I Severed Our Wolf Bond After All Three Mates Broke Me

Warm hands slid under my shoulders.

"Hey. Hey, stay with me."

The voice was low and rough, like he'd been running. I forced my eyes open. A stranger knelt over me. Dark curls. A scar through one eyebrow. Gray eyes so close I could see gold flecks in them.

The third pull snapped tight.

"You," I whispered.

"Me." He let out a shaky laugh. "Asher Dunmore. Pine Hollow pack. I felt you go down from the parking lot. Thought my heart was going to quit."

"You're my…"

"Yeah. Apparently." He scooped me off the floor like I weighed nothing. "We'll do introductions later. Right now you're freezing."

I pressed my face into his jacket. It smelled like cedar and gasoline. Through the locker room door, Sienna was still laughing.

Asher's arms went rigid around me.

"Those two," he said. "They're yours too?"

"Kieran and Rhett."

"And they left you on the floor."

It wasn't a question. I didn't answer.

He carried me down the hall, past the banquet doors. Nobody stopped us. Nobody even turned around.

"Listen to me, Vera." He tipped his head so I had to meet his eyes. "I'm not them. I will never be them. You fall, I catch you. Every time. Got it?"

I wanted to laugh at how cheesy it sounded.

I started crying instead.

He didn't flinch. He just held on tighter.

---

For the next two weeks, Asher was everywhere.

He drove forty minutes from Pine Hollow to walk me to class. He sat on the hood of his truck at lunch with two burgers, one always for me. When Kieran passed us in the hall with Sienna on his arm, Asher laced his fingers through mine and squeezed.

"Breathe," he murmured. "He's not worth the oxygen."

By the second week, I was leaning on him without thinking about it. Literally. My head on his shoulder in the bleachers. My hand in his jacket pocket.

Tess noticed.

"Okay, who is he?" she demanded, dropping onto my bed Thursday night. "And why does he look at you like you're the last slice of pizza?"

"He's my third mate."

"Your *third*?" She stared at me. "Vera, the Goddess really hates you, huh."

"Maybe not." I smiled at my phone. Asher had just texted a picture of a dog in a hot dog costume. "Maybe she finally got one right."

Tess didn't smile back. She chewed her lip.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. My cousin goes to Pine Hollow. She said Asher's friends are…" She shrugged. "Kind of jerks."

"He's not his friends."

"Sure." She grabbed her pillow. "Just be careful."

---

I found out on Saturday.

Asher had fallen asleep on my couch during a movie. His phone buzzed on the coffee table. Then again. Then four more times in a row.

I only picked it up to silence it.

The group chat was called **Silver Ridge Charity Case**.

My thumb froze over the screen.

**Dex:** Day 14. Has she said it yet??

**Mason:** Bro you're so close. 200 bucks says by homecoming.

**Dex:** Post another one. The crying one was gold.

I scrolled up.

There I was. The night of the banquet. My face wet and blotchy, buried against his chest. My mascara smeared down to my chin. The photo was taken from above. From his angle.

Under it, Asher had typed: *Easiest money I'll ever make. She thinks I'm her knight lol.*

Forty-two laughing reactions.

The phone slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the floor.

Asher jolted awake. "Wha… Vera?" He saw the phone. Then my face. The sleepy look drained right out of him. "Okay. Okay, wait."

"You took a picture." My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. "I was dying in a hallway, and you took a *picture*."

"It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?" I kicked the phone toward him. "Explain the bet, Asher. Explain *two hundred bucks*."

He rubbed both hands over his face. "It started before I knew you. Dex dared me. Some girl with two mates who don't want her, go see if she's real. Then I felt the bond and…"

"And you kept going."

"I kept *showing up*. Doesn't that count?"

"You showed up for the money."

"That's not fair."

"Get out."

He stood slowly. At the door he turned, and for one second he looked almost sorry.

"It was a stupid joke," he said. "That's all."

The door clicked shut behind him.

I sat there and did the strangest thing.

I laughed. Loud and ugly, until my stomach hurt. Because of course. Of course the Goddess had given me three, and of course all three were the same.

Then the bond tore.

---

It didn't stop all night.

Every hour, it got worse. A burning wire pulled through my ribs. I curled up on my bedroom floor because the mattress felt too soft to fight against. Tess was at her parents' house. The dorm was silent.

At 2 a.m., I called Kieran.

He picked up on the sixth ring. Music thumped behind him.

"What."

"Kieran, the bond. It's bad. I think something's really wrong."

He sighed so loudly it crackled through the speaker. "Vera, it's two in the morning."

"I know. Please. I need you to come."

"You need to stop calling me every time you get sad." Someone giggled near him. Sienna. "Go to sleep."

He hung up.

At 2:40, I called Rhett.

"Vera?" His voice was groggy. "You okay?"

My eyes stung. He sounded like he actually cared. "No. It hurts so much. I can barely breathe."

A pause. Sheets rustling.

"Have you tried drinking water?"

I stared at the ceiling.

"Water," I repeated.

"And maybe a hot shower. That helps with muscle stuff." He yawned. "Text me in the morning if it's still bad, yeah?"

"Rhett, it's not muscle stuff. It's *us*."

"Morning, Vera. I've got practice at seven."

Click.

At 3:15, shaking so hard I could barely tap the screen, I called Asher.

He answered right away. Like he'd been waiting.

"Vera."

"The bond is ripping me apart." I pressed my forehead to the cold floor. "Do you feel it? Do you feel anything?"

Silence. Then voices behind him. Dex's voice. "Is that her? Put it on speaker!"

"Shut up," Asher hissed. Then, to me, softer: "Look, I'm sorry you're hurting. But you're blowing this way out of proportion. It was just a joke."

"Just a joke," I whispered.

"Yeah. Nobody meant anything by it."

I hung up first this time.

I lay there until the window went from black to gray. My phone stayed dark. No texts. No missed calls.

Three mates. Zero answers.

Right before sunrise, the pain did something new. It stopped burning. It went quiet.

I reached inside for my wolf, the way I'd done since I was twelve.

She didn't answer.

For the first time in my life, there was nothing there at all.