Yield No More,Alpha Caleb Howl Alone

My lips curl in a smile: "Very well. If she craves , I'll yield them." My future plans no longer smell of his musk. But my alpha misreads my submission as defiance, his brow furrowing: "Clara, can't you show grace? A simple apology shouldn't spark a war." Confusion gnaws at me. He got what he wanted-so why does his aura still roil with anger? Caleb slams the door: "Don't come crawling back, disgraced and begging." Never again. His gaze skims past the trunk at my bedside, blind to the obvious. To keep me from disrupting the ritual, he chains the door with wards. Five winters I've worn this courtship token, a wolftooth carved by his first hunt. Daily I polished it with my scent, but now its surface dulls, like the love it once symbolized. Juliet wanted a seaside mating, so Caleb chose this manor by the Lunar Cliffs. Beyond the window, waves crash against moonlit rocks. With a snarl, I fling the token into the surf. It vanishes in a splash. The lunar ceremony proceeds, but the Luna is swapped. A beta growls low: "Alplha Caleb, has this gone too far?" Caleb Waverly spins his moonstone ring, alpha aura flaring unsteadily. "I'm granting Juliet a whim. I'll repay Clara tenfold." "She's my true luna-she'll forgive me." Yet his instincts twitch. Every past quarrel, Clara came whining back. She once warned: "Caleb, if I don't come to you within a sun-cycle, I've rejected the bond." He thought this was no different. As the lunar hymn swells, he watches Juliet pad down the aisle, but his gaze keeps flicking to the manor entrance. No one appears. When exchanging moonstone bands, his hands shakes-Juliet's wrist feels wrong, too thin, scentless of Clara's wild rose musk. Outside, the blood moon rises-Clara's favorite hour for bonding. Caleb snarls inwardly: I'll host a grander ritual later. That night, he drowns in firewater, sleeps through a full moon. Waking, he scents the air-no Clara. His manor door is chained , padlocked He lunges, claws ripping at the chains. "Open! Clara's inside!" A trembling servant is hauled up: "Mr. Waverly,Juliet ordered the lock two moons ago. I thought you knew." Caleb releases him, horror freezing his veins. "What did you say?" Panic floods his veins like poisoned silver. These chains-forged from lunar iron-could bind an adult alpha werewolf. He imagines Clara trapped here, her scent fading in this manor's shadowed corner, too far for any pack howl to reach. Years ago, he found her broken by silver whips, her mind scarred with lunar PTSD. It took moons of sacred herbs to heal her. Now he smashes the silver-reinforced door, howling: "Clara! Where are you?!" The manor lies empty, save for her trunk. As he rages to interrogate every guest, the manager plays a surveillance rune. On screen, Clara leaps from the window without a backward glance. Caleb replays the runes, desperate for a flicker of hesitation. None exists. She even left behind the hundred-moon tapestry she'd stitched for a year-each thread dyed in her blood, blessed by the Moon Goddess.