My hands are still shaking when I find Ryland in the garage bay.
He has grease to his elbows and a rag in one fist, and he looks up at my face and stops moving.
Ryland: Who did that to you?
He takes my arm and turns it to the light. Four red marks sit on the skin where Drystan held me.
Ryland: Who.
Maela: Drystan. It doesn't matter now.
He is moving for the door before I finish the sentence, and I get in front of him with both hands on his chest.
Maela: Stop. I don't want you to hit him. I want the pack, tonight, at the tables.
Maela: He told me to stand up and lie tonight. I'll stand up. Just not with his words.
Every table in the pack hall is full when we walk in.
Drystan sits at the far end with Hessa under his arm, and he watches me cross the room with a smile he doesn't bother to hide.
I stay on my feet. My chair is empty behind me and my knees feel like wet paper.
Maela: I have something to say, and I'm only saying it once.
The room goes quiet in a way that hurts my ears.
Drystan: Go on, sweetheart. Tell them how you made all of it up.
Hessa laughs into her glass, and the sound goes right through me.
Maela: Drystan and I had a true bond. I'm not going to stand here and pretend we didn't.
Maela: But a bond is not a leash. He used it like one.
Maela: He chose my clothes. He chose who I was allowed to speak to. If I argued, his hands answered for him.
Maela: And afterward he called it love. Every single time.
Maela: I got pregnant. I wanted that pup more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.
My voice wobbles, and I don't try to fix it. I don't have to be steady for this part.
Maela: He put his hands on me when I was five months gone. I went down the stairs.
Maela: I lost our son on the floor by the front door. He was mine too.
Drystan: You lost him because you're weak. Weak women lose pups, Maela. That's all that was.
Drystan: And don't stand there playing the grieving mother. I can smell the Alpha all over you. You opened your legs for him the first night back, like a whore with a warm bed.
Shame comes up hot in my throat, the way it always did. For one second I want the floor to open and take me.
Then my wolf stands up in my chest.
*Say it,* she growls. *Say the rest, and get us out of his mouth.*
I lift my chin and say it loud enough to reach the back wall.
Maela: I reject the bond.
Maela: I reject you, Drystan. All of it. Not one piece of me is yours.
Maela: You don't get to keep my son as a debt I owe you. He was mine too, and I loved him.
Maela: I'm not ruined. I'm the woman who got up off that floor alone.
Something in my chest pulls loose, like a tooth coming out. It hurts. Then it doesn't.
*Free,* my wolf says. She sounds like she's crying and laughing at once.
Drystan is out of his chair faster than I can blink.
His open hand catches me across the mouth, and my lip splits on my teeth. I taste blood, hot and salty.
Drystan: You don't get to say that to me, you little bitch.
Ryland is between us before Drystan's fingers close on me.
He takes him by the jacket and puts him into the wall so hard the boards rattle.
Ryland: You ever put a hand on her again, I will end you. Do you understand me?
Ryland's voice drops into the thing that makes every wolf in the room hold still.
Ryland: Get out of my hall. Come near her again and I won't stop at the wall.
Drystan: This isn't done. I'll come for you when he's bored of you, and I won't be gentle.
It isn't a bluff. I know what his hands do once he's finished being kind.
The door bangs shut, and Fintan's hand lands on my back, warm and steady.
Fintan: I've got you. Sit down before you fall down.
My lip is bleeding and my arm has four marks on it, and I am still standing in the middle of the hall.
The bond is gone. The empty place where it sat feels like cold clean air.
Then I look up, and Ryland is watching me, and my heart does the one thing I told it never to do again.