Chapter 24 - 25
Elodie’s POV—
The air was cold that afternoon, so sharp enough to sting my cheeks as I sat on the park bench. Leaves rustled above me. Across the path, a man leaned down to kiss his mate’s cheek, his hand brushing tenderly over the small swell of her stomach. The glow on her face, the way he looked at her like nothing else mattered; it twisted something deep inside me.
I should have looked away, but I didn’t. My chest ached with an emotion I couldn’t name, half joy for them, half something darker, heavier. Something I didn’t want to admit lived inside me.
“They look happy,” Mila said quietly beside me.
“They do,” I whispered, forcing my eyes down to my hands. My fingers were stiff from the cold, but they wouldn’t stop fidgeting. “So how’s work, babes?”
Mila didn’t push. She never did. “Work’s the same,” she said after a pause. “Alphas sending contracts they expect me to rewrite overnight. Nothing new.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t listening. My mind was elsewhere, three years behind me, and yet still painfully close. Three years since I walked away from Calhoun. Three years since I’d sent him that final message that had gutted me as much as it freed me:
‘Nine years loving you in silence. Five years pretending it was enough. This is the end of the line.’
I’d meant it. Moon goddess, I had. I’d forced myself to mean it, even as I packed what little was mine, even as I tore my wolf in half to do it. I’d built a new life, brick by shaky brick, my own apartment, my work in tech development, quiet mornings that weren’t filled with his shadow. But some nights I’d still wake with his name in my throat, extremely raw and broken, as though he’d carved himself into my lungs.
And then Dante had appeared. Six months ago at a Pack conference in New York, the Alpha of the Bellini Pack in Italy and a tech Morgul. He’d sought me out after my presentation, his interest had been immediate, not just in my work, but in me. Where Calhoun had once consumed me like a storm, Dante had been patient. Dinners that turned into long nights talking. Calls that drifted from business to personal. For the first time in years, I’d felt seen.
“Elodie.” Mila nudged me gently. “You’re lost in your head again.”
Heat rose to my cheeks. “Dante... he asked me to go to Italy with him. To his Pack.”