(Althea's POV)

The mirror in Sable Rose Bridal reflected a girl I barely recognized.

The silk gown hugged my skin like something poured from moonlight itself. My silver-white hair caught the warm boutique lighting and shimmered with every small movement.

"You two are absolutely perfect together!" Linda, the stylist, crouched at my hem and adjusted the fabric with practiced hands. "The heir of the Sable Moon Pack and the heir of the Stone Pack - it's like a fairytale!"

I laughed softly at that.

A fairytale. Maybe it was.

"We grew up together in the orphanage in the Neutral Zone," I told her, watching her eyes go wide with surprise. "We didn't even know who we really were until we were fifteen."

"That's extraordinary!" Linda pressed her hands together, genuinely moved. "Found by your packs, discovered you were both heirs - and now becoming mates at eighteen. That's destiny, Althea."

My heart still beat faster when I thought about that moment. The day we both awakened as wolves. The day the mate bond snapped into place between us, warm and undeniable, like something that had always existed and was only now being named.

I lifted my fingers to my collarbone, tracing the crescent-shaped birthmark there. The mark that proved I was the true heir of the Sable Moon Pack.

"Every young she-wolf in both packs is envious," Linda continued cheerfully, smoothing the skirt. "You're their ideal love story. Childhood friends turned fated mates."

I smiled at my reflection.

I thought of Aaron in the orphanage. How he always stepped in front of me when older kids got rough. How even before we knew anything about packs or heirs or destiny, he was already my protector.

"The engagement party is in three days, right?" Linda asked, pinning another section of the gown.

"Yes." I straightened my shoulders. "Both packs will be there to celebrate."

The excitement in my chest was real and warm and mine.

The fitting room door opened a crack.

Aaron's gray eyes found me immediately, and the way they lit up - that was real too.

He stepped inside wearing his engagement suit, and for a moment he just looked at me.

"You're beautiful," he said quietly.

Linda smiled at both of us, set down her pins, and slipped out of the room with the practiced tact of someone who had witnessed a hundred moments like this.

Aaron crossed the room and wrapped his arms around me from behind. In the mirror, we looked exactly like what Linda had described. A fairytale.

He dipped his head toward my neck, and I tilted my chin up.

Then his phone rang.

He stiffened almost immediately. I saw his jaw tighten before I even heard the name on the screen.

Isabelle.

He answered it. He always answered it.

Her voice came through loud enough that I could hear every word without trying.

"You're getting engaged and you don't need me anymore, is that it?" She was crying - or performing crying, it was always hard to tell. "After everything, Aaron, after everything-"

I stepped out of his arms and faced the mirror alone.

I had heard this before. Different words, same script. Isabelle had a talent for timing her crises to land at the worst possible moments.

Then his phone buzzed with a message. I watched his face go pale.

"She cut her wrists," he said. His voice was flat. Shocked. "There's blood - Althea, I have to go."

"She has done this before." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "She does this every time."

"I can't ignore this."

"You can't keep doing this either." I turned to face him. "If you walk out that door today, Aaron, there is no engagement. I mean it."

He looked at me. Something moved behind his eyes - conflict, guilt, something I couldn't name.

Then he stepped past me.

"I'll be back before the party," he said. "Three days. I promise."

He didn't look at me again before he left.

I stood in the silk gown in the empty fitting room and stared at my own reflection for a long moment.

Then I started taking the dress off.

Hannah was waiting outside when I emerged.

My best friend took one look at my face and her expression darkened into something fierce.

"Again?" she said.

"Again."

"That manipulative-" She stopped herself, took a breath. "Come on. We're getting food. Real food. Not feelings-food, actual food."

She steered me to a restaurant two blocks away and sat across from me with her arms folded, watching me like she was daring me to pretend I was fine.

"He's not a bad person," she said finally. "But he's trapped. He feels responsible for her, and that guilt is eating him alive, and he can't see how much damage it's doing to you."

"I know." I pushed the food around my plate. "That doesn't make it hurt less."

"No," she agreed. "It doesn't."

My phone buzzed on the table between us.

Aaron.

I picked up.

"She lost a lot of blood." His voice was tight, controlled. "I can't make it back in three days. We need to postpone the engagement."

"Postpone." I repeated the word carefully.

"Althea, be reasonable. This is a medical emergency-"

"Be reasonable." Something cold settled in my chest. "You left me standing in my engagement dress, Aaron. You promised you'd be back."

"I know, and I'm sorry, but-"

"There is no postponing." My voice didn't shake. I was almost surprised. "There is no engagement. Not in three days. Not ever."

"Althea." His tone shifted. Harder. "Don't do this. Don't throw everything away because you're throwing a tantrum."

A tantrum.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it for a second.

Then I ended the call.

Hannah was already on her feet by the time I set the phone down.

"Club," she said simply. "Now."

The club was loud and dark and full of bodies moving to music that had no room for thinking.

Hannah pushed a drink into my hand and I didn't ask what it was.

"Say it," she said, leaning close so I could hear her over the bass. "Whatever's in your head, just say it."

"I defended him." The words came out rough. "When I was sixteen, the elders looked at him like he was nothing. I stood up in that council room and argued until they had to take him seriously. I spent two years helping him fight his stepmother's corruption. Two years, Hannah. Every step."

I took a long drink.

"And he's holding someone else's hand."

"He's blinded by guilt," Hannah said. "He genuinely cannot see what he's costing you. That's not an excuse. It's just the truth."

I wanted to argue with her. I wanted to say she was wrong, that there was some version of this that made sense, that the boy who had protected me in the orphanage was still in there somewhere and would find his way back.

But I couldn't.

Because she wasn't wrong. And that was the part that hurt the most.

I reached for another drink.

Hannah's hand got there first.

"No more sitting," she said, pulling me to my feet. "If you want to drown it out, we're doing it on the dance floor."

She pulled me into the crowd.

I let the music hit me. Let the movement take over. Let the noise and the heat and the press of bodies push every thought out of my head.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, surrounded by strangers and sound and light, it finally swallowed me whole.