Chapter 7

Ava POV

I'm not a violent person, but I desperately wanted to walk over to Ethan and smack that smirk off his face. It didn't help that Chris was obviously shocked at my ex's announcement.

"We've been bonded since childhood," Ethan said next. "We've served the Pack side-by-side for over a decade. I couldn't just sever our bond like that."

He spread his hands. "We're fated to be mates. Marrying Olivia was just a necessary step, a means for me to serve the Pack as best I could. She insisted on it, but I never wanted it."

"Uh-huh," I said, or something like that. I couldn't hear myself all that well over the ringing in my ears.

"If you let yourself, you will be able to feel the bond still stretched between us," he said. "It will take little effort to reinstate it."

I blinked at him, realizing now why seeing him and Olivia together standing on the portico had hurt my heart so badly. Then I asked him, "Are you insane?"

He frowned. "What?"

"She asked if you're insane," Chris said, his face ruddy with temper, which was both attractive and gratifying. "But personally, I'm impressed. You've managed to figure out a way to be unfaithful to Ava and Olivia at the same time. Maybe for your next trick you could torture a puppy to death."

"Now, wait-" Ethan began.

Chris cut him off, running a hand through his hair. "What has happened to you people while I was gone? I catch my sister with a branding iron in her hand, and you stand there talking about breaking and forming mating bonds like you're changing your shoes."

He threw up his hands. "Have you no honor, Ethan? Have you lost everything to your ambition?"

Ethan's shoulders went back. "I'm only thinking of the good of the Pack."

"Oh, cut the crap. You're only thinking of yourself, and for the record, you're not only not good enough to be Alpha, I'm seriously thinking you need to be banished before you spread your poison any further."

"You wouldn't dare." Yet even as he challenged Chris, Ethan's eyes slid uneasily to mine.

Once again, I felt a deep well of disbelief that I once thought I loved this man. I had actually believed that he did put the Pack first. I had been proud-ha!-to serve the Pack in partnership with him. To use Chris's words, I had thought he was a man of honor.

"Did you leave bits of the bond behind to control me?" I demanded. I realized I wanted nothing to do with him now. All I was looking at now was a typical manipulative middle-aged man who had discarded his mate and then hooked up with a younger model.

I didn't know the real reason he didn't fully break our bond, though I suspected it was just so he could control me through it. Had he thought we would continue to sleep together behind Olivia's back? When I became his omega house slave?

I reached down deeply within myself then, closing my eyes to find those last bits of my bond to Ethan. I called upon Goddess Luna to guide me, and it seemed as though a curtain over my heart drew back, exposing dull golden threads. With a thought, I cut through them, checking carefully to ensure I got them all.

And then I was truly freed from him, and it didn't hurt at all.

When I opened my eyes, Ethan was looking at me. I knew severing the last of our bond hadn't hurt him either. We both felt nothing for the other anymore.

"Ava?" Chris asked, his voice and face full of concern.

"I've cleared out the last of it," I told Ethan, then I watched his face as he searched inside himself and knew I was telling the truth. "Did you leave threads behind so I would beg you to return to me? Did you think you could hold it over me?"

Ethan's expression next turned, of all things, patronizing. "Ava, you need to understand-"

"I understand that you're a raging jackass," I said.

Chris turned to me then, his eyes deeply serious. "Are you telling the truth? Did he actually attempt to use the mating bond to manipulate you?"

I was about to retort that yes, of course he had, when I realized the weight of what he was asking. I made myself think it through very carefully.

The most essential quality of our lupine heritage was not about turning into a wolf, but instead the mental connections that make a pack a Pack.

No werewolf was ever truly alone, not even those who were banished and had their markings removed. Not even those who turned their back on their ancestors. Not even those wolves with a Human parent.

And our bonds were not only to each other. We were also connected to our land. Goddess Luna gifted the wolves this connection before recorded history, and we gathered strength from the life around us. No werewolf who has ever run in a hunt, has ever sung to the moon, or has ever felt the ground holding them up to the stars could deny our legacy.

Harming the land was one of our most heinous crimes, and of equal violation was to tamper with the bonds of the Pack. And of all the bonds-the mindlink, the call to gather, the acknowledgment of new children-the mating bond was the most venerated. To use it in any way other than to share in the joy of being bound was the equivalent of mental, even spiritual, rape.

That was what Chris wanted to know. Had Ethan used the mating bond deceptively?

"Yes," I said, looking at Ethan then Chris. "He left part of the bond in place on purpose for reasons I don't understand, but it certainly wasn't to celebrate our connection."

Chris looked at Ethan was open hatred. Ethan recoiled, then aggressively stepped forward.

"What happens between me and Ava is part of our marriage and none of your concern."

"Your marriage is over, and your argument is ridiculous." Chris dug into a pocket and pulled out a phone. He dialed a number, then waited.

"Elder Degas?" he asked. "This is Alpha Chris. I need the Elders here to witness a banishment." Chris waited a moment, then nodded. "Yes. Immediately."

As Chris slid his phone back into his pocket, Ethan took two steps to stand directly before him.

"You have no right."

"Unlike what Olivia wanted, I'm not burning off anyone's markings. There are many establishments in the Human World that specialize in tattoo removal. I suggest you make use of one."

"Who are you to expel me from Moonstone Pack?" Ethan demanded. "You child who forsook his kind to slum with the Humans, you think you can come back here and do this?"

I started to get a very bad feeling.

Ethan spat on the ground, narrowly missing one of Chris's shoes.

"I challenge you, Alpha. I challenge you for Moonstone Pack."

Oh, Goddess, was all I could think.