MAYA POV
The clock reads 2:17 AM.
Maya hasn't slept in three days. She knows this because she stopped counting after the second day. What's the point? Sleep means dreams, and dreams mean she's back in the life she's trying to escape.
She lies in the bed they don't share anymore. Connor's in his office down the hall. She knows because she can hear him. His voice carries through the walls of this massive house that's supposed to be hers but feels like a prison. He's been on that call for two hours. Maybe three. She stopped checking her phone around midnight because watching the minutes pass just makes it worse.
Five years. That's how long she's been doing this. Waiting up. Lying alone. Listening to him choose everyone but her.
Tonight something breaks inside her chest. Not a crack. A full break.
Maya sits up slowly, like moving too fast might shatter what's left of her. The sheets are cold. She touches her wedding ring and feels nothing. Not anger. Not sadness. Just empty.
She pulls on the silk robe Connor bought her last Christmas, the one she's never worn because he wasn't there to see it. The hallway is dark when she steps out. Their house is too big. Twenty rooms and she only uses three. She walks toward the light coming from his office.
His voice stops her outside the door.
"I don't care what the coastal packs claim," Connor is saying. He sounds tired. He always sounds tired now. "We need those territories. Make them an offer they can't refuse."
This is her life in a sentence. Pack business. Territory. Money. Numbers. Never her. Never them.
Maya pushes the door open.
Connor sits at his desk surrounded by papers. His shirt is unbuttoned at the collar. His dark hair is messy from running his hands through it all night. He looks up, phone still pressed to his ear, and his eyes don't really focus on her. Just register that she's there.
"I'll call you back," he says into the phone, and he hangs up without waiting for an answer.
"It's late," he says. Not a question. Not concerned. Just stating facts like he's reading a report.
Maya stands in the doorway. She memorizes this moment because she knows it's the last one that matters. Everything after this is just the aftermath.
"I want a rejection," she says. Her voice sounds strange. Calm. Like someone else's voice. "A formal one. I want out."
Connor stares at her. She counts the seconds. One. Two. Three. Five. Ten.
Then he says, "Okay."
Not "let's talk." Not "what's wrong?" Not even "are you sure?" Just one word that destroys everything she thought they were building.
"Okay," he repeats, like she asked him to order coffee.
Maya nods. She doesn't cry because crying would mean this matters more than she can handle. Crying would mean breaking and she's held it together too long for that now.
"I'll have the papers drawn up tomorrow," she says.
Connor just looks at her. For a moment, something flickers across his face. Something that might be sadness or guilt or just wind moving the curtains. She'll never know which.
He turns back to his laptop without another word.
Maya walks away.
The rejection ceremony happens three days later. The pack council sits in a circle like they're about to perform a ritual. They are. Connor stands on one side. Maya stands on the other. Between them is a distance that feels bigger than the room.
The council elder speaks words that sound like they're underwater. Maya hears them but they don't feel real. This isn't real. This is something happening to someone else while she watches.
Connor speaks his vows. His voice is steady. Professional. He releases her from the bond with the same tone he'd use to dismiss a meeting.
Maya says her words. She doesn't recognize her own voice.
The bond loosens. It doesn't break completely because they never finished the real mating ritual. Thank God for that mercy. At least there's one less chain.
Connor doesn't look at her when it's done.
That night, Maya throws one suitcase in the back of her old car. She doesn't write a note. What would she say? She kisses the house goodbye in her head and leaves at midnight. No dramatic moment. No screaming. Just gone.
The first motel is outside the territory. The second is two states away. The third is in a town called Crescent Bay where her car finally dies for good and she can't afford to fix it while still having money for food.
She gets a job at a diner. Crappy pay. Long hours. Nobody asks questions. She rents a tiny apartment above a used bookstore that smells like old paper and loneliness.
Everything feels surreal. Like she's watching her own life from somewhere outside her body.
Then, six weeks after leaving, she misses her period.
The bathroom at the diner smells like bleach. Maya holds the pregnancy test with shaking hands. Two pink lines. Positive. Definitely positive.
She sits on the bathroom floor behind the diner and breathes like she's drowning. Because that's what this is. Drowning. She's drowning and there's no one coming to save her.
She's pregnant with Connor's baby. The mate who just rejected her. The alpha who couldn't even fight for their marriage.
For exactly seven minutes, Maya considers her options. Go back. Stay quiet. Terminate. All of them feel impossible. All of them feel like failure.
Then she thinks about Connor's office. His laptop. His business calls. His face when she asked him to fight for their marriage.
"Okay," he'd said.
No fight. No argument. No love.
Maya stands up, throws the test in the trash, and walks back to work like her world hasn't just split in half.
Two weeks later, she's driving through the mountains toward Canada when her phone buzzes. It's a number she doesn't recognize. She doesn't answer. The voicemail is from Connor's lawyer about the official rejection documents. Legal language. No personal message.
She turns off her phone after that.
The money runs out faster than she expected. She works double shifts at the diner. She stops eating meals. The suppressants she buys to hide her wolf nature cost more than rent. She needs them because the second someone smells the Moonvale blood in her, everything falls apart.
Wait.
Moonvale blood.
Maya's hands grip the steering wheel hard. That's not right. Her name is Maya Grant. She was born in Idaho. Her parents are dead. She has no siblings. She has no past.
She's been repeating the lie so long it started feeling true.
But in the rearview mirror, her eyes flash green for just a moment. The same green as the baby growing inside her. The same green as her mother's eyes before they burned.
The truth sits in the backseat like a ghost.
She's not just running from Connor. She's running from herself.
And tonight, when she pulls into Crescent Bay and sees the "Welcome to Our Town" sign, she realizes she's not stopping here. Tomorrow she'll keep driving. The next day she'll keep driving. She'll drive until the baby comes and then she'll drive some more because staying in one place means getting caught and getting caught means losing everything.
Until she sees the empty storefront with the "For Lease" sign.
Something inside her stops. That part of her that's been dead since Connor said "okay" suddenly wants to live again.
She walks inside the empty shop. Sunlight comes through the front windows. The space is small. The walls need paint. But the kitchen in the back has a real oven. Real counters. Real potential.
For the first time since the rejection, Maya smiles.
She's going to open a bakery.
She's going to build a life. For her. For her baby. For the woman inside her that Connor Blackwood forgot existed.
Then her phone buzzes from the car.
She ignored it when the lawyer called. But this is different. This is a number that's been blocked. A number she'd know anywhere even after five years of silence.
The voicemail is short.
"Maya, it's me. I need to talk to you about something. It's about the coast packs and a territorial summit next month. I think you should know that I'll be there. I'll be in Crescent Bay. If you see me, don't run. Please. We need to talk."
Connor's voice cracks at the end. He's been crying or close to it.
"I made a mistake," he says. "The biggest mistake of my life. And I need a chance to fix it."
The voicemail ends.
Maya stands in the empty bakery and her heart does something she didn't think was possible anymore. It breaks open all over again.
Because standing in front of that storefront, planning her future alone, she'd finally made peace with never seeing him again.
And now he's coming.