"I figured I'd be marching home soon enough. There was no need to waste riders on sealed parchments."

I let out a mocking laugh. "Funny. I hear Miss Vargr received one every single day, delivered by express courier."

"What happened to not wasting riders, Commander?"

Fenris looked at me with open disappointment. "Ravenna is my sister. You're really going to make an issue out of a few family letters?"

"Seraphina, we haven't seen each other in three years. When did you become so jealous?"

His sister. The same excuse. The same lie, told to me and to himself.

I wiped the smile from my face. "What I've become is none of the Alpha Commander's concern."

"The courtship contract has been returned. We're both free. Don't let me keep you."

"Seraphina Blackthorn!" Fenris seized my wrist. His grip burned with an Alpha's strength, and I felt the ghost of where his scent used to sink into my skin and find welcome there. It found nothing now. "There's a limit to throwing tantrums."

"Our scent-bond courtship was settled before we were even born. You can't just tear it apart!"

He thought I was throwing a tantrum.

He had no idea that reaching this moment had cost me two lifetimes.

I spoke each word like a nail driven into wood. "I will not mate with you, Fenris."

His grip on my wrist tightened. "If not me, then who?!"

He was banking on the fact that the Blackthorns needed the Vargr pack's protection.

And he was certain my heart still belonged to him alone.

I met his furious gaze without flinching. "A lone wolf. A drifter. A turned wolf from the outer territories. Anyone would do."

"Anyone but you."

Fenris's breath caught.

He closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath.

Then he reached into his coat and pressed something into my hand.

I recognized it at once: the gift I'd given him ten years ago, the day he left for the front.

Back then, it had taken me half a year to find the moonstone, and another half to have it carved into a ring threaded with silver.

When I placed it in his palm, I'd said, "May we be like this stone. Hearts never parting, forever bound."

The ring looked exactly the same as it had then.

But all I wanted now was to sever every thread that tied me to Fenris Vargr.

He didn't know what I was thinking. His voice softened. "Seraphina, I fought on the frontier for ten years, and you waited for ten. Every wolf in Aurelia knows the depth of your devotion."