The summons arrived before dawn, carried by a courier in ceremonial red. He bowed his head so low Aria wondered if he was afraid of meeting her eyes. His hands trembled as he held out the parchment sealed with blood-red wax, the crescent insignia of the High Council pressed deep into its surface.
Aria didn’t need to open it. She could feel the decree pulsing through the seal like venom. She was being called—not as Kael’s fated mate, not as the Luna of StoneRidge—but as a liability.
The parchment was still warm from the courier’s touch when she sat on the edge of the empty bed. The silk sheets were twisted, the other half unslept in. Kael hadn’t come home last night. Again.
Outside, wolves howled in chorus to greet the breaking dawn. The sound should have been a comfort, a reminder of unity and loyalty within the werewolf pack. But to her ears it rang hollow. There was no unity here. No loyalty. Only a hollow ache where her bond once burned bright.
The door creaked.
She didn’t flinch.
It wasn’t Kael. It hadn’t been Kael for weeks.
Zara entered without knocking, her flame-red braid still damp from the bathhouse. Green eyes flicked to the unopened letter in Aria’s lap.
“They’ve sent for you,” she said softly. “You need to be downstairs in twenty.”
Aria nodded once. Her throat was too tight to speak.
Zara’s gaze lingered on the untouched side of the bed. Her lips pressed thin. “Are you going to open it?”
“There’s no need.”
“You still have rights, Aria. You’re still his—”
“No, I’m not.” The words came out flat, stripped of life. “Not really.”
She rose slowly, the silk robe brushing her ankles. The parchment slipped from her lap and fell soundlessly to the floor, the seal unbroken.
Later, the words inside echoed in her head as if she had read them aloud:
Luna Aria Vale, you are hereby summoned to appear before the High Council of StoneRidge at first light. A hearing regarding the sanctity and viability of your fated bond to Alpha Kael Draven will be held under Rule 47-B of the Fated Laws. You are to appear unaccompanied. Pack attire is mandatory.
Mandatory. As if any of this had ever been optional.
Twenty minutes later, she stood before the towering doors of the great hall. White velvet cloaked her frame, silver thread tracing patterns approved long ago by the Elders at her Ascension. Once, the garment had carried the weight of power. Now it felt like a burial shroud. Her hair had been braided into the ceremonial Luna style, but her reflection in the polished marble floor looked more like a widow than a leader’s mate.
Two guards flanked the entry, their expressions carved from stone. At a curt nod, the iron doors groaned open.
Aria stepped into the chamber.
The hall was dim, torches flickering along the walls, shadows stretching across the marble like claws. At the far end stood the Elders in a semicircle, cloaked in gray, beneath the sigil of the Council: a crescent moon split down the center.
And to their right—Kael.
Her heart stuttered at the sight of him. He looked every bit the Alpha, tall and broad-shouldered in his black leathers, posture rigid as if carved from iron. His dark hair was tousled, carrying that familiar scent of pine and snow she had once buried her face in. But his hazel eyes didn’t meet hers. He looked past her, as though she were already nothing more than a shadow.
Aria walked to the center of the chamber, her pulse a thunderous beat.
“Luna Aria,” Elder Brynn said, voice sharp as frost. “You are here today to answer for the weakening of the bond between yourself and Alpha Kael Draven. As is your right, you may speak in your defense. Do you acknowledge the summons?”
“I do,” Aria whispered, forcing her voice steady.
Brynn inclined her head, then turned to Kael. “Alpha Draven. Do you wish to open with testimony?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“I request the dissolution.”
The words landed like stones in her stomach. Aria’s breath caught. Her nails dug crescents into the fabric of her cloak.
“On what grounds?” asked Elder Rian.
Kael’s voice was cold steel. “The bond has deteriorated. The connection is no longer stable. It has become a liability to the unity of the pack.”
Aria stared at him, searching for some crack in his composure, some glimmer of the man who once held her like she was the axis of his world. But there was nothing. Just duty.
“Liability,” she repeated under her breath.
Brynn turned back to her. “You may respond, Luna.”
Aria swallowed hard. “I do not consent to dissolution.”
Gasps rippled along the chamber walls.
Kael’s eyes finally met hers. She wished they hadn’t. They were flat, lifeless.
“The bond hasn’t weakened naturally,” she said, finding strength in the sound of her own conviction. “Something is interfering with it. I feel it. It’s twisted, unnatural. This isn’t fading—it’s being undone.”
“You claim tampering?” Brynn asked, arching a brow.
“I don’t know what I claim,” Aria admitted. “But I know what a bond feels like. I know its slow unravel. This is different. This is sabotage.”
Kael’s jaw tightened. “Clinging to something broken helps no one. You’re hurting yourself by denying it.”
Her fists curled beneath her cloak. “I’m not the one who gave up, Kael.”
“Enough,” Brynn snapped. “The Council will recess to deliberate.”
The silence that followed was crushing.
Aria stood rooted in place as the Elders rose and swept from the hall. Kael turned without a word, without even a glance, and followed them.
The iron doors closed, leaving her in shadow.
Something inside her cracked—not the clean break of a severed bond, but the beginning of an unraveling thread. The connection still pulsed within her chest, faint and fragile.
It wasn’t gone.
But for the first time, it felt as though it could die.
