Chapter 3

Julie POV:

The ring. It was the only thing I had left of them, of my parents, the beloved former Alpha and Luna. It was meant for my true mate. For ten years, Locke had worn it, claiming its power as his own.

For that ring, I would walk back into hell.

Dragging my battered body, I made the journey back to the Silver Moon pack lands. The path I had stumbled down in disgrace, I now walked with a cold, singular purpose.

The pack members saw me, and their faces twisted with scorn.

"Look, the barren Omega is back."

"She couldn't even last a day."

Whispers followed me like flies, but no one dared to touch me. The ghost of my former status still clung to me, a fragile shield against their hatred.

I pushed open the heavy oak doors of the Alpha manor. My home.

The sight that greeted me stole the air from my lungs.

Locke and Debbie were on the living room sofa, the one where I used to curl up and read. They were naked, their bodies entwined in a grotesque display of passion.

Locke looked up as I entered, a lazy, arrogant smirk spreading across his face. He didn't even bother to cover himself.

"See?" he said to Debbie, his voice loud enough for me to hear clearly. "Not even three days. I told you she'd come crawling back."

Debbie wrapped herself around him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. She looked at me, her eyes gleaming with malice. "Darling, you should check her over. Who knows what she let those rogues do to her in their camp."

The accusation was vile, meant to degrade me.

Locke slid off the couch and stalked towards me. He grabbed my chin, forcing my head up, and lowered his face to my neck, sniffing me like an animal. It was a crude, insulting gesture of ownership.

His body went rigid. His eyes, when they met mine, were blazing with a new kind of fury. Jealousy.

"You smell of him," he snarled. "You smell of another Alpha."

My inner wolf, which had been silent for so long, bristled at his tone. He no longer had any right.

I ignored him, my eyes scanning the room. Everything that was mine was gone. My books, the paintings my mother had loved, the small trinkets I had collected over the years. Piled in a heap of trash by the front door.

"This is my home now," Debbie declared from the sofa, a triumphant queen on her new throne.

Locke's grip tightened on my arm. He pulled me close, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "You can stay. Be my secret lover. It can be just like it was before."

The offer was so disgusting, so utterly devoid of respect, that I felt a bitter laugh bubble up in my throat. I pushed him away, my gaze frantically searching.

Then I saw it.

The ring. My parents' ring. On Debbie's finger.

She saw me looking and held her hand up, letting the silver heirloom catch the light. She wiggled her fingers, a childish, taunting gesture. Then, as I took a step towards her, she let out a piercing shriek and stumbled backwards, collapsing onto the floor.

"She pushed me! Locke, she tried to hurt the baby!"

Locke's rage exploded. He shoved me back, and I stumbled, the movement jarring my whipped back. Pain, white-hot and blinding, shot up my spine.

But I had to get the ring.

Ignoring the agony, I fell to my knees before him. Not for him, but for my parents' legacy.

"Please, Locke," I begged, the words tearing from my raw throat. "Just give me the ring. It's all I have left of them. I'll leave. I swear on the Moon Goddess, I will become a Rogue and you will never see me again."

The oath of a Rogue was the most solemn a wolf could make. It meant severing all ties, becoming a ghost.

My absolute resolve must have shaken him. He stared at me, a flicker of something-maybe shock, maybe regret-in his eyes. He yanked the ring from a protesting Debbie's finger and threw it on the floor in front of me.

I scrambled to pick it up, my fingers closing around the cool metal. I held it tight in my fist and slowly, painfully, got to my feet.

I looked him straight in the eye, my voice no longer pleading, but as cold and hard as stone.

"Locke Fowler, you will regret this."

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