The Second Bond Across the River

The bond does not close when Liza rejects Everett. It stays open until one of them accepts the other's rejection, and she has decided that will never happen.

He is the pack's new alpha. In front of everyone he looks at the scar a rogue opened from her cheek to her throat—the mark she took at seventeen, fighting three rogue wolves to save six pups—and says his luna cannot be a distraction.

No one argues, not even the wolf she bled for.

She leaves, crosses the river alone in a snowstorm, and walks into rival territory.

That pack takes her in. Dominic, their alpha, is big and quiet, with a broken nose. On an icy morning his touch makes the Goddess name him her second fated mate. Shane, his beta, has an easy grin and no fated pull at all; he makes her laugh and, for now, keeps his hands to himself.

Nights in Dominic's bed reach Everett anyway.

He cannot keep water down, and his body will not touch another woman.

One phrase would end it, but he is too proud to say it, even while his beta pushes for war against her new pack and offers her as the excuse.

When Everett comes to their gate, sick and shaking, and asks for a word, she refuses.

If he wants back in, he can crawl across that bridge and learn to share her with the men who never flinched.