Maya grabbed one of my suitcases while I hauled the other, leaving the boxes for later. The Crescent Moon pack house was smaller than the Steele estate only fifteen bedrooms instead of thirty but it felt warmer somehow. Lived-in. Pictures covered the walls, showing pack members at barbecues and full moon runs and birthday parties. Actual candid photos of people laughing, not the stiff formal portraits that lined Dominic's hallways.
"I put you in the guest suite on the third floor," Maya said, leading me up a winding staircase. "It's quiet, private, and has the best view of the forest. You'll love it."
"Maya, I can't just" I started, but she cut me off.
"Yes, you can. Liam already approved it."
Liam was her mate, the Beta of Crescent Moon, and apparently, unlike Dominic, he actually listened to his mate's opinions. "You can stay as long as you need. No expectations, no pressure. Just… heal."
The word hit me harder than it should have. Heal. As if what Dominic had done to me was a wound that could close, that could be fixed with enough time and distance.
Maybe it could be. Maybe that's what I needed to believe.
The guest suite was beautiful in its simplicity a large bedroom with a four-poster bed piled high with soft blankets, a sitting area with overstuffed chairs by the window, and a bathroom with a clawfoot tub that practically begged to be filled with bubbles and wine.
"It's perfect," I whispered, setting my suitcase down. "Thank you."
"There's a pack dinner in an hour, but you don't have to come if you're not ready. I can bring you a plate"
"No." I surprised myself with the firmness in my voice. "No, I'll come. I need to… I need to start acting like a person again. A person who eats with other people and has conversations and doesn't just hide in her room waiting for scraps of attention from a man who doesn't care."
Maya's eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
"He really broke you, didn't he?"
"He broke the girl I was," I agreed, looking at my reflection in the antique mirror above the dresser. I barely recognized myself hollow cheeks, dark circles under my amber eyes, hair that had lost its shine. "But maybe that's not entirely a bad thing. Maybe I needed to break to rebuild into something stronger."
"Damn right you do." She squeezed my shoulder. "Now take a quick shower, put on something that makes you feel powerful, and let's introduce the pack to the real Elara Thorne. Not Dominic's rejected Luna. Not his mother's punching bag. Just you."
Just me. I'd forgotten what that even meant.
Forty-five minutes later, I walked into the Crescent Moon dining hall in a deep emerald dress that hugged my curves and made my amber eyes pop, my dark hair falling in loose waves down my back. It wasn't slutty I didn't have the energy for that level of rebellion yet but it was confident. Strong. The kind of dress that said I'm here, I'm valuable, and I don't need your permission to exist.
The dining hall went quiet as I entered, dozens of eyes turning to assess the infamous runaway Luna. I lifted my chin and walked in like I owned the place, channeling every ounce of Alpha energy my father had tried to teach me before I'd married into the Steele Pack.
You are Elara Thorne, I reminded myself. Daughter of Alpha Marcus Thorne. You come from a line of warriors and leaders. You are not less than anyone here.
"Everyone, this is Elara," Maya announced, appearing at my side with a protective hand on my arm. "She'll be staying with us for a while as a guest under sanctuary law. I expect you to treat her with the respect you'd give any pack member."
Murmurs of greeting rippled through the crowd. Most faces were friendly, curious, welcoming. A few held pity that made my stomach churn. And one one face at the head table made me stop dead in my tracks.
Alpha Kael Thorne of Crescent Moon Pack.
Maya's older brother. My childhood protector. The boy now very much a man who'd pulled me out of the river when I was seven and taught me how to fight when I was twelve and held me while I cried at my father's funeral when I was eighteen.
The man I'd had the most embarrassing, hopeless crush on before the mate bond had snapped into place with Dominic and rewritten my entire world.
He stood from his seat at the head table, and I forgot how to breathe.
Kael had always been handsome tall, broad-shouldered, with the kind of rugged features that belonged on a movie screen. But at thirty-five, he'd grown into his power in a way that made my mouth go dry. His dark hair was longer than I remembered, pulled back in a low bun that should have looked ridiculous but somehow made him look like a warrior-poet. His eyes those impossible sapphire blue eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that made my wolf sit up and take notice for the first time since we'd left Dominic.
Wait. What?
My wolf, who should have been mourning our mate, was practically preening under his gaze.
"Elara." His voice was deeper than I remembered, rough like whiskey and smoke. He moved around the table with predatory grace, and suddenly he was standing in front of me, so close I could smell cedar and pine and something wild that made my pulse spike. "Maya told me what happened. I'm sorry."
"Don't be." I forced myself to meet his eyes, to not back down or look away like the broken Luna everyone expected me to be. "I'm not."
Something flickered in his expression approval, maybe. Or surprise. His lips curved into a small smile that did absolutely illegal things to my stomach. "Good. You deserve better than to be treated like an afterthought."
"Damn right she does," Maya chimed in, but I barely heard her. I was too busy trying to figure out why my wolf was suddenly very, very interested in Kael Thorne, and why my traitorous body was responding to his proximity like I hadn't just walked out on my supposedly fated mate six hours ago.
This is wrong. This is too soon. This is…
"Come," Kael said, placing a hand on the small of my back that sent electricity racing up my spine. "Sit at the head table with us. You're an Alpha's daughter, not some refugee. You'll be treated with the respect you're owed."
He guided me to a seat beside his own, and I tried not to notice how his hand lingered just a moment too long, how his eyes tracked my every movement with an attention Dominic had never shown.
Dinner was a blur of introductions and conversation, pack members coming up to welcome me with varying degrees of curiosity and kindness. But I couldn't focus on any of it. Couldn't focus on anything except the man sitting beside me, whose presence seemed to fill every empty space Dominic had carved out of my heart.
This was dangerous. This was stupid. This was exactly the kind of rebound disaster that would give Dominic ammunition to call me impulsive and emotional and prove he'd been right to ignore me all along.
But when Kael's hand brushed mine as he reached for the salt, and my wolf practically purred at the contact?
I couldn't bring myself to care.
Maybe healing didn't have to mean being alone.
Maybe it just meant learning what it felt like to be seen.