Chapter 5

Elara Nightwind POV:

Ryker's breathing was heavy in the suffocating silence of the room. I could see the wheels turning in his head, his mind scrambling to process a reality it was not equipped to handle.

He could accept that I had helped him. He could even, perhaps, accept that I was unhappy. But his Alpha pride, his male ego, could not accept the simple truth: that I was leaving him because I no longer wanted him. To be rejected, to be the one left behind, was an intolerable blow to his identity.

So his mind did what it had always done. It twisted the facts until they fit a narrative he could control.

A name flashed in his eyes. I saw it as clearly as if he'd spoken it aloud. *Seraphina Blackwood.*

Of course. It had to be.

He remembered the rumors, the late nights, the lingering scent of her perfume. He'd dismissed it all as meaningless, because I was his Luna, and he assumed I would simply endure it. He never imagined I would react.

A perfect, self-serving explanation began to form on his face. The story about my promise to his mother? A convenient excuse. A dramatic, manipulative ploy. My real motive, the one his ego could accept, was jealousy. I was doing all of this to punish him for his dalliance with Seraphina, to force him to choose.

This was a game. A woman's hysterical power play.

The tension in his shoulders eased. A humorless, self-satisfied smirk touched his lips. He was back in control. I still wanted him. I was fighting for him.

"I see," he said, his voice regaining its familiar, condescending calm. He sounded like a parent about to humor a child's tantrum.

I just stared at him, my expression unreadable.

"This is about Seraphina, isn't it?" he asked, his tone laced with a patronizing certainty. He looked at me as if he'd just solved a complex puzzle.

Hearing her name come from his lips in this moment was so profoundly absurd, I felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me. It was a weariness that went bone-deep, the fatigue of thirteen years of being fundamentally misunderstood.

I was too tired to even be angry.

"Elara, I admit I've spent some time with her," he began, launching into the explanation he thought I was desperate to hear. "But it's not what you think. If you don't like it, I'll tell her to stay away. You don't have to go to these lengths to get my attention."

He thought he was being generous, offering me an elegant way to back down from my "threat."

I saw the look of dawning comprehension on the faces of his Beta and Gamma. Of course! The Luna was jealous. It all made sense. They relaxed, their expressions shifting from alarm to the mild amusement of men watching a domestic squabble. In their eyes, I was no longer a figure of power, but a petty, emotional female making a scene.

The last flicker of hope I didn't even know I was holding-the hope that he might, for one second, understand the depth of my pain-was extinguished.

They would never get it. They didn't want to get it.

My thirteen years of silent suffering, my three years of meticulous planning, my sacred vow to his dying mother-all of it, in his mind, was reduced to a childish fit of jealousy over another woman.

A small, brittle laugh escaped my lips.

The sound was quiet, but it seemed to unnerve Ryker more than any shout would have. His brow furrowed. "What's so funny?"

I shook my head, my brief, bitter amusement fading. "I'm laughing at myself," I said, my voice empty. "For ever thinking you were capable of understanding."

I met his gaze, my own eyes clear and cold as a winter sky.

"You've made a mistake, Ryker. This isn't a threat."

"This is a notice."