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After I gave up the entire family, they regretted it
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“Lady Yvaine,” the pack adjudicator said gently, folding his hands atop the oak table, “you have been bonded to Alpha Gerald for thirty winters. You bore him a son and a daughter, and your blood...
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第1章
“Lady Yvaine,” the pack adjudicator said gently, folding his hands atop the oak table, “you have been bonded to Alpha Gerald for thirty winters. You bore him a son and a daughter, and your bloodline has already continued through a grandson. With such a lineage, do you truly feel no hesitation?”
His silver eyes searched my face, clearly hoping I would withdraw my claim.
Hesitation?
A faint, bitter smile curved my lips.
Not long ago, I was crushed beneath an overturned hunting carriage in the northern ravine. My wolf had nearly slipped beyond recall. While I lay unconscious, the healers sent messengers to the Alpha’s lodge again and again. They called for Gerald. They summoned my children.
None of them came.
When I finally woke beneath the scent of frostroot and burning sage, still too weak to shift, a young healer forgot to lower her scrying mirror. That was how I saw it.
While I lay between life and death, the entire pack had gathered at the Moonstone Hall. Torches blazed. Drums echoed through the valley.
They were holding a grand feast for Tessa of the Silver mane Clan, Gerald’s first mate, celebrating the blessing her stone-carved moon totem had received from the elders.
In the mirror’s reflection, my grandson darted across the hall in his wolf pup form, laughter ringing bright and careless. Gerald stood near the high table, his fur streaked with gray, his arm wrapped around Tessa’s waist. His expression was open, proud, radiant in a way I had not seen in decades.
I watched until the candles burned low.
Only then did I understand that the bond I had guarded for thirty years had already been severed, not by law, but by choice.
“I am resolved,” I said calmly, lifting my chin. “Prepare the bond dissolution and the territory relinquishment accords.”
I had chosen our thirtieth bonding night to end it.
It would be my final offering to Gerald.
At last, he would no longer need to hide his true mate beneath the moon.
……
When I returned from the pack tribunal, the lodge was already lit with fire bowls. Gerald stood on the stone balcony, his back to me, speaking in a low voice through the wind.
“Yes. The sky fire must be brilliant, like a field of fallen stars,” he said with rare warmth. “Only something that magnificent is worthy of Tessa.”
For thirty winters as his mate, Gerald had never once brought me moonflowers. Not once. One year, I mentioned that I liked their pale glow during the Frost Moon. He frowned as if I had asked for something shameful.
“Must you always crave such useless things, Victoria?” he said then. “Moonflowers grow wild beyond the ridge. Pick them yourself if you want them.”
I once believed he simply did not understand tenderness.
Now I knew better.
He was willing to spend the pack’s finest firestones, resources gathered over decades, just to paint the night sky for Tessa of the Silvermane Clan.
I stood unmoving on the lodge floor, the scent of ash and pine heavy in my chest. Gerald ended the call and strode inside. Without looking at me, he shrugged off his mantle and tossed it into my arms.
“You are back late,” he said flatly. “The evening meal is not prepared.”
In that moment, clarity struck me with cruel precision.
I had never been his cherished mate. I had only ever been the one who kept the hearth burning.
I swallowed the ache rising in my throat and hung his mantle on its hook.
“Gerald,” I said quietly, “I am preparing your bonding anniversary gift.”
Only then did his expression ease. His brows lifted slightly, his mood improving at once.
“Then do not bother cooking,” he said. “Have the hunters bring back cured boar. The kind seasoned with mountain salt. You like that, do you not?”
It was Tessa who liked cured boar.
The scent alone turned my stomach.
Half a lifetime together, and he still did not know me.
Before I could respond, his rune-stone flared with light.
He turned away too quickly, stepping back onto the balcony, but I had already seen the sigil glowing upon it.
Tessa.
Ten minutes later, he returned, fastening his cloak in haste.
“I will not be back tonight,” he said. “Pack matters.”
I reached out and caught his wrist, pressing a single parchment and a stylus into his hand.
“Gerald, I am thinking of replacing one of the travel beasts for the lodge.”
He clicked his tongue in irritation and signed without reading.
“Always wasteful,” he muttered. “Fine. Just do not trouble me with trivial matters.”
He thrust the parchment back at me and turned to leave. In his haste, he dragged a woven scarf from the rack and crushed it beneath his boots as he strode out.
That scarf had taken me over a month to weave. My fingers had bled for it. It was meant for our last bonding anniversary.
I lifted it from the floor and dropped it into the fire pit, watching the flames devour it.
第2章
Then I removed the bond ring from my finger and walked into his chamber.
I entered the combination to his ironwood chest.
Tessa’s birth moon.
The lock opened instantly.
Inside lay a leather-bound album, preserved with care. Each page bore silent witness to the years he had shared with her.
Gerald claimed to leave the territory three times a year on council business. Now I knew the truth. Every journey had been taken at Tessa’s side, across distant ranges and foreign lands. From the age of thirty-five to fifty-five. Twenty years.
My hands shook as I turned to one image.
They stood locked in an embrace beneath a golden coastal sun. Her form was strong and radiant, untouched by age. His fur was threaded with gray, yet his posture remained powerful, his presence unmistakably Alpha. The way they looked at each other was not mere affection.
It was devotion.
Earlier images had faded with time. In the first, they were young, reckless, standing beneath an ancient star watch tower, fingers entwined as the first falling star burned across the heavens.
Below it, in Gerald’s familiar hand, were the words:
“I once missed a meteor’s descent. I swear never to miss the one who loves the stars.”
From black fur to white, they had never lost each other again.
The happiest moment of my life rose unbidden in my memory. The night Gerald asked me to be his mate.
On the high grasslands beneath a sky ablaze with stars, he placed a ring upon my finger and promised loyalty until death.
Only now did I understand.
It was never meant for me.
Tessa loved the stars.
Those vows had never been mine to keep.
Pain tore through my chest as if something long dead had finally been cut free. I closed the album and let the tears fall, unrestrained, striking the floor like scattered beads.
I had pursued Gerald for three long years before he agreed to bond with me.
My parents had warned me. They said his heart lay elsewhere. I believed that if I loved him deeply enough, he would one day return that love.
But a bond forced into being is never sweet.
After thirty winters, I had tasted its bitterness in full.
I had tended his meals, raised our cubs, cared for our grandson, never resting, never asking.
Once, I had been young and radiant. Now I was worn, heavy with years. Meanwhile, he and the woman he loved seemed untouched by time, still proud, still luminous.
More than ten winters ago, he began forgetting our bonding nights, ignoring my birth moons, leaving me alone in the healer’s den with nothing but a cold message sent by raven.
I told myself that if I counted sixty-six disappointments, I would leave.
This was the sixty-sixth.
I placed the bond ring and the signed dissolution parchment into his ironwood chest.
Then I turned away and lifted the rune-stone.
“Gerald,” I said steadily, “do you still wish to acquire my holdings in the Mortimer territory?”
第3章
“So,” Gerald said, his low voice lifting in clear surprise, “did I hear that correctly? You are offering me your share of the Mortimer territory?”
I did not answer.
A brief chuckle rolled from his chest, deep and steady.
“In that case, I accept. But I never take without giving. How about this, Victoria? Bind yourself to me under a long oath.”
I stiffened.
“You always spoke of wandering beyond the mountain lines,” he continued smoothly. “It so happens I have invested in a great traveling conclave, a gathering that moves from pack to pack. I still lack the one who will stand at its center and speak.”
“I am no longer young,” I said instinctively. “My form, my presence…”
“Enough,” Gerald cut in without impatience. “Fifty-five winters is not the end of anything. You were once the most luminous voice to rise from the High Academies. That has not changed.”
He did not ask what I had endured.
As if my path were already decided, his tone left no space for refusal.
“Forget Gerald,” he said. “Look forward. I will come for you when I return.”
Some things never changed. He was still as commanding as he had been in his youth.
After a long pause, I exhaled slowly.
“Very well,” I said. “I accept, Edmund.”
For the first time in decades, my life was beginning on my own terms.
Gerald did not return to the lodge that night.
At dawn, his call came through the rune-stone.
“Bring the morning meal to the council hall,” he ordered. “Prepare enough for two. We have a guest.”
He never trusted food prepared by others. For thirty winters, even when I was fevered or sleepless, I rose before sunrise to cook for him.
When I entered his chamber at the hall, I stopped short.
Tessa stood there.
She wore a pale-gold mantle, her posture elegant and composed. At her feet lay my favorite hide-canvas, torn apart and scattered across the stone floor.
In its place stood a new moonstone carving.
My mind went blank.
“Who did this?” I demanded, heat surging up my spine. “That was my work.”
Tessa’s eyes widened, her hand rising in feigned alarm.
“Oh, I thought it was nothing of value,” she said softly. “It looked crude. I replaced it with one of mine. Forgive me, Victoria.”
That canvas was the only piece Gerald and I had ever crafted together during the journey we once called sacred.
Gerald did not even look up from the scrolls in his hand. He crossed the room and took the food vessel from me.
“It does not matter,” he said dismissively. “That old thing had no worth. This place finally feels refined.”
As he passed me, his shoulder struck mine.
I fell.
Broken frame shards cut into my palm. Blood spilled instantly, sharp pain flashing white through my vision.
I tried to rise.
Then I saw it.
A pale silk garment, discarded carelessly in the corner.
My chest tightened, breath catching painfully.
Gerald noticed none of it.
When Tessa’s eyes shimmered and she said softly, “Gerald, there were ground nuts in the porridge. You know I cannot tolerate them. I could have died,” his expression darkened at once.
Without hesitation, he hurled the vessel into the fire pit.
Then he looked down at me on the floor with open disdain.
“Stop acting weak. Clean up that ugly thing. And never use ground nuts again.”
He took Tessa by the hand and left.
That night, at her celebration feast, I watched him shield her from the crowd, refusing to let her carry even the smallest satchel.
“Your hands shape beauty,” he said fondly. “They should never be burdened.”
I returned home and treated my wound myself.
Then I gathered every gift Gerald had ever given me.
Each feast, each turning of the moon, everything came in pairs.
Only then did I understand.
Nothing had ever been meant solely for me.
By the time the sun dipped low, I hurried to collect my grandson, Henry.
As he emerged with the other pups, laughter rose nearby.
“Is that your grandmother?” someone jeered.
Henry flushed crimson.
“No,” he shouted. “She is just our caretaker.”
Then he lifted a carved-image scroll.
“This is my grandmother. She is a great sculptor.”
It was Tessa.
I felt nothing.
On the ride home, Henry stayed silent.
When we stopped, he whispered, “Grandmother, are you angry?”
I looked at him calmly.
“Henry,” I said, “if you wish for another grandmother, I will help you have one.”
第4章
I handed him to the pack nanny and rode off without looking back.
When I returned to the territory, exhaustion clinging to my bones, the first thing I saw was my old harp lying in the grass outside the lodge, abandoned like refuse.
Inside, Arthur stood near the doorway, hauling in several heavy travel chests.
“Mother,” he said flatly, not meeting my eyes, “Aunt Tessa will be staying with us for a time. She dislikes noise, so I cleared out your music room and turned it into a carving chamber for her.”
I looked at him, truly looked.
In that moment, I understood that I no longer belonged here. I was not family, not welcome. I was only a remnant, something unsightly left behind, lingering where it should not.
That harp had been Arthur’s gift to me on his eighth naming day. He had traded away all his winter tokens for it.
He used to sit beside me in the sunlit room, small fingers brushing the strings, laughing as he leaned against my arm and said, “I love Mother the most.”
That child was gone.
I swallowed the pain rising in my chest and forced a thin smile.
“So this is how you treat your mother now.”
Unease flickered across his face, brief and awkward. Before he could answer, soft footsteps approached.
Gerald stepped into the yard with Tessa beside him. His expression mirrored Arthur’s, distant and cold as he looked straight at me.
“Tessa fears the dark,” he said. “Your chamber receives the most sunlight. Move out and let her take it.”
I lowered my eyes and nodded.
“Alright. I will clear my things.”
They had expected resistance. Tears, perhaps. My calm acceptance unsettled him, and surprise tightened his features.
“Victoria…”
“Oh, you are so kind,” Tessa said quickly, smiling sweetly. “Let us live peacefully together during this time.”
I did not respond. I turned and went upstairs.
In the chamber, I dragged out one heavy pack after another. Each item carried years of quiet endurance, of giving without return.
When I tossed three decades of memories into the refuse cart, Gerald followed me out, frowning.
“Why are you discarding so much?”
“Things I no longer need.”
He hesitated, then reached into one pack and froze.
“These are the gifts I gave you.”
I smiled faintly.
“Old things should have been thrown away long ago.”
His jaw tightened.
“You used to treasure them.”
Yes. Once, anything from him had made me glow with foolish joy. I had sworn to keep each gift forever.
But forever was too heavy for a heart worn thin by betrayal.
I passed him without stopping.
“There is someone new in the lodge now,” I said quietly. “You never liked crowds.”
He seemed about to explain that Tessa’s stay was temporary, but I was already loading the last pack onto my mount.
He exhaled sharply.
“There is a feast tonight. You have not attended one in years. Come along with Tessa.”
He had not brought me to a gathering in a long time. Not since my body changed, not since I no longer suited his image.
At the feast, Gerald and Tessa dismounted first.
The host greeted them warmly. “Alpha Mortimer, your mate is as radiant as ever.”
Gerald did not correct him. He took Tessa’s hand naturally.
“Thank you.”
“And this lady is…?”
Only then did he glance at me, briefly, before looking away.
“Our aide.”
I stood still.
Though I expected it, the words still tore through me.
I lifted my chin and entered the feast hall with what dignity I had left.
Tessa clung to Gerald’s arm as they moved through the firelit gathering, graceful and inseparable, like a true bonded pair.
I remained apart, watching as though from another world.
Then, without warning, a sharp pain ripped through my injured right calf, burning and sudden, stealing the breath from my lungs.
第5章
In an instant, cold sweat soaked through my back.
The old injury from the ravine flared violently. The leg that had once been shattered throbbed with each heartbeat, pain spreading like fire through bone and muscle. I could no longer stand among the crowd and had no choice but to ask for a place to rest.
What they gave me was a narrow storage room carved into stone, dark and unheated, used only for tools and discarded supplies.
The moment I stepped inside, there was a sharp click behind me.
The door locked.
“Gerald has always loved me,” Tessa’s voice rang out from beyond the door, bright with malice. “You miserable woman who chased him shamelessly. Thirty years as his mate meant nothing. He never loved you.”
I slid down against the cold wall, breath coming shallow.
“You saw it yourself tonight,” she continued. “I stood at his side, where a true mate belongs. This silk mantle I wore was chosen by your daughter. That moonstone timepiece was given by your son. They adore me.”
Pain tore through my leg, stealing my strength. I pounded weakly against the door, my voice breaking.
“Take him. Take them all. I do not care. Just let me leave. I need a healer. Please.”
Her laughter was soft and cruel.
“Do not delude yourself. I will not let you crawl out and ruin this night. Stay here and remember your place.”
Something was hung on the outside handle. A ward sigil. Then her footsteps faded down the corridor, each step light and unhurried.
I collapsed onto the stone floor.
My hands shook as I reached for my rune-stone.
Dead.
“No one hears you,” I whispered hoarsely.
I struck the door until my fists burned raw, shouting until my throat tore, but the chamber was buried too deep, the night too still.
In the end, the pain swallowed me whole.
Darkness followed.
When the feast ended two hours later, Gerald finally noticed my absence. His expression tightened in irritation.
“Where did she go?” he asked. “I told her to stay where she was.”
Tessa held his arm, her voice gentle with false concern.
“Did she leave because you called me your mate? If I had known she would misunderstand, I would have explained.”
Gerald scoffed.
“Tonight was filled with elders and leaders. In her state, she would only have disgraced me. Tessa, I am glad you were there. You saved my standing.”
“She is always overly dramatic,” he added. “Let her sulk. We are going home.”
Tessa glanced once toward the storage chamber, satisfaction flickering across her face.
And I remained locked inside, forgotten.
Not one member of that family remembered me.
At dawn, when Henry was to be taken to his lessons, my son finally thought of me.
“Why has she not arrived?” he snapped. “Does she know the time?”
When my rune-stone did not answer, he did not try again. He simply waved it away and told the nanny to take Henry instead.
I was discovered later by a groundskeeper.
After my rune-stone was recharged, there were no messages from Gerald. No questions. No concern.
Instead, a glowing announcement filled the screen.
[The Alpha Mortimer’s long unseen mate is revealed to be a master sculptor. A perfect union of power and artistry.]
I stared at it for a long moment, then smiled bitterly.
The rune-stone rang again.
For an instant, I thought it might be Gerald.
But it was Edmund.
The moment I answered, his voice came through, tight with restrained fury.
“Victoria. I called you all night. What happened? Where are you? Are you safe now?”
第6章
It turned out Gerald had seen the pack notices spreading through the night fires. Fearing I might do something irreversible, he had searched for me until dawn.
I never imagined that the last warmth left in my life would come from someone beyond blood and bond.
My eyes burned. I swallowed hard. “I am… alive.”
“No,” he said quietly, fury held in check like a storm beneath ice. “You are not well. I am ending my journey. I will come for you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I am sorry…”
“You never need to say that to me, Victoria,” Gerald replied. “My heart has never changed.”
Long ago, he had pursued me openly. But back then, my world held only Gerald, and I had been blind to everything else.
I never thought that after thirty winters, Gerald would still remember me.
When I returned from the healer’s den, the lodge reeked of unfamiliar scent.
Tessa lay sprawled across Gerald’s sleeping furs, wrapped loosely in one of his shirts, a cup of fermented honey wine in her hand. Her posture was careless, possessive.
Gerald had always been obsessed with order. Even a trace of my scent in his chamber used to irritate him.
Twenty years earlier, when his influence was still fragile, he had angered a powerful Alpha. To repair it, I drank until my stomach nearly ruptured.
When I staggered home that night, trembling with cold, Gerald stopped me at the door.
“You stink,” he said. “Clean yourself.”
I was left outside in the snow until dawn. Fever followed for days.
Now Tessa, heavy with drink, lay comfortably in his bed.
So those rules had only ever been meant for me.
She rose slowly, pulling the shirt open just enough to reveal dark marks blooming against her skin.
“Gerald was relentless last night,” she said lazily. “He said you were stiff and dull. You never knew how to satisfy him.”
Nausea surged, but I held her gaze, calm and cold.
“It does not matter,” I said. “You are still not his mate.”
The words struck her hard.
Her expression twisted. Then she smashed the cup against the stone floor and cried out as she collapsed.
“Tessa!”
Gerald burst in, panic flooding his face. He gathered her into his arms as if she were glass.
Tears clung to her lashes. “I only wanted to explain last night to Victoria. She told me to die and shoved me into the shards…”
Gerald’s eyes turned bloodshot as he stared at me.
“Apologize.”
I shook my head, despair tearing loose. “I did nothing. She—”
“I should leave before she hurts me again,” Tessa sobbed, pretending to struggle free.
Instead of releasing her, Gerald held her tighter.
“You are petty and cruel,” he said to me. “Reflect on yourself.”
He took Tessa away to the healer, leaving me behind like a criminal.
Later, the guards dragged me into the lower cellar. With no other choice, I called my son.
Arthur’s voice was sharp and distant.
“I heard everything from Father. You went too far. It was a misunderstanding, and you injured Aunt Tessa?”
“Mother, learn from her. Be graceful for once. Stop shaming the pack.”
Something inside me went cold.
Gerald meant to punish me. No food. No water.
After a day and a night, my injured leg burned with agony. At last, the old housekeeper secretly let me out.
At the healer’s den, my rune-stone lit up with Tessa’s latest message.
The first carving showed Gerald’s back as he hurried through the halls for her. The second was a healer’s record.
[With a mate who truly loves you, safety comes naturally.]
The Mortimer bloodline filled the responses.
My son praised his father.
My daughter, far away, congratulated Tessa.
Gerald himself wrote, claiming I was stirring trouble.
Then my daughter replied.
[Everyone knows you never stopped loving her. Follow your heart. We support you.]
I finally understood.
I typed slowly.
[Congratulations on your new pup. Do not worry. I will not interfere. Gerald and I are dissolving our bond.]
The moment I sent it, my rune-stone began to ring.
第7章
“What kind of foolish tale is that?” I said hoarsely. “Since when does betrayal dress itself up as mercy?”
Gerald’s reply still echoed in my ears when I lifted my head.
They were there.
Gerald and Tessa walked side by side through the healer’s stone corridor, their steps unhurried, their closeness unmistakable.
The moment he saw me, Gerald’s expression darkened. He strode toward me, holding up his rune-stone.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Are you following us now?”
Leaning on my staff, I answered calmly, “My leg was acting up. I felt faint from hunger. I came to see a healer.”
Tessa laughed softly. “Victoria, you have always been resilient. Since when did you become so delicate?”
For a brief second, Gerald hesitated. His gaze lingered on my pale face and unsteady stance. His voice lowered.
“What happened to your leg? Why did you not tell me?”
I met his eyes and said nothing.
Why did it hurt?
Even now, he believed my pain was an act.
After the accident, he had disappeared for seven days to celebrate with her. When he returned and saw me using a support staff, he mocked me for pretending injury to gain sympathy.
Later, he had locked me in the cellar to appease her anger.
Since I was already leaving, there was no reason to explain.
I lowered my gaze and endured the silence.
Something in my stillness unsettled him. He reached out and seized my wrist, urgency creeping into his voice.
“Tessa and I only underwent a ritual with the healers,” he said quickly. “It will not affect our bond. Tomorrow is our thirtieth bonding night. I prepared something special for you.”
I almost laughed.
“I have a surprise for you as well,” I said softly.
Perhaps driven by guilt, he arranged for my stay in the healer’s den and even brought me fruit. An unfamiliar kindness.
My son and his mate came later, awkward and restrained.
“Mother, it is not what you think.”
“Father and Aunt Tessa ended things long ago. They are only allies now.”
“Allies who share blood rituals?” I replied tiredly. “That is enough. You may go.”
They stared at me, stunned. I had always spoken gently. My coldness struck harder than shouting.
At that moment, my rune-stone vibrated.
[I am coming for you tonight. Be ready. If not, I will carry you.]
I replied with two words.
[Do not be late.]
Gerald entered with another basket of fruit, his gaze flicking to my rune-stone.
“Who were you speaking to?” he asked.
“A debt keeper,” I replied. “It is time to settle accounts.”
He smiled faintly. “If you lack resources, you only need to ask. I have never let you go without.”
True. Even beggars were fed scraps.
That day, Gerald played the role of a devoted mate, tending to me with care.
I knew better.
It was not love. It was guilt.
As night fell, his rune-stone lit up.
He glanced at it, locked the screen, and stood quickly.
“There is an urgent matter,” he said, pressing a brief kiss to my forehead. “Rest. I will return.”
Minutes after he left, a message appeared on my stone.
[Do not grow proud. One call from me and he is already gone.]
Attached was an image of Gerald kneeling before her, lips pressed reverently to her swollen belly.
I turned the stone dark.
Then I opened my travel chest and left the healer’s den.
A black carriage waited beneath the moonlight. The window lowered, revealing Edmund’s calm, resolute face.
Once inside, I opened the pack message board and selected several records.
One of the bond ring and dissolution parchment sealed away.
One of my healer’s record from the accident.
One of Gerald and Tessa entwined while I lay near death.
And one final page from my journal, where I had counted sixty-six disappointments.
At the strike of midnight, I sent them all, marking Gerald.
[After the sixty-sixth wound, I am free. Enjoy your thirtieth bonding night. This is my farewell.]