Aria’s POV

"Please can I come in?" Nathan asked quietly. "I need to talk to you."

The sound of his voice scraped against old wounds I had barely learned to breathe around.

"No," I said, my hand firm on the doorframe. I did not step aside. "Whatever you came to say, say it here."

The night air was cold, but it was nothing compared to the frost in my chest.

"I came to ask," he said after a pause, his voice low, unsteady, "if there’s anything I can do to make you forgive me for everything I did to you. Please, I do not want us to divorce, I will do anything to make amends."

Amends.

The word echoed in my mind like a cruel joke.

I laughed.

There was no warmth in it, only bitterness sharp enough to draw blood.

"Amends?" I repeated. "After everything you did to me? After everything I suffered in prison because of you?"

I saw his shoulders tense.

My wolf stirred within me, teeth bared, memories tearing loose.

I remembered that morning before the enforcers took me away. I remembered kneeling on cold stone, begging him, begging my mate, not to let the enforcers drag me away. I remembered screaming that I was innocent, that I had been framed.

And I remembered his eyes. They were cold and unmoved.

"You didn’t believe me that morning that I begged and told you I was innocent," I said, my voice steady. "You stood there and watched them take me."

The images of everything I went through in prison flooded back without mercy.

The beatings from inmates and wardens. How much they enjoyed seeing me in pain. The insults, the hunger. The nights I curled around my stomach, whispering to the pup inside me, promising them I would survive for their sake.

The silver chains I was bound with severally.

The way they bit into my skin, suppressing my wolf until she whimpered and went silent.

"I suffered so much in prison Nathan. When I gave birth," I continued, my nails digging into my palm, "it was on a concrete floor. No healer. No midwife. Just blood, pain... and my child crying for the first time behind iron bars."

Tears streaked down Nathan’s face at my words. I could sense his pain through his scent.

His hand tightened around the papers in his hand. They were the divorce papers I had sent to him. I returned my gaze to his face.

"There’s nothing you can do," I said quietly. "Nothing. I want nothing to do with you ever again."

He leaned against the wall, as though his legs could not carry him anymore. He sniffled, tears running uncontrollably down his cheeks

My heart... it did not move.

My wolf did not move.

"Is this really what you want Aria? Do you really want to divorce me? Please reconsider, we can work things out. I can change."

I shook my head, "My mind is made up Nathan, sign the divorce papers and set me free. I am tired of this hellhole called marriage."

He stared at me for awhile, then reached for a pen in his pocket with a trembling hand.

I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t change his mind.

He signed the papers.

Each stroke of his name felt like watching a blade carve through the last threads binding us together. When he finished, he bowed his head.

Then I spoke those words that needed to be said. The words that would bring an end to the bond to share.

"I, Aria," I said, my voice unwavering despite the storm gathering in my chest, "reject you, Nathan, Alpha of the Ironclaw Pack, as my mate."

Without looking at me, he voiced out the words, his voice filled with pain. "I accept your rejection".

The bond snapped with violent force, ripping through my veins like wildfire. Agony tore through my chest, stealing my breath as my wolf screamed in pain, collapsing under the severing of something sacred.

Nathan dropped to one knee, a strangled cry leaving his throat as his wolf howled in devastation.

I staggered back, gripping the doorframe as fire raced through me.

The Moon Goddess reclaimed what she had once given.

When the pain finally dulled into a hollow ache, I turned away.

I walked into my home and shut the door.

I did not look back.

For the next few days, I stayed inside my home, shutting out the world. I refused all visitors, all messages, all reminders of the life I had survived. Kara remained by my side, caring for me and my child as I lay recovering, not just from the breaking of a bond, but from a past I would never allow to claim me again.

I had lost my mate.

But I had reclaimed myself.