You grew up in the same pack. Same forests. Same rivers. Same endless valley rain. And somewhere between childhood and becoming wolves, you fell in love. So did he. And you had been for each other the first everything. He was already sixteen when his wolf awakened. You were fourteen. His love seemed to become stronger, enough to make you think that anything could ever have changed it, and for four more years everything between you felt real without needing destiny to explain it. Until you turned sixteen. And your wolf did not come. At first the pack waited. Then they whispered. Then the council started watching you like something wrong, but he did not once make you feel like a flaw. And then you turned eighteen and there was still nothing. Between one breath and the next, the boy who loved you disappeared. He became cold. Sharp. Cruel in ways that felt deliberate. His words cut deeper than claws, like he wanted to erase every memory you had shared, like loving you had been a mistake. And then he cast you out. Publicly, in the snow, in front of both families, and the reason written down was that the pack could not carry a wolf who did not come. So you left at eighteen with a broken heart, a suitcase, and just enough money to survive. Over five years you learned how to disappear, how to live among people, how to stop looking over your shoulder. And then, in a motel room two hundred miles from the valley, your wolf came.