my things. And I need your healing journal. The one with all the herbs and remedies."
Iris's eyes widened slightly with understanding.
"You are sure?" the old woman asked.
Lyric stood up. Her legs shook, but she didn't fall. She brushed the dirt from the borrowed dress and met Iris's gaze steadily.
"I am not going back. I am going to disappear from Shadowpine for three years. Maybe longer. And when I come back, if I come back, Kade Blackwood is going to regret the day he ever saw me and chose to reject me."
She extended her hand to help Iris up.
"I am leaving. Tonight. And I am never coming back as the girl he threw away."