She didn't pull away.
That's the part I keep going back to.
Dwyn didn't grow distant. She didn't stop showing up. She was still there—every day—smiling at me like I was her whole damn world.
And I still chose someone else.
The bond didn't break clean.
It never does, not when it's real.
It tore.
Sliced something deep in my chest and burned all the way down to the bone. I felt it when I rejected her—like swallowing fire and trying to smile through it. But I thought it would fade.
They told me it would.
Once the mate bond with Mera settled, the ache would pass. The guilt would dim. Dwyn would become a memory.
But I couldn't forget her if I tried.
And believe me—I've tried.
Some mornings, I wake up expecting to see her stretched on the training field, sweat on her brow, that steady calm in her eyes.
She used to grin at me when I watched her train, like she could hear my thoughts.
She never looked away.
Not once.
Even when the elders whispered, even when my father pushed me toward Mera, even when Luna Cecil asked me if I'd finally "grown up."
Dwyn looked at me like I was already enough.
Like I didn't need a title to be worthy.
And I destroyed that.
I remember her face that night.
How she screamed in pain as the bond severed, as I claimed her best friend.
Like her heart had broken in the middle of her chest and I was the one who swung the blade.
Because I was.
Now Mera moves through the packhouse like she owns it.
She laughs louder. Holds my hand tighter. Acts like she's always belonged.
But she doesn't smell like home.
She doesn't taste like thunder and safety and fire.
She doesn't hurt the way Dwyn did—in that beautiful, terrifying way like love was too big to contain.
I saw the triplets today.
Viora asked when Dwyn was coming back.
I didn't answer.
Because I don't know.
I don't even know if she's safe.
She's out there—wolf in a human world, carrying a heart I ruined.
And the worst part?
I still want her.
Even after choosing Mera.
Even after breaking her.
Even after everything.
I still want the girl I left behind.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I waited three days.
Three long, salt-slicked, heartbeat-heavy days.
I woke early each morning, the scent of seaweed and sun pouring through the windows like whispers I couldn't understand. Margot never pushed, but she watched me — not with suspicion, but with a quiet knowing I couldn't bring myself to meet head-on.
The card stayed folded in the inside pocket of my coat. Neat. Untouched. Burning against my ribs like a secret.
Bellrow Talent Guild.
"Voices like yours don't stay hidden forever."
I'd reread the line so many times it lived behind my eyelids.
It wasn't that I didn't want to tell Margot.
It was that I didn't know how.
What would I say? That someone had heard me humming and thought I could belong in a place built for light and sound? That someone looked at me — a cast-off wolf with no future and a broken heart — and saw possibility?
I hadn't said a word about the audition to anyone.
Not to her.
Not to my father in the half-written letters I kept crumpling into the trash.
Not to the moon when I stood by the sea at night, aching for a bond that no longer existed.
Because this... this was mine.
And I wasn't ready to risk someone talking me out of it.
I ran my fingers over the card again that afternoon, tucked between pages of an old journal I found on Margot's shelf. Her house smelled like thyme and sand and slow-cooked stew, but the card still held a sharper scent. Ink. Paper. Change.
The audition was in two days.
If I didn't go, I'd always wonder.
And if I did...?
If I sang again — really sang — maybe I'd feel something that didn't hurt.
Maybe I'd find a part of myself that had nothing to do with being Dwyn, daughter of Alpha Duskthorn.
Not a pack name.
Not a mate.
Just me.
I scribbled a note and tucked it under Margot's tea tin:
Gone to town. Won't be long.
Technically true. Mostly not.
Then I grabbed my coat and slipped the card into my pocket one last time.
No one would stop me this time.
No council. No Luna. No Kael.
This wasn't about them anymore.
It was about a girl with a voice and nothing left to lose.
And a chance — for the first time — to choose.
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The Bellrow Talent Guild wasn't what I expected.
I'd imagined something polished — velvet chairs, chandeliers, crystal water bottles.
Instead, it smelled faintly of old stage paint, coffee, and anticipation. Bright light poured through high windows, pooling over scuffed wooden floors. There were maybe a dozen others in the lobby, sitting with sheet music or sipping from thermoses, some nervously bouncing their knees.
I stood near the back, hands tucked into my sleeves.
No one looked at me.
They didn't whisper or stare. They didn't know who I was — not a wolf, not a rejected mate, not the Alpha's daughter. Just... a girl.
And I'd never felt so invisible.
Or so free.
"Number sixty-two," a woman in a headset called from the door.
That was me.
My heart leapt into my throat as I stepped forward. My boots squeaked slightly on the floor, and a few people glanced up. Then just as quickly, they looked away.
I followed her down a narrow hallway and into a small room with a baby grand piano in the corner. A panel of three judges sat behind a long folding table, all dressed in muted blacks and greys. One of them looked up and smiled politely.
"Name?"
I hesitated.
"...Dwyn."
"Song?"
I swallowed. "It doesn't have a title. It's something I—uh—made up."
Another pause.
Then a nod. "Begin when you're ready."
I took a breath and closed my eyes.
The first note trembled out of me like a secret.
Then the next.
And suddenly, there was no room. No table. No judges. No shame curled in my gut.
There was only sound — slow, haunting, full of the ache I couldn't say out loud.
The song wasn't a melody so much as a memory.
Of Kael's hands.
Of pine trees.
Of a bond burned through.
Of the sea whispering things I hadn't yet understood.
I didn't even know what language I was humming in. It wasn't English. It wasn't wolf-tongue.
It was... something else. Something older.
Something me.
When I opened my eyes, I didn't realize I'd stopped singing.
The room was dead quiet.
The judges stared at me — not blinking, not moving.
Finally, one of them cleared his throat, eyes wide.
"Where... where did you learn that?"
"I... I didn't," I said quietly. "It just came."
A long silence passed.
Then, as if in slow motion, one of the judges nodded. "We'd like to speak to you after this round."
My pulse thudded hard against my ribs. "I—Okay."
"Wait outside," the woman said, her voice oddly hoarse.
I walked out with shaking hands and half-numb feet.
And for the first time in a long, long while, I didn't feel small.
I felt seen.