Savannah's POV
"I want a divorce."
The words hung in the air like a blade waiting to fall. Jonathan barely looked up from his coffee, his expression as cold and indifferent as always.
"Don't be dramatic, Savannah. What's gotten into you now?"
I slid the divorce papers across the granite countertop. The sound of paper against stone felt louder than it should have. I had prepared them earlier, every clause meticulously crafted to dissolve what had never really existed.
This hollow shell of a marriage.
My fingers shook as I offered him the pen. Not from fear, though his steel-gray eyes burned with something dangerous. I trembled from anticipation.
Freedom was within reach.
Years. Years of watching the man I'd tried to love treat me like an obligation he couldn't escape. We'd been bound together because our families decided it would benefit both packs. A political alliance disguised as matrimony.
Two powerful werewolf clans who needed each other but could never truly trust.
I was ending it all.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" Jonathan's voice dropped to that deadly calm tone that used to terrify me. "You'll destroy your family's reputation. You'll be cast out. A Luna without a mate."
I'd never seen Jonathan lose control. Not once in our entire marriage. But now his composure cracked like ice under pressure, and something wild flickered behind his eyes.
For the first time since our wedding day, his perfect mask slipped. Even though this was goodbye, seeing him unraveled gave me a twisted satisfaction.
"I don't care anymore, Jonathan. Can't you understand? Living with you terrifies me more than facing those consequences ever could."
A harsh laugh escaped his throat.
The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. I watched him struggle to process what was happening, his chest rising and falling with barely controlled fury.
This wasn't the anniversary I'd once dreamed of. But I'd reached my breaking point. Was I destroying my future over something others might consider trivial?
Perhaps.
But I couldn't pretend anymore.
You, who flinched whenever I came too close.
You, who only touched me during my heat cycles, like it was a duty to be endured.
You, who seemed incapable of wanting me.
"You cheated on me, Jonathan!"
The accusation tore from my throat before I could stop it. Tears burned my eyes, not from love but from the waste of it all. Years of trying to be the perfect wife for a man who saw me as nothing more than a burden.
I couldn't stop staring at the fresh bite mark on his neck, still red and swollen. Some other woman had claimed what I'd never been allowed to have. Had she been more beautiful? More willing to accept his coldness?
I pushed the thoughts away. Jonathan's affairs weren't my problem anymore.
Right now, I was just another rejected Luna.
"Is that what this tantrum is about, Savannah?"
That condescending frown appeared, the one that used to make me apologize for existing. I'd failed him again. Embarrassed him. Proven I wasn't worthy of the Jimmy name.
But today?
All I saw was a desperate man clinging to appearances. The perfect Alpha with the perfect reputation, married to his perfectly inadequate wife.
It would have been funny if it weren't so pathetic.
"That's only part of it."
My voice came out shakier than I'd intended, but I didn't care. For the first time in years, I felt alive. Not happy exactly, but electric with possibility.
Jonathan's smile held no warmth whatsoever.
I smiled back. Even with my trembling hands, I'd never felt more certain of anything in my life.
When he swept his arm across the counter and sent the divorce papers flying, I didn't even flinch.
I laughed.
The sound bubbled up from somewhere deep inside me, bright and slightly unhinged. Here I was, watching my life implode, and all I could do was laugh like a madwoman.
"We're not getting divorced, Savannah. End this nonsense before I do something we'll both regret."
His growl used to make me shrink into myself, but now it just sounded hollow.
He could flash his fangs and snarl all he wanted. I was beyond caring.
This chapter was closed.
I turned toward the door without another word. There was nothing left to say. Whether he signed those papers or not wasn't my responsibility anymore.
"I'm leaving in the morning. Don't bother seeing me off."
His hand clamped around my wrist before I could take another step, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks. The pain meant nothing now.
"Savannah."
Something shifted in his voice, softer than I'd heard in years. When I looked back, his eyes held an emotion I couldn't quite name. Panic, maybe. Or regret.
If that bite mark weren't glaring at me from his throat, I might have wavered.
But it was there. Proof of everything I already knew.
"Let me go, Jonathan. No one will blame you. I couldn't give you children in all our years together. I couldn't even make you want me. I hope she makes you happy."
The tears came despite my best efforts, streaming down my face in a most undignified display.
Not exactly the image expected from the Luna of the city's most powerful pack.
Still, part of me wondered why he looked so stricken now when he'd never shown me this much emotion before.
"Savannah, we can work through this. The mark will fade. Everything can go back to normal."
His voice cracked on the last word, gentler than it had ever been during our entire marriage.
"Why would I want normal?"
"What?"
I twisted free of his grip, purple bruises already blooming where his fingers had been. A lovely anniversary gift.
"I haven't been happy for a single day since we married, Jonathan. That mark isn't the problem. It's just the last straw."
He touched the bite on his neck unconsciously, as if surprised to find it there.
I stepped closer, rose up on my toes, and pressed one final kiss to his cheek.
Then I walked away from the man who'd defined my existence for all those long years.
And sealed my fate.