Rose's POV
My feet hit the ground before my brain could catch up with what was happening.
I was running. Actually running. Away from the Moon Ceremony, away from the fire and the wolves and the moment that had just destroyed every single thing I'd let myself believe.
The servant dress was stupid for running. The fabric tangled around my legs. My shoes were made for standing in kitchens, not sprinting through dirt paths. But I didn't care. Pain was good. Pain meant I was doing something. Pain meant I wasn't just standing there like an idiot, believing in something that was never real.
I pushed harder.
Behind me, the sounds of the ceremony were getting quieter. The pack was already moving on. Already celebrating something else. They'd forgotten about me in the time it took Kade to say those words. That's how important I was. That's how much the bond had meant.
Nothing. I was nothing.
I'd spent three years feeling it. Three years of watching Kade move through the pack house, feeling that pull whenever he was near. Every time he walked into a room, my wolf went crazy like it recognized something in him. Every time our eyes almost met, I felt like maybe something was possible.
But possible was a lie.
My lungs were burning now. My legs felt like jelly. Normal people would have stopped by now. Normal people would have gone back to their rooms and cried quietly like a good servant was supposed to do. But I wasn't normal. I was nothing. And nothing had nothing to lose.
I could hear the forest opening up ahead. The pack house was built on the edge of the wilderness. One of the perks of being Omega was knowing all the service paths, all the ways in and out that didn't involve the main gates. I'd mapped every escape route my first year working there, even though I never thought I'd actually use them.
Turns out I was using one now.
The trees got denser. The firelight from the ceremony was completely gone. The moon was high and bright, turning everything silver and grey. I could barely see the path in front of me but I didn't slow down. Slowing down meant thinking about what Kade had said. Slowing down meant remembering his voice. Slowing down meant admitting that the man I'd loved for three years had just publicly humiliated me in front of five hundred wolves.
Some bonds aren't real.
That's what he'd said about me. About us. About the thing that had been pulling at my chest every single time he was near.
He'd killed it like it was nothing.
And maybe that meant I'd imagined the whole thing. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe the bond had only been real in my head and he'd seen through it immediately. Maybe that's why he'd rejected it so quickly. Because there was nothing there to reject. Just a pathetic Omega servant who thought the Alpha might want her.
The thought made me want to scream.
I finally let myself shift.
My bones twisted and reformed. Fur rippled across my skin. My body became something faster and stronger and more wild than anything the pack house allowed. This was who I really was when nobody was watching. This was the wolf that nobody cared about because she was too low rank to matter.
In wolf form, I was smaller but faster.
I was faster because I had nothing to lose.
I ran deeper into the forest, away from the territory lines I wasn't supposed to cross. The pack had made it clear that Omegas didn't leave without permission. But what were they going to do? Punish me more? There was no punishment worse than what was already happening.
My parents had died when I was five years old. The elders had told me it was an accident. A cave collapse. Nobody investigated because nobody cared enough to look. I'd never even been given a real funeral. The pack just absorbed me into the Omega service class like I'd never had a family to begin with.
Maybe I was right to believe them now.
Maybe this was just what happened to me. People decided I didn't matter. And I believed them.
Hours passed.
The forest changed around me. The territory we used for hunting gave way to land I'd never seen before. Wild land. Empty land. The kind of place where a wolf could disappear and never be found. My paws hammered against the ground. My lungs screamed. My muscles burned so badly I thought they might actually tear.
I didn't care.
By the time the sun started rising, I was so far from Blackwood Valley that I couldn't smell the pack anymore. Couldn't feel them. Couldn't feel him. The bond that had been pulling at me for three years had gone quiet. It was still there, like a ghost of something, but it was fading.
Good.
Let it fade.
Let it die like everything else inside me that had believed in impossible things.
I shifted back to human form and collapsed against a tree. My body was shaking. My throat was raw from running. My skin was covered in dirt and cuts from branches. I looked like I'd just survived a war.
I had.
A war with myself. A war with hope. A war with the stupid, pathetic belief that somehow an Omega servant could matter to an Alpha.
I was never going back.
Never. Even if the pack came looking for me. Even if they found me. Even if they dragged me back by force. I would never go back to that grey dress and that invisible life and that bone deep hope that one day Kade Brennan might look at me and see something real.
He'd made his choice.
Now I was making mine.
I pushed myself up on shaky legs and started walking away from the rising sun. Away from Blackwood Valley. Away from everything I knew. A girl with nothing had everything to gain by starting over somewhere new. A girl with nothing had nothing to lose.
I was five miles from pack territory when I felt the eyes on me.
At first I thought it was my imagination. My mind was broken and exhausted. But the feeling got stronger. Someone was watching me. Someone was following me. I could feel it like fingers on the back of my neck.
I stopped walking and turned around slowly.
At the edge of the forest where the trees got thick and the shadows got deep, a figure stood absolutely still. It was too far away to make out details. Too far away to see a face. But I could feel the presence. Could feel the weight of attention focused completely on me.
Watching.
Waiting.
I couldn't tell if it was human or wolf or something else entirely.
But I knew with absolute certainty that whoever it was had been following me all night.