Naomi woke up slowly, pulled out of sleep by a small sound somewhere in the room. She reached beside her without thinking, but her hand touched cold sheets. The other side of the bed was empty. The man who had slept there with her was already up and gone, like always.
She sat up and pulled the blanket over her chest, looking around the room. Her underwear was still hanging off the lamp where he’d thrown it the night before. Their clothes were scattered across the floor, left there the same way most things from that night got left behind.
Then her eyes found him, and her breath caught.
Alpha Kaidan Vaughn. Alpha of the Blackclaw Pack.
He stood near the dresser, already dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers, his back turned to her while he did up his cuffs. He always moved like that, calm and sure of himself, like a man who never had to raise his voice for people to listen.
He was her husband for about four years now.
But in all that time, she had never once woken up in his arms. Every morning was the same story. He was either already dressed and getting ready to leave, or he was already gone before she even opened her eyes. She always woke up alone, in a bed that still smelled like him.
"Morning, Alpha Kaidan," she said softly, her voice still rough from sleep.
"Mm." He didn’t even turn around.
"Are you heading to the pack house?" she asked again, quieter this time.
He said nothing. He never bothered answering things he thought were obvious. If he wasn’t dressing for pack business, what else would he be doing?
But today wasn’t just any morning.
Today was her final trial as a healer-in-training. One more step and she’d be a full healer of the Blackclaw Pack. One more step toward everything she had worked so hard for. And some small part of her had hoped, just this once, that he would actually show up for her.
"Today’s my trial, Alpha Kaidan," she said, and her eyes lit up a little despite herself. "I really hope you can make it."
"I have things to take care of today," he said flatly, cutting her off before she could even finish.
Things?
That word hit harder than she wanted it to. She had told him about this a whole week ago. She reminded him again just two days ago.
"Please don’t say that," she said, forcing a small smile. "You know how much this means to me. I really want you there."
"I’m not required to care just because it matters to you." He said it calmly, fixing his cufflinks, not even looking her way.
Her smile fell apart. Something in her chest twisted hard, like all the air had been pulled out of the room.
Those words hurt worse than yelling ever could have. It wasn’t just that he wouldn’t come. It was that he didn’t even think it was worth coming for.
Her hands tightened around the blanket as she tried to hold herself together.
"I’m not saying you’re required to," she said softly. "I just worked so hard for this. I wanted you there with me."
"People finish their trials all the time, Naomi." His voice stayed flat. "Others are out there building real futures, forming real alliances. And you’re here celebrating a title."
His words were cold. Colder than she had ever heard from him. Not angry, really. Something worse than angry. Careless. Like everything she had worked for meant nothing at all to him.
She didn’t need him to say the name out loud. She already knew who he meant. She had heard Serena was announcing her new alliance today.
"Others like Serena, you mean?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
Alpha Kaidan went still for a second, like her words had touched something in him. But he said nothing. His silence answered for him anyway.
She stared at him a moment longer. Then she looked away, blinking fast so he wouldn’t see the tears building up. She wasn’t going to give him that.
Her trial. Her future. Years of hard work, and he’d shrunk it all down to four words.
It’s just a title?
She pulled the blanket tighter around herself, suddenly feeling small in a room that had always felt too big for her anyway.
Alpha Kaidan dropped his card on the dresser like it was nothing, because to him, it really was nothing. Money had never once been a problem for the Alpha of the Blackclaw Pack.
"It’s unlimited. Buy yourself whatever you want," he said, glancing at her for just a second before walking toward the door.
"And don’t forget your suppressant," he added on his way out.
The quiet after the door shut felt heavier than anything he could’ve said. She stared at the spot where he’d been standing, her chest so tight it felt like something had been pushed straight through it.
The tears came before she could stop them, hot down her cheeks. It wasn’t just that he wouldn’t come. It was how he said it, no warmth, no hesitation, like she was some stranger who happened to be lying in his bed. Like the night before, when he’d whispered her name against her skin like it actually meant something, hadn’t mattered at all.
Four years married, and he had never once shown her real warmth. Never smiled at her like he meant it. Never softened his voice for her. Never once comforted her when she needed it.
Alpha Kaidan only touched her when he wanted her, never when she wanted him. And every single time, morning came with the same quiet reminder: take the suppressant.
She would never forget the day she told him she didn’t want to take it anymore, that she wanted a child. And she would never forget how his face went cold after that, or the words he said to her.
"You don’t have the bloodline I need in the mother of my pups, Naomi. Don’t cross that line in this arrangement again."
He said it without any feeling at all, making it painfully clear she wasn’t allowed to bring it up again. A pup needed the right mother, in his eyes. And she was never going to be that.
If he wasn’t going to be kind to her, if he wouldn’t even let her hope for a child, then why was she still here? What did he even see her as? Just something to warm his bed and nothing else?
She thought back to the day it all started, four years ago now.
That morning, she had stood in the healer’s hall holding a withdrawal form, ready to give up her training because her father, Edmund Blackwood, couldn’t afford to keep her enrolled anymore.
But on her way to hand it in, Alpha Kaidan showed up with a contract already written out.
"Bond with me, and I’ll pay for your training. You’ll finish what you started," he said.
His mate, Serena Cole, the only woman he had ever loved, had vanished on the day they were supposed to bond. He was wrecked over it, but more than that, he couldn’t stand the shame of it, an Alpha with no mate, humiliated in front of his own pack. He needed someone to bond with, and fast.
The offer was ridiculous. She signed it anyway.
At the end of the day, it was just paperwork. He needed a mate to save face, and she needed a way to finish what she’d started.
The first few months of the marriage weren’t that bad, honestly. Maybe that was because she hadn’t expected anything from it beyond her training being paid for.
She didn’t go looking for love. She didn’t wait around for his attention. She kept telling herself it was just an arrangement, nothing more than that.
But slowly, without really noticing, her heart started to change.
And that’s when she started noticing everything else too.
The distance between them. The lack of care. The quiet little humiliations she learned to swallow. The cold way he always spoke to her.
She told herself he was still hurting, still healing from losing the woman he loved. So she stayed, hoping, foolishly, that one day he’d look at her and see more than just a contract. That day never came.
Then one evening, Serena came back, and that’s when the real nightmare started.
She showed up on the pack network broadcast, looking broken and fragile, crying as she told her story.
"I was taken on the day we were supposed to bond and held for three years. I escaped, only to find out the man who loved me had bonded with someone else on the exact day we were meant to become mates."
Alpha Kaidan was destroyed.
He blamed himself, hated himself, sure that he’d betrayed the woman he loved while she suffered somewhere far away. But underneath all that guilt, there was something else too, this overwhelming relief that Serena was finally back.
In one single night, he gave her all the love and care Naomi had been begging for over four years.
And Naomi? She became something even smaller than she already was. A quiet joke around the pack halls. A warm body kept behind closed doors. Nothing more than that.