Chapter 4

KATHLEEN POV:

The next morning, under the pretense of needing fresh air, I had my aunt's most trusted warrior, a silent man named Marcus, pick me up. I left the healing center without a word to anyone.

We drove to my parents' home, the Alpha manor I hadn't set foot in for three long years. Pulling up the long, oak-lined driveway, my heart ached. This place was supposed to be my sanctuary, my legacy. Now, it was just a crime scene, tainted by betrayal.

Inside, the air was stale. I ran my hand along my father's favorite armchair, remembering how he would let me sit on his lap and tell me stories of the great Alphas. I walked into the kitchen and could almost smell my mother's famous berry pie. Tears I didn't know I had left began to stream down my face. I cried for them, for the love they gave me. I cried for myself, for failing to protect everything they had built.

Before coming, I had already mind-linked my aunt. I told her my decision. I was selling the house. I couldn't bear to live in a place so thoroughly desecrated. She would handle the transfer through the pack elders, selling it for a low price to the pack's public fund. I wanted nothing from it but to be free of its memory.

I spent hours packing away the few precious mementos I wanted to keep: my mother's locket, my father's journal, a photograph of the three of us laughing in the summer sun.

As I was carrying the last box to the door, a car screeched to a halt in the driveway. It was Joshua.

He leaped out, his face a mask of frantic worry. "Kathleen! My God, I was so scared. You weren't at the center, you weren't answering your link... I thought..."

He rushed forward and wrapped his arms around me. The scent of him, mixed with Ella's lingering perfume, was nauseating. His touch felt like a thousand spiders crawling on my skin.

With a surge of adrenaline I didn't know I possessed, I shoved him away. The force of it surprised us both. He stumbled back, his eyes wide with shock. The effort sent a wave of dizziness through me, and my legs trembled.

"Don't touch me," I said, my voice dangerously low.

He seemed to sense the shift in me, the new hardness in my eyes. He quickly changed tactics, his expression softening into one of hurt. "I was just worried. I brought you something... for your birthday."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box. He opened it to reveal the moonstone necklace. The same one I had seen him place around Ella's neck in my vision.

The audacity of it stole my breath.

"I don't want it," I said, my voice flat.

I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm. "Kathleen, what's wrong? Talk to me."

I stopped and looked him dead in the eye. All the pretense, all the weakness, fell away.

"I have a question for you, Joshua," I said, my voice as cold as a winter grave. "If I died... if the poison finally took me... would you even feel the Mate Bond snap? Or would you just be relieved?"

He stared at me, completely stunned, his mouth slightly agape. For a second, I saw the truth in his eyes: relief. Then, the mask was back in place.

"How could you even ask that?" he whispered, his voice thick with fake emotion. "You are my everything. The thought of losing you... it would destroy me."

He lied. And in that moment, I knew he wasn't just breaking our vows. He was trying to break me. But he was about to find out that I was made of something far stronger than he ever imagined.