Rain tasted like copper when it hit my tongue. I stood outside the coffee shop where I'd worked for three years, watching steam rise from the pavement, and tried to remember what normal wolves smelled like when they were happy.
I couldn't.
The gift box felt heavier than it should have in my hands. Wrapped in silver paper because Ethan always said silver was my color, even though I had no scent to complement it. No pack musk. No wild perfume of earth and pine that marked every other wolf in our territory.
Nothing.
My phone buzzed. Mira's name flashed across the screen.
"Don't go over there tonight," my sister said before I could even say hello. Her voice carried that edge it always did when she worried about me. "The Blood Moon is rising, Haven. You know what that means."
I watched the sky darken above the buildings, clouds gathering like bruises. "It means destiny reveals itself."
"It means wolves lose their minds." She exhaled hard enough that the line crackled. "Please. Just wait until tomorrow."
But I'd already waited three months since Ethan Vale first looked at me across the pack gathering and said, "Mine." Three months of touches that burned like starlight. Three months of believing that fate had finally, mercifully, chosen me despite my defect.
"I have to give him his gift," I said softly. "It's his birthday."
"Haven—"
I ended the call.
The walk to Ethan's house took fifteen minutes through streets that emptied as the moon began its rise. Other wolves hurried indoors, pulling curtains shut, locking doors. The Blood Moon made instincts sharper. Made truths harder to hide.
I'd spent my whole life hiding.
My wolf stirred beneath my skin, restless in a way she rarely was. She didn't speak to me the way other wolves described their beasts. She whispered. Warned. Withdrew.
"It's okay," I murmured to her. To myself. "He chose us. He said we were his."
The houses on Ethan's street were older, built when pack territories were smaller and wolves lived closer together. I'd been here a dozen times, but tonight everything felt different. Sharper. Like the world had adjusted its focus and left me blurry at the edges.
My wolf shivered.
I climbed the porch steps, one hand already reaching for the doorbell when I smelled it.
Perfume.
Not mine. I had no scent to layer perfume over. But this one I knew. Jasmine and vanilla with an undertone of something spiced. The same perfume I'd helped pick out last winter when we'd gone shopping together.
My best friend's perfume.
The gift box slipped from my hands. It hit the porch with a soft thud.
No.
My wolf growled low in my chest, a sound that had no voice but I felt it anyway, rattling through my ribs. I pressed my palm flat against the door. It swung open under the pressure, already unlocked, already welcoming.
The sounds hit me first.
Rhythmic. Breathless. The creak of bedsprings in the room at the end of the hall.
Then the scents. His musk, thick and territorial. Her perfume, everywhere, coating the air like she'd marked every surface.
My legs moved without permission. Down the hallway. Past the photos on the walls, Ethan's family smiling in frames that rattled as I passed. My hands were numb. My wolf was screaming now, a soundless howl that tore through my mind.
The bedroom door stood half open.
I could have turned around. Should have turned around. But my body pushed forward like it was caught in a current, pulled toward devastation the way drowning things get pulled toward the bottom.
I stepped inside.
Ethan's bed. Ethan's body. His hands tangled in auburn hair I'd braided a hundred times. Her face buried against his throat, right where my mark should have been if I'd been strong enough, wolf enough, real enough to claim him.
Cora.
My best friend since childhood. The one who'd held me when my mother died. Who'd sworn she'd never let anyone hurt me.
She saw me first.
Her eyes went wide over Ethan's shoulder, hazel irises catching the light from the bedside lamp. For one frozen moment, I thought she might scream. Might cry. Might show me anything that looked like remorse.
Instead, she smiled.
"Haven." Ethan's voice was rough, satisfied. He pulled back from Cora's neck and turned his head to look at me. His eyes flashed gold in the darkness, his wolf rising to the surface.
I waited for shame. For panic. For the man I'd loved for three months to look horrified that I'd walked in on this.
He looked relieved.
"Good," he said, sitting up and reaching for his shirt like we were having a perfectly normal conversation. "Saves me the trouble of explaining."
My mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Cora sat up too, pulling the sheet around herself but not bothering to hide her satisfaction. "I'm sorry, Haven. But you had to know this was going to happen eventually."
"What?" The word barely made it past my lips.
Ethan stood, pulling his jeans on with casual efficiency. "You're sweet. I mean that. But you're not mate material, Haven. You don't have a scent. You can't mark. What kind of Alpha would I be if I settled for someone who can't even prove she has a wolf?"
The room tilted. I grabbed the doorframe to keep from falling.
"We thought it would be kinder if you found out on the Blood Moon," Cora said, her voice soft like she was explaining something to a child. "That way Luna's light would make it official. No confusion."
Ethan crossed the room. He stood close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his skin, close enough that my traitorous body still wanted to lean into him.
"I'm going to reject you publicly," he said. "In front of the pack. It's better this way. Clean break. You'll be free to find someone more... suitable."
My wolf was howling. Clawing. Trying to reach him even as my human heart shattered into pieces small enough to choke on.
"Why?" I whispered.
"Because you're broken, Haven." He said it like it was obvious. Like everyone had always known. "And I deserve better."
He walked past me, his shoulder brushing mine. Cora followed, pausing just long enough to squeeze my hand. Her touch burned.
"You'll understand someday," she murmured. "This is a mercy."
Then they were gone, their footsteps echoing down the stairs, the front door closing with a soft click that sounded like a bone breaking.
I stood in Ethan's bedroom, surrounded by the scent of their betrayal, and felt my wolf curl up small and silent inside my chest.
The Blood Moon rose outside the window, swollen and red as a wound.
My wolf shivered once.
Then she went completely still.
The kind of still that comes right before something dies.
I don't remember leaving Ethan's house.
One moment I was standing in that bedroom, staring at the rumpled sheets. The next I was stumbling down streets I'd known my whole life, everything blurred and distant like I was watching myself from somewhere far away.
My phone buzzed seventeen times. Mira's name. Then numbers I didn't recognize. Then Mira again.
I didn't answer.
The pack square sat at the center of our territory, a wide stone plaza surrounded by old buildings that had stood since the first wolves settled here two hundred years ago. Torches lined the perimeter, already lit for the Blood Moon ceremony. The entire pack would gather here within the hour, drawn by instinct and tradition to witness the moon's rise and speak their truths.
The bedroom door stood half open.
I could have turned around. Should have turned around. But my body pushed forward like it was caught in a current, pulled toward devastation the way drowning things get pulled toward the bottom.
I stepped inside.
Ethan's bed. Ethan's body. His hands tangled in auburn hair I'd braided a hundred times. Her face buried against his throat, right where my mark should have been if I'd been strong enough, wolf enough, real enough to claim him.
Cora.
My best friend since childhood. The one who'd held me when my mother died. Who'd sworn she'd never let anyone hurt me.
She saw me first.
Her eyes went wide over Ethan's shoulder, hazel irises catching the light from the bedside lamp. For one frozen moment, I thought she might scream. Might cry. Might show me anything that looked like remorse.
Instead, she smiled.
"Haven." Ethan's voice was rough, satisfied. He pulled back from Cora's neck and turned his head to look at me. His eyes flashed gold in the darkness, his wolf rising to the surface.
I waited for shame. For panic. For the man I'd loved for three months to look horrified that I'd walked in on this.
He looked relieved.