TWO YEARS LATER.
DAPHNE.
It was a formal pack dinner, which meant I had to be there.
Two years ago I would've sat at the high table next to Rovian, wearing some beautiful gown, a crown marking me as Luna. Now I sat at the very end of the lowest table in the hall with the servants and omegas and wolves who had no rank worth mentioning.
My dress was gray and plain. Hair in a practical braid. No jewelry. Nothing that said I was anyone important.
Because I wasn't. Not anymore.
The wolves sitting near me were polite enough not to stare. They all knew what had happened to me—the whole pack did. The healer's daughter who'd married the king and then somehow lost everything.
Nobody really talked to me at these things. They were scared of being seen with me, scared Rovian might notice them.
I understood. I didn't hold it against them.
I pushed food around my plate without really eating. I'd gotten good at making myself invisible at these dinners, at just existing quietly until they were over and I could go back to my tiny room and breathe again.
Then I felt it. That awareness that crawls up your spine when someone's watching you.
I looked up without meaning to.
Rovian was staring at me from across the hall.
Our eyes met and my breath caught. Two years of this and my stupid body still reacted when he looked at me.
I hated that. I hated that some part of me still remembered what it felt like when he used to look at me with warmth instead of contempt.
His face gave nothing away. Just that cold, blank expression he always wore now. But he was looking. Actually looking at me for the first time in months.
Something shifted in his eyes. Something I couldn't read.
Then his mistress—Aradia, some high-born wolf from a powerful family—said something to him and touched his arm.
I watched him reach over and pull her into his lap.
The hall got quieter. People were noticing, watching this happen.
He kept his eyes on me.
Then he kissed her. Deep and possessive and completely public, the kind of kiss that left no question about what they did in private.
Aradia laughed against his mouth, clearly thrilled with the attention.
Conversations started up again around the hall, everyone pretending they weren't watching, pretending this wasn't awkward as hell.
But Rovian didn't look away from me. Not once. He kissed his mistress and stared right at me the whole time, making absolutely sure I saw every second of it.
I didn't cry. I didn't give him whatever reaction he was looking for.
I just looked back at him with the same empty expression I'd perfected over two years.
Then I dropped my gaze back to my plate.
Someone near me cleared their throat. The low-rankers exchanged uncomfortable looks but nobody said anything.
I took a bite of food I couldn't taste.
This was my life now. This exact thing, over and over.
Him finding new ways to humiliate me, to remind me I was nothing to him, and me just taking it because what else could I do?
Two years of this.
Two years of not understanding what I'd done to deserve it.
Two years of lying to my family that everything was okay because leaving would mean depriving them all of the privileges marrying Rovian had given them.
The dinner dragged on forever like it always did. When it finally ended I walked back toward the maids' quarters, keeping my head down and my steps quick. The less time I spent in the main halls the better.
I was passing the east wing when I heard voices coming from Rovian's study.
I should've kept walking. Should've gone straight to my room like I always did.
But I stopped.
The door was cracked open just enough that I could hear clearly.
"—council is pressuring you about an heir again." That was Tetley, Rovian's oldest advisor. "They're getting insistent."
"I'm aware." Rovian's voice was clipped.
"Have you given any thought to what we discussed? About selecting a new wife?"
My heart stopped.
"I have. I've narrowed it down to two candidates. Both would bring valuable alliances."
"And the current Luna?" Tetley asked carefully.
Rovian was quiet for a moment. And then he spat, "She's a long, drawn out mistake. I was thinking with my cock instead of my head when I brought her here. Wartime does that to men."
The words cracked a crater in my chest.
"She served her purpose at the time," he continued, oblivious to the fact that I could hear him, "But I should've known better than to actually marry her. A healer's daughter playing Luna? It was bound to fail."
"What will you do with her?"
"Her family can keep the status they gained from the marriage as long as they don't make trouble about the annulment." He paused. "I've already been in discussions with Alpha Greythorne. His daughter Katia would make an excellent Luna. Well-bred, properly trained, understands duty."
"When are you planning to make this official?"
"Within the month. I want this handled cleanly. The pack needs stability, and they won't get that with her filling a position she was never suited for. I should have listed that tramp in with the prostitutes that serve high rankers when I brought her here. She's not suited to do anything beyond playing with her little herbs and being spread open whenever she's called on. "
Being spread open whenever called on?
That's what all our intimate moments boiled down to?
I thought we were making love, while he was getting his dick wet?
Goddess.
I heard Tetley murmur something in agreement.
"At least I can correct this mistake before it costs me more than it already has," Rovian said. "I'll have the formal papers drawn up this week."
I stopped listening.
My legs were shaking but I made them move, carrying me away from that door and down the hallway. I didn't run. Running would draw attention. I just walked steadily back to the maids' quarters like nothing had happened.
When I got to my room I closed the door and stood there.
Within the month.
He was replacing me within the month.
I'd known this was coming eventually. Had known it for two years, really. But hearing him say it out loud, hearing him call me a tramp, a mistake, hearing how easily he was planning to erase me—
Something clicked into place.
He was going to discard me anyway. He oing to toss me aside and move on with his proper, well-bred replacement while I got a pat on the head and a "don't make trouble" warning to my family.
I'd spent two years being nothing. Being invisible. Taking every bit of cruelty he threw at me and waiting for something to change, for him to remember who we were to each other.
But he'd never been planning to remember. He'd been planning to replace me.
I looked around the tiny room that had been my prison. At the narrow bed and plain walls and the window so small I could barely see the sky.
If I was leaving anyway, I was leaving on my terms. Not his.
I grabbed the old leather satchel I'd brought with me from my mother's cottage—the one I'd arrived at this palace with three years ago, and I started packing.
And then I sat down at the tiny desk and pulled out a piece of paper.
I wrote four words: You're free now. Don't look for me.
No signature. He'd know who it was from.
I folded it and left it on the bed next to the crown he'd placed on my head on our wedding day.
Then I put on my cloak and picked up my bag.
It was past midnight. The palace was quiet. I knew the guard rotations by now—two years of watching and waiting and being invisible had taught me everyone's patterns.
I slipped out through the servants' entrance like I'd done it a thousand times.
Nobody stopped me. Nobody even saw me.
I walked through the grounds, past the gardens where Rovian had welcomed me into his palace, then past the courtyard where he'd destroyed me in front of everyone.
The sun was starting to come up when I reached the edge of Northern territory.
I stopped and looked back one time.
The palace was small in the distance. Golden in the early morning light.
For two years I'd waited for the man I married to come back to me. For him to look at me the way he used to. For him to remember those promises he made to me the first night we shared together.
But that man was gone, if he'd ever really existed at all.
I turned away from the palace and crossed the border.
I took a breath.
And I didn't look back again.