Chapter 17 No Longer His
The bond vanished without mercy.
One moment, Tria was there.
Far away. Wounded. Faint as a heartbeat beneath water.
But there.
Delvan had felt her for weeks through pain, distance, and rejection. A torn silver thread buried under his ribs.
Then it was gone.
Not dulled.
Not quiet.
Gone.
The absence struck harder than agony.
Delvan staggered.
His hand slammed against the wall of the Luna sitting room. The room tilted sharply, moon-silver curtains blurring, candlelight smearing gold across polished wood. His knees hit the floor before he understood he was falling.
His wolf howled.
Not a sound in his throat.
Inside.
A savage, broken, endless howl that ripped through his bones and left him gasping.
“No.”
The word tore out of him.
Selene turned from the writing desk so quickly the ink pot beside her hand tipped. Black drops spilled across the page she had been pretending to read.
“Delvan?”
He could not answer.
There was no Tria.
No ache.
No pull.
No distant pulse of the woman he had cast out and still somehow expected the world to leave connected to him.
His fingers clawed at his chest.
Nothing answered.
His wolf threw itself against his skin, frantic, furious, disbelieving.
Mate.
No.
Mine.
No.
Gone.
Selene rushed toward him. Her skirts whispered over the floor. Her scent wrapped around him—sweet flowers, soft spice, something carefully chosen to soothe.
His wolf recoiled as if she had pressed a blade to his throat.
Delvan jerked away from her hand before she touched him.
Selene froze.
Pain flickered across her face.
Then fear.
“What happened?”
Delvan dragged air into his lungs. It did not help.
“She is gone.”
Selene’s eyes widened.
For one breath, she looked almost innocent.
Then understanding moved through her face.
Fast.
Too fast.
Delvan saw it.
His head lifted slowly.
“You know.”
Selene swallowed. “The Moon Pool.”
The words struck the floor between them.
Sacred water.
Old magic.
Tria had reached it.
Tria had knelt there.
Tria had asked the Moon Goddess to remove him from her soul.
And the Goddess had answered.
Delvan’s stomach twisted.
He had told himself fate was not law.
Now fate had released him.
He felt no freedom.
Only ruin.
Selene took one careful step back.
“You said the bond would fade,” Delvan rasped.
Her lips parted.
“You said choosing you would be enough.”
“I said the bond was old magic. I said time would—”
“You said she would stop mattering.”
Selene’s eyes hardened. “No. You wanted to believe that.”
The truth in it hit too cleanly.
Delvan pushed himself to his feet. His legs shook.
“You poisoned everything.”
Selene’s chin lifted, but her scent soured.
“You whispered in my ear for months. You told me the pack worshiped her. You told me fate made me weak. You told me choosing you would make me free.”
“I told you what you already feared.”
His wolf snarled.
The candle flames bent.
Selene flinched, then steadied herself with visible effort.
“I never forced you to speak before the pack,” she said. “I never forced you to summon children to watch. I never forced the words out of your mouth.”
Delvan stepped toward her.
She did not retreat this time.
“You wanted to be the Alpha no one could bind,” she said, voice trembling now, but sharp. “You wanted to prove the Moon Goddess had no claim on your pride. I opened a door, Delvan. You walked through it wearing a crown.”
“Be silent.”
“No.”
The word cracked between them.
Selene’s eyes shone, but not with the soft tears she used before council, before elders, before him. These were angrier. Hotter. Real.
“You rejected her,” she said. “You stripped her. You exiled her. You let her run into the forest alone. If she begged the Goddess to be free of you, then perhaps she finally did what you told everyone you had already done.”
Delvan’s hand curled.
He wanted to deny it.
He wanted to name her liar.
Spy.
Poison.
Ruin.
But the room smelled of truth, and it was unbearable.
He had stood on the platform.
He had said the words.
He had watched Tria break and called it necessary.
His breath shook.
Selene saw the crack and moved like a wolf toward blood.
“If you chase her now,” she said, “you prove she still owns you.”
Delvan’s gaze snapped to hers.
Selene’s face had gone pale, but her voice sharpened with desperation. “Think, Delvan. The Moon Pool is sacred land. Ironwood scent was found near it. Ravin’s scent. If you run after her, he will make you look like exactly what they already believe you are.”
“What is that?”
“A man who threw away his mate and then could not bear seeing her survive without him.”
The words hit hard enough to silence the room.
Delvan’s wolf surged.
Selene stepped closer, careful now. Too careful. “Send scouts if you must. Quiet ones. Let them confirm where she went. But do not chase her yourself. Do not give Ravin a reason to stand between you and her like a hero.”
Ravin.
The name turned the hollow inside him into fire.
The Alpha who had sheltered her.
The Alpha whose scent had been found near sacred land.
The Alpha who might have stood close enough while Tria asked the Goddess to tear Delvan out of her life.
Delvan turned for the door.
Selene caught his sleeve.
“Delvan, no.”
He looked back at her.
For once, she did not look wounded.
She looked afraid.
Good.
“Do not make another mistake from pride,” she whispered.
He laughed once.
A broken sound.
“Do not speak to me of mistakes.”
He left her in the Luna rooms, ink bleeding across Tria’s old desk.
The halls of Silvercrest seemed to know before he spoke.
Wolves turned as he passed. Conversations died. Servants flattened themselves against walls. The pack bond trembled beneath his feet, uneasy and thin.
They had felt something.
Maybe not the mate bond itself.
That had been his curse.
His gift.
His wound.
But they felt him.
Their Alpha unraveling.
Delvan reached the great hall and let Alpha command crack through the room.
“Warriors to the courtyard. Now.”
The command rolled outward.
Wolves obeyed by instinct.
Boots struck stone. Benches scraped. Doors opened along the hall as warriors appeared half-dressed, half-shifted in spirit already, faces wary and scents sharp with confusion.
Garian arrived last.
Not because he had hurried less.
Because he had chosen not to hurry at all.
Delvan stood on the lower council step, breathing hard. “Trackers with me. We run east.”
A murmur spread.
East meant sacred land.
East meant the Moon Pool.
East meant Tria.
Garian’s face went still. “Why?”
Delvan’s eyes cut to him. “Because I ordered it.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one you need.”
Garian stepped forward. “No.”
The word silenced the courtyard more effectively than any command.
Delvan stared at him.
Around them, warriors froze.
Some lowered their eyes. Others looked between Alpha and Beta with fear sharpening their scents.
Delvan’s wolf rose, wounded and wild. “You refuse your Alpha?”
“I refuse to drag Silvercrest into another disaster because you cannot tell grief from command.”
The words struck open air.
Several wolves inhaled sharply.
Delvan’s hands curled.
“She is near the Moon Pool.”
Garian’s jaw tightened. “Then she has already risked enough without you chasing her like prey.”
“She is my—”
The word died.
Mate.
No.
Not anymore.
The absence opened inside him again, huge and silent.
Garian heard the failure.
So did everyone else.
“She is what?” Garian asked quietly.
Delvan hated him then.
Hated the pity beneath the anger. Hated the fact that his Beta already understood what had happened.
“The bond is gone,” Garian said.
Not a question.
A judgment.
The courtyard shifted.
Whispers moved like wind.
Selene appeared at the edge of the hall, pale and silent. Delvan did not look at her.
No one moved.
Not at first.
Then one warrior stepped forward.
Then another.
Five.
Six.
Not the courtyard full of loyal wolves Delvan had expected.
A handful.
The rest stayed where they were, heads lowered, scents twisted with fear, grief, and refusal.
One older warrior spoke without raising his eyes. “Alpha, the Moon Pool belongs to the Goddess. If Tria went there for healing, we should not interfere.”
Delvan’s throat tightened. “You know nothing.”
“We know enough,” the warrior said.
Garian turned to the gathered wolves. “No one is to cross into Ironwood territory without council approval. No one is to touch Tria. No one is to risk war because our Alpha regrets too late what he chose in public.”
Delvan moved before thought.
Garian moved too.
For one breath they stood close enough to fight.
Alpha and Beta.
Pride and duty.
A pack holding its breath between them.
Delvan could have forced him down.
Maybe.
But victory would not bring Tria back.
It would only prove Garian right.
Again.
Delvan stepped back first.
The humiliation burned.
Garian’s face did not soften.
“Stay,” the Beta said. “Let scouts watch the border. Let her return to Ironwood.”
“No.”
The answer came from somewhere deeper than reason.
The empty bond had become a wound with teeth.
No.
He would not sit in Silvercrest while Tria disappeared behind Ravin’s borders. He would not wait while another Alpha stood beside her and offered the future Delvan had shattered.
He did not know what he would say when he found her.
Forgive me.
Come home.
Let me see you.
Do not be gone.
All of them sounded too small.
All of them sounded too late.
Still, he turned toward the eastern path.
“Those who will follow, come.”
Only six did.
Six loyal wolves, nervous and stiff, gathered behind him. One by one, they shifted, bones cracking beneath the weight of the choice they had made.
Garian did not move.
Neither did most of the pack.
Selene watched from the hall doors, her face unreadable now.
Delvan looked once at the courtyard where he had rejected Tria weeks ago. He saw moonflowers scattered across stone. Saw her lifted chin. Heard her voice.
I hope she was worth the pack you just broke.
Then Delvan shifted.
Pain tore through his body, but it was nothing beside the silence in his chest. His wolf hit the courtyard stones and lunged east before the last loyal wolf finished changing behind him.
Not as Alpha with a full pack at his back.
Not as a mate.
Not as a man owed anything at all.
Delvan ran toward the Moon Pool with only a handful of loyal wolves behind him, and the silence where Tria used to be howled louder than all of them.