The taxi dropped me at the foot of the sprawling stone steps leading to the Blackwood Packhouse. I paid the driver in a daze, my movements stiff and robotic. The late afternoon sun felt like a stranger on my skin, too bright, too cheerful for a world that had ended.

I clutched the simple wooden box to my chest. It was cool and smooth beneath my trembling fingers, and impossibly light. It felt all wrong. How could a life, a whole universe of hopes and dreams, be reduced to something so small? I held it like it was the most fragile, most precious thing in existence, because it was. It was all I had left.

A faint thrum of music and a burst of laughter drifted from the open doors of the Packhouse, a sound so jarringly out of place that it made my stomach clench. It was a sound of celebration, a sound that had no right to exist in my shattered reality. My wolf, Ivy, paced restlessly in my mind, her hackles raised at the inappropriate joy.

The two guards at the door, warriors I'd known for years, straightened as I approached. Their faces registered a flicker of surprise before settling into respectful masks. "Luna," one of them murmured, pulling open the heavy oak door. "You're back."

I managed a tight nod, the effort of speech too great. I stepped over the threshold, my legs feeling like lead, and the full force of the scene hit me.

The grand entrance hall was a riot of color and light. Silver and blue streamers were draped from the high-beamed ceiling. A massive banner hung across the far wall, proclaiming in shimmering letters, "Congratulations!" Pack members, dressed in their finest, mingled together, champagne flutes in hand, their faces bright with happiness.

I froze, feeling like a ghost at the wrong funeral. This wasn't a homecoming. It was a party.

My eyes scanned the crowd, desperately searching for an anchor in this sea of wrongness. And then I saw him. Leaning against the great stone fireplace, a head taller than anyone around him, was my mate. My Alpha. Ryker Blackwood.

A raw, desperate wave of need and betrayal crashed over me. He was supposed to be gone, across the border settling a territory dispute. He wasn't supposed to be here. I had mourned our daughter alone because I thought he wasn't here.

I wanted to run to him, to throw myself into his arms and let the dam of my control finally break. I wanted to scream and cry and tell him our baby was gone, that our world had been torn apart.

But he was smiling. He was laughing at something his sister, Lyra, was saying. She stood beside him, her hand on his arm, her face glowing with a radiant, maternal bliss.

Then his gaze swept the room and landed on me.

The smile vanished from his face, instantly replaced by a flash of irritation, then surprise. He didn't move toward me. He didn't open his arms. He didn't do any of the things a mate was supposed to do. Instead, a frown creased his brow, and he made a small, impatient gesture with his hand, beckoning me over like a disobedient dog.

My heart, already a mangled ruin in my chest, plummeted into an icy abyss.

I started walking, each step a monumental effort. I could feel the eyes of the pack on me, their whispers a low buzz that pricked at my skin. They stared at my simple, tear-stained dress, at the plain wooden box I held as if it were a shield.

When I finally reached him, my voice was a dry, cracking thing. "Ryker. You're back... Why?"

His steel-grey eyes flicked down to the box in my arms, a flicker of disdain in their depths. He clearly thought it was some cheap, last-minute trinket.

He leaned in, his voice a low, commanding hiss meant only for me. "Of course I'm back. It's my nephew's Naming Ceremony. As Luna, your presence is required. Where have you been?"

The words didn't compute. My brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton. *Nephew? Naming Ceremony?* Then it clicked. Kian. Lyra's son. I knew she'd been pregnant, but I thought she still had weeks to go.

His words were a stiletto of ice, sliding between my ribs. He hadn't come back for me. He hadn't come back for Cora. He had come back for his sister's baby.

I looked up at him, my lips trembling. "Our daughter... Cora..."

"What about Cora?" he cut me off, his impatience palpable. "She's fine at the pack hospital. Dr. Vance is with her. Don't bring up her little sniffles at an event like this, Elara. This is important."

That was it. That was the moment the last, fragile thread of hope I'd been clinging to snapped. He didn't even know. He hadn't bothered to check. He didn't care.

The wooden box in my arms suddenly felt searingly hot, burning through my dress, branding my skin with the truth of his neglect.

Lyra glided closer, her smile as cloyingly sweet as poisoned honey. She looped her arm through Ryker's, a picture of familial perfection. "Sister," she said, her eyes gleaming. "You finally made it. Come now, don't be shy. Show everyone the gift you brought for my Kian."

Her gaze fixed greedily on the box in my arms.

A profound, soul-deep cold spread through my limbs. I looked at the happy, celebrated couple before me, at the joyful pack members surrounding them, and I understood. In this room, in this moment, I and the precious ashes I held were utterly, completely alone.

The chasm of what I knew and what they didn't was too vast to cross. The betrayal was too absolute to breathe through. All I could do was hug the box tighter, my only anchor in a world that had abandoned me.

Chapter 2

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