The divorce papers made a soft, final sound against the polished mahogany desk.
Elena Sterling—technically Elena Wolfe, not that the name had ever felt real—slid the folder across the expanse of dark wood. She aligned its edge perfectly with the desk's border, a habit from three years of measured, flawless existence in this gilded cage.
"The term is complete," she said, her voice level, reporting a fact. "The debt is settled. Please sign."
Kaelen Wolfe glanced up from his tablet. The screen's blue light reflected in his frost-gray eyes, offering no warmth. His gaze swept over the folder's title, Dissolution of Contractual Matrimonial Agreement, then flickered to her face, assessing, as he would a middling quarterly report.
"Today?" he asked, his fingers still scrolling on the screen.
"The contract commenced on the 27th," Elena replied. "Today is the 27th."
Kaelen's attention returned to the tablet for a beat. Then, without another word, he reached for his pen. A Montblanc, black resin, as cold and expensive as the man himself. He didn't bother opening the agreement, simply found the signature line on the final page and scrawled his name.
Kaelen Wolfe.
The stroke was fluid, effortless. No different from signing a merger.
"Take anything you like from the estate," he said, setting the pen down, his focus already reclaiming the data on his screen. "Holloway will arrange an inventory."
"My personal effects are sufficient," Elena said. "They're already packed."
Kaelen gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. He paused, then finally looked at her properly. "Do you require transportation? Or assistance with lodg—"
"No." She cut him off, her tone still calm. "It's handled."
Three years. One thousand ninety-five days. This was the sum of it. No drama, no pleas, not even a proper goodbye. Just the width of a desk and a concluded business arrangement.
Elena's eyes dropped to her left hand, to the ring on her fourth finger.
The band was simple platinum, set with a modest, clear diamond. It looked less like a wedding ring and more like a scaled-down version of a family seal. Three years ago, Kaelen had slid it onto her finger without his skin ever touching hers. His first and only instruction after the sterile ceremony had been: "Do not remove it. Ever."
She had never asked why. Just as she had never asked why their "marriage" required no shared bed, no joint social appearances, not even a suite on the same floor. She was the Sterling family's final payment on an ancient debt. He was the collector. That was all.
Now, the debt was paid.
She raised her hand, pinched the cool metal band, twisted it once, and pulled.
The ring slipped over her knuckle.
A strange, immediate lightness followed. Not emotional, but physical—as if a thin, constant pressure she hadn't fully acknowledged had suddenly vanished from her skin.
She placed the ring on the divorce papers, right beside his fresh signature.
Platinum met paper with a soft click.
Kaelen's gaze moved from the screen to the ring. And froze.
Elena turned, collected her coat and purse from the back of the chair. She walked to the door, her heels silent on the dense Persian rug.
"Elena."
His voice came from behind her. It wasn't a command. It wasn't a question. It was a tone she had never heard from him.
She stopped at the threshold and looked back.
Kaelen was on his feet. His movement wasn't fast, but his entire posture had transformed. The CEO buried in spreadsheets was gone, replaced by something more primal—shoulders tense, gaze locked on her, not like a predator sighting prey, but like…
Like a man seeing the trigger of a bomb he's standing on.
"The ring," he said, the words low and strained. "Put it back on."
Elena frowned. "What?"
"I said, put it back on." He was around the desk in three long strides, his hand closing around her left wrist before she could react.
His grip was iron. His skin was shockingly cold.
"Let go of me." Elena tried to pull back, but his strength was impossible. Alpha strength. She felt the bones of her wrist protest.
Kaelen didn't answer. He stared at her bare finger, then his eyes snapped up to hers. This close, she could see the thin ring of gold around his pupils—the wolf's mark he usually kept subdued. Now, it flickered wildly, contracting and expanding.
"Let. Go." She bit out each word.
"Put the ring on, Elena." His voice was a tight wire, vibrating with something she finally recognized. Fear. "Now."
"Why?" She held his gaze, refusing to flinch. "The contract is over, Kaelen. I don't have to wear anything of yours anymore."
"This isn't a discussion."
"Then it's even more pathetic." She wrenched her arm with all her strength and somehow broke free. Perhaps because his hand was trembling. "Don't touch me."
She turned, grasped the ornate doorknob, and pulled the heavy door open.
"Elena!" His voice cracked behind her, raw and ragged. "If you don't—!"
The door swung shut, cutting off the rest of his sentence.
The hallway was long, lined with portraits of Wolfe ancestors in various centuries of finery, all sharing the same chill gray eyes. Elena didn't look back. She walked quickly down the hall, descended the curved staircase, and pushed through the massive oak front doors.
The evening air outside hit her, carrying the distant pulse of the city. It smelled like freedom.
A nondescript black sedan waited at the curb, the driver she'd booked online—a silent man in his fifties—already holding the rear door open. She slid inside.
"This address," she said, passing her phone forward.
As the car pulled away from the iron gates of the Wolfe estate, Elena allowed herself one glance in the rearview mirror. The gray stone mansion looked like a mausoleum in the dying light, sinking into the gathering dark.
She faced forward and looked at her left hand again.
A pale band of skin circled her fourth finger, a ghost of the ring. She rubbed her thumb over it, then clenched her fist.
It was over.
---
Kaelen Wolfe stood at the study window, watching the sedan's taillights vanish down the tree-lined drive.
His left hand hung at his side, clenched so tightly the knuckles were bone-white. Beneath the skin of his wrist, dark lines were beginning to writhe.
Not veins.
The Mark.
He had known it all his life—a crescent-shaped stain the color of dried blood on the inside of his left wrist. The "Blood Moon Mark," his family called it. The signature of their ancient curse. His father had it. His grandfather before him. Every Alpha of the Wolfe line bore it. It darkened slightly with age, they said. Otherwise, it was harmless.
Harmless.
With effort, Kaelen raised his left hand. He flicked open his cufflink, pushed the crisp white linen of his sleeve up his forearm.
The mark, once a dull burgundy, was now the color of a deep, vicious bruise, edging toward black. And it was moving. From the tips of the crescent, intricate, spiderweb-fine lines of darkness were crawling outward, spreading over his wrist, snaking toward his elbow. Like ink bleeding in water. Relentless.
With every millimeter of new growth, a spike of cold, sickening pain erupted from the mark's center, shooting up his arm and spearing directly into his heart.
He stumbled, catching himself on the window's edge.
His father's dying words, breathed into his ear three years ago, erupted in his mind, each one a hot nail driven into his skull:
The last Sterling daughter… Marry her… Use the ring to bind her blood… The ring leaves her skin… the curse accelerates…
You will die… I will die… The whole family dies with you…
Until we find the way… she must never remove it…
Had they found it? The way?
For three years, the family labs had worked around the clock. Data analysis, blood tests, combining ancient grimoires with modern magical theory. The progress? Negligible. They knew the ring suppressed the Sterling血脉's awakening. They knew the "Celestial Blood" had an unexplained affinity for their wolf-shifter biology. And they knew that if Elena fully awakened, she would be consumed by the primordial power on the next full moon, becoming a walking cataclysm.
And every member of the Wolfe bloodline would drop dead at the same moment, hearts ruptured.
Because three centuries ago, a Wolfe ancestor had made a stupid, unbreakable vow to a Lunar Goddess.
Now, the vow's backlash had begun.
The black threads had passed his elbow. Agony radiated from his core to his extremities. Kaelen gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead. He fumbled for the intercom button beneath the desk.
"Sir?" His butler, Holloway's, voice was instant.
"The car," Kaelen ground out. "Now. Follow her."
"But Ms. Sterling has already—"
"Now!" The roar tore from his throat, and with it came a metallic taste. He coughed, a wet, hacking sound, and pressed his hand to his mouth. When he pulled it away, his palm was smeared with bright, shocking red.
The study door flew open. Holloway, pale and efficient, rushed in. He saw the blood and froze.
"Sir, you're—"
"Quiet." Kaelen's other hand shot out, gripping the older man's arm with enough force to make him gasp. "Lock it down. Get my physician to the downtown safe house. Then find Elena Sterling. Whatever it takes."
"But the council, your schedule—"
"There is no schedule!" Kaelen's eyes blazed, the gold rings in his irises swirling madly. "If that ring isn't back on her finger before the next full moon…"
He didn't finish.
Holloway understood. Forty years of service to the Wolfe family, to Kaelen's father and grandfather, had taught him what those unspoken words meant.
Extinction.
"Immediately, sir." Holloway turned and hurried from the room.
Alone in the darkening study, Kaelen braced himself against the desk, each breath a ragged, painful effort. He looked out the window. The city's lights were coming on, a galaxy of indifferent stars. And on the horizon, a slender, pale sliver of moon was clearing the clouds.
A new moon.
Fifteen days until it was full.
His life might now be measured in those same fifteen days.
Kaelen Wolfe closed his eyes. When he opened them, every shred of fear and pain had been forced down, locked behind a wall of glacial will. He picked up the abandoned ring from the desk. The platinum felt ice-cold in his palm.
"I will find you," he whispered to the empty room, his voice a raw, determined scrape. "And you will put this back on."
"Willing or not."