Chapter 5

Jenna POV:

The Pack House ballroom was suffocating.

I wore a long-sleeved black dress to hide the bandages. I had sold my grandmother's diamond earrings an hour ago. The cash was taped to my thigh.

Corbett stood at the front, holding a champagne flute. Ivana was beside him in a silver gown that looked suspiciously like my altered wedding dress.

"Welcome," Corbett boomed. "Tonight is about healing. My sister-in-law, Ivana, has turned her trauma into beauty. I present: Broken Memories."

He pulled the cloth from an easel.

The painting was a crude depiction of a wolf crying blue tears mixed with blood and glass.

She had painted my breakdown. She had painted the destruction of my father's legacy and titled it her trauma.

"Ivana captured the pain of living with mental instability," Corbett said solemnly, looking at me. "We must support the fragile."

The spotlight swung to me. Three hundred pairs of eyes. The crazy Luna.

I walked forward. The crowd parted, sensing the strange, cold void where my scent should be.

I reached the stage. Corbett looked down, smug. He thought I was coming to apologize.

"You like the painting, Jenna?" Ivana chirped into the mic. "I think it captures your... essence."

I ignored her. I looked at Corbett.

"You think I am fragile," I said. My voice wasn't amplified, but in the silent room, every wolf heard it.

"Jenna, don't make a scene," Corbett warned, his Alpha tone vibrating.

I raised my left hand. With my bandaged right, I gripped the platinum mating ring.

I pulled. It scraped over the knuckle.

The moment the metal left my skin, a shockwave hit the room. A collective gasp. To remove a mating ring in public was a declaration of war.

I dropped the ring on the table next to the painting. It clattered loudly.

"I am not fragile, Corbett," I said clearly. "I am just finished."

I closed my eyes, found the thick, pulsating cable of our Mind-Link, and visualized a pair of shears.

Snip.

I slammed a mental wall down. The link severed. The constant background noise of his emotions vanished. Silence. Blessed silence.

Corbett stumbled back, clutching his chest. "Jenna!" he roared, eyes flashing red. "I command you to stop!"

The Command washed over me.

But I didn't kneel.

I was already halfway out the door. The Command faltered. Why? Because in my heart, I no longer recognized him as my Alpha.

I pushed through the double doors into the night.

"Where to?" the taxi driver asked.

"The airport," I said. "International terminal."

As the car pulled away, I saw Corbett running out the front doors, frantic, sniffing the air.

But thanks to the masking agent, I was already a ghost.