The winter air bit sharply as the driver opened the door, frost and pine filling my senses like fire. Snow drifted from the slate-gray sky, dusting the garden path to our pack house. My cheeks stung, but it was nothing compared to the heat roaring in my chest. The bond between mates was eternal, unbreakable, a tether forged by the Goddess herself, and I ached to let him hear the words my wolf had waited years to speak: that I could finally hear him, fully, with heart and soul.
As I neared the heavy oak doors, voices drifted out, stopping me cold. Each word cut sharper than claws on stone. I should have turned, trusted my mate’s loyalty, but the tone held me fast, my hand frozen over the iron handle, my wolf snarling inside me.
“I thought after five years I could move on,” the deep, familiar voice confessed, weighted with an emotion I had never heard from him before. “But it turns out, I still love Nyra.”
The sound struck me harder than any physical blow, my breath hitching as my wolf bristled inside me, a low growl vibrating through my chest, though I dared not let it slip free. My pulse pounded so fiercely in my ears I almost wished I were deaf again.