For Our Anniversary, I Returned His Mark Novel – “Elder Fenric,” I said calmly, meeting his gaze with steady resolve, “I want to reject Alpha Darius Nightbane as my mate and resign from the Nightbane Pack’s company. Please prepare the bond severance and dissolution papers.” The elder Alpha stilled, his ancient eyes flickering with hesitation. His voice dropped, somber and heavy with age-old wisdom. “Avelyn, your bond was fated by the Moon.
Are you truly ready to defy the gods?” For three years, I lived as the Nightbane Pack’s secret Luna—unmarked, unclaimed, hidden behind the empty title of “assistant” to Alpha Darius. He never acknowledged me, never honored the sacred mating that tethered our souls. But I loved him. Goddess, I loved him. Until the night everything shattered. Betrayal came from within. Rogues captured me on our own land and demanded blood-gold in exchange for my life. The message was sent.
I know it reached him. But my husband, Darius Nightbane, Alpha of the Nightbane Pack, never came. Never shifted. They never fought for me. He let me die. The rogues cast me into the ocean under the glow of a Blood Moon—but the Moon Goddess refused to let me go. A lone shifter pulled me from the depths, and I was barely breathing. I should have drowned, but I didn’t. Something ancient held me above the tide. And that very night, while I lay soaked in salt and blood, Alpha Darius marked another—my younger sister, Lexie.
Now, as our third mating anniversary looms like a curse on the calendar, I return—not to beg, not to break, but to burn. Divorce. Rejection. Freedom. He never loved me. And I am no longer the Luna he buried beneath silence and shame. She died that night, but something far more dangerous rose in her place. The Luna he tried to erase is the one soul who can now bring his kingdom to ruin. — It was already dark when I returned to the Nightbane Packhouse and found Alpha Darius in the kitchen—cooking. The scent of roasted venison, sage, and firewood filled the air.
He moved with practiced grace, his large hands slicing meat with deadly precision as if he were gutting rogues, not preparing dinner. He’d always been obsessed with cleanliness—hated clutter, hated chaos, hated… mess. I still remember the first year of our bond. I was trying to make stew. He walked in, wrinkled his nose, and muttered, “Is this place doubling as a landfill?” But when my younger sister, Lexie said she liked his cooking? He enrolled in a culinary course taught by the best chef in the Packlands.
For her. Always for her. “Didn’t you say the patrols were quiet today?” He asked, placing a steaming bowl in front of me. “Why are you home so late?” Even now, dressed in an apron, Darius Nightbane— the Alpha of Nightbane Pack— looked like he ruled empires with a single growl. That square jaw, those storm-gray eyes, the dark energy that clung to him like a second skin.