Chapter 2

The shock on Grant’s face hardened into offended anger. He couldn’t stand that the ending he’d so carefully orchestrated had veered off script.

He took a step forward. A flicker of Alpha pressure slipped out before he forcibly reeled it back in. Clerks and guards still milled about the courthouse entrance. He couldn’t be seen using his rank to intimidate the ex-partner who had just surrendered custody.

“Nora, there’s no need to take it this far.” He softened his voice again. “No matter how suitable Sloane may be for caring for a cub in her awakening, she isn’t Mia’s biological mother.”

He paused, then delivered the line I had been hearing for six years.

“You have to understand, continuing to fight isn’t good for Mia.”

The words unlocked a memory I had spent years trying to bury.

I came from the Tidewatch Pack on the coast of Maine. After registering with Grant as chosen mates, I left my home pack and joined the Ironwood Pack under his rule.

We weren’t fated mates. No sacred bond had made the choice for us. But Grant had publicly claimed me before the elders, guards, and pack members. He placed me at his right hand, gave me the duties of a Luna, and promised to respect my free will.

I believed in the choice he had made.

The Caldwell bloodline had ruled the Ironwood Pack for generations, and I was just a gallery clerk from a small coastal pack. Grant’s mother never insulted me outright. She would simply bring up my background in front of the elders’ families, then gently remind everyone that I lacked experience managing a large pack.

For what Grant called love, I left the gallery and learned pack accounts, festival planning, and cub rescue protocols. I worked hard to become a partner who wouldn’t embarrass an Alpha.

I thought I had succeeded.

Until six years ago, on Thanksgiving Eve.

I was six months pregnant with our second child. I’d prepared all the holiday supplies for the Pack House by myself and was so exhausted I’d fallen asleep in front of the fireplace.

When Grant came home late that night, I smelled Sloane before I saw him.

Her scent of white tea and cedar clung to his shirt, his collar, his skin. That wasn’t the trace a polite hug left behind. My wolf recognized the betrayal before my mind could. The back of my neck went taut, and the instinct to move toward him turned violently to revulsion.

Grant didn’t apologize.

“Sloane was alone in her apartment. I couldn’t just leave her like that,” he said. “She was in a terrible state. She needed me.”

My chosen mate. My most trusted friend.

A sudden, sharp pain tore through my abdomen. Before I could even finish asking my question, warm blood was soaking through my nightgown.

The healers couldn’t save the baby.

It was a boy. Wolf-born children were rare, and the Caldwells had considered him an important heir to their bloodline. But after he died, their first concern wasn’t me. It was that I might lose control and shift in my grief, damaging the reputation of the Alpha family.

When I woke, I demanded that our mate registration be dissolved, gave up my Luna duties, and tried to leave Ironwood Pack.

The Caldwells held influence over the elder seats, pack advocates, and psychological assessors. They convinced the arbitration court that after the miscarriage, my wolf was unstable and I was unfit to care for eight-year-old Mia alone.

They agreed to end my mate registration with Grant, but they refused to let me take my daughter. Through evaluation after evaluation, hearing after hearing, they dragged out the custody fight for six years.

In a system built on rank and territorial power, I never stood a chance. My pain, my anger, even my body’s reaction to betrayal—all of it became evidence they used to prove I was dangerous.

So Grant’s words now were laughable.

Did he really expect me to keep returning to the very system that named me the source of the trauma?

I wouldn’t.

I turned to David and raised my voice.

“Do it now.”

David pulled a supplemental statement from his folder and handed it to Grant.

“Alpha Caldwell, this is the final record of Nora Wren relinquishing all visitation, awakening guardianship, and emergency decision-making rights. Once you sign, the custody procedure is concluded. If she still intends to sever ties with Ironwood Pack, she’ll need to confirm it aloud before witnesses.”

Grant’s face darkened.

He stared at me, then finally snatched the pen and signed his name hard enough to nearly tear the page.

“You’ll regret this, Nora.”

I lifted my voice, making sure it was clear enough for the court recorder to hear.

“I, Nora Wren, willingly sever all ties with the Ironwood Pack.”

The pack mind-link that had lingered at the edge of my consciousness for years went dark. Grant’s presence, which had always pressed against my senses through the collective bond, vanished.

I was a Rogue, with no pack.

But in that moment, what I felt wasn’t fear.

It was quiet.

Regret?

I looked at Mia.

She was utterly unmoved. Her expression was as cold as Grant’s, and her eyes held a trace of disgust for what she probably saw as my “unstable behavior.”

The answer was clear.

I took my copy of the document from David, folded it, and slipped it into my bag.

“No one will interrupt your normal life again,” I told Mia. “And I won’t interfere with you anymore, either.”

No one knew how I had spent those six Thanksgivings.

Every other werewolf went back to their Pack House or family homes to gather, while I sat alone in a rented apartment, flipping through arbitration documents and waiting for the next evaluation. Ironwood Pack had restricted my mind-link, so I could only see Mia during supervised visits assigned by the court.

That once-a-year reunion was often just a tense meeting in a mediation room right before the holidays.

I had worked so hard to appear stable in front of my daughter, because any shift in my scent, any flicker of my wolf’s pressure, would be recorded and used against me. But now she had chosen another woman as her maternal guardian.

I no longer had to perform the role of a good mother waiting for official approval.

Mia frowned and said nothing. She turned to Grant and tugged at his sleeve.

“Now that she’s done, can we go find Sloane? She’s still waiting for us to pick out the Thanksgiving turkey.”

Turkey.

I almost laughed.

Back when I lived in the Pack House, the roast turkey, the cranberry sauce, the pumpkin pie, and the dinner for dozens of core members were all my responsibility. Grant’s mother never allowed anyone to change her menu, and Grant always claimed he had border patrol reports to handle before shutting himself in his office all day.

I used to race between the kitchen, pantry, and banquet hall with a crying Mia strapped to my chest. By the time every dish was on the table, all I got was criticism from Grant’s mother and silence from Grant.

He had never once spoken up for me.

Looking back, Grant had never truly respected me.

Even the daughter I had given everything for had learned his coldness.

Mia left with Grant as if one more glance in my direction would be an irritation. She hadn’t always been like this. Before she turned three, she would cry if I so much as stepped out of her sight.

Everyone always said I had to keep fighting, for my child’s sake.

But nothing stays the same forever.

Not marriage.

Not dependence.