Chapter 2 - THE SIGNATURE I NEVER GAVE
"If I don't go, they'll all know why."
Maya stared at me for a long moment.
"Sarah, sweetheart, they already know."
Her words hurt more than I expected.
I looked away, toward the kitchen counter where Damian's wedding invitation lay beside my mother's chipped blue cup.
"Then why does it feel like I'm the one who should be ashamed?"
Maya moved closer.
"Because you've spent six months carrying the embarrassment that belongs to him."
I wanted to believe her.
But believing something and feeling it were two different things.
Maya picked up the invitation again.
"There's something strange about this."
"What?"
She turned the small card over.
"Why does your seating assignment say 'Witness Gallery'?"
I frowned.
The Witness Gallery was reserved for council elders, visiting pack representatives, and those officially required to observe important ceremonies.
Ordinary guests sat in the main hall.
"Maybe it's a mistake."
"Damian doesn't make mistakes with seating arrangements."
She was right.
Damian Cross was meticulous. He remembered names, schedules, and the smallest details of pack business.
He had once corrected a guard for wearing the wrong ceremonial pin.
He wouldn't accidentally put me among the council witnesses.
Maya placed the invitation on the table.
"I think they're planning something."
Before I could answer, I noticed another detail.
Beneath the silver crest, almost invisible against the thick paper, was a line of tiny lettering.
Attendance acknowledges the proceedings entered into the official pack record.
I read it aloud.
Maya's expression changed.
"Why would a wedding invitation need that?"
I didn't know.
But something cold settled in my stomach.
The following morning, I went to the archives earlier than usual.
The building stood at the eastern edge of the courtyard, its stone walls covered in ivy.
Inside, the familiar smell of old paper and cedar shelves usually comforted me.
Not that morning.
Two unfamiliar attendants were carrying wooden crates through the reading room.
"What's happening?" I asked.
One of them looked uncomfortable.
"We were told to prepare the records for transfer."
"Transfer where?"
"The council chambers."
I stared at him.
"Who authorized that?"
"Beta Cross."
My heart gave a painful little twist.
Damian had never shown much interest in the archives.
During our brief, painful connection, he'd once told me that spending my life among dusty books was a waste of a wolf's potential.
Now he was ordering my books removed.
I walked directly to the records office.
My brass archive key still opened the cabinet containing the council's administrative register.
Inside, I found a newly prepared document.
At first, I thought I had misunderstood what I was reading.
Then I saw my name.
Sarah Martinez — Relinquishment of Archive Witness Rights.
The document stated that I voluntarily surrendered my authority over the Moonwell Trust, an ancient agreement protecting the pack's original spring and surrounding land.
That authority belonged to the appointed keeper of the archives.
My mother had held the position before me.
After her death, I had completed the required training and taken the keeper's oath before the archive trustees.
It wasn't a glamorous responsibility.
Most wolves didn't even know it existed.
But the position mattered.
The Moonwell supplied fresh water to the eastern settlement, where generations of ordinary pack families had built their homes.
Without its protection, the council could negotiate away land that had been held in common for more than a century.
I turned the document over.
There was a signature at the bottom.
Mine.
Except I hadn't signed anything.
My handwriting had been copied carefully, right down to the way I curved the final letter of my surname.
Beneath it was a date from six months earlier.
Three days after the autumn equinox.
The day Damian rejected me.
For a moment, I couldn't move.
Someone had prepared this lie on the very day my life had fallen apart.
I heard footsteps behind me.
"Those aren't for general circulation."
Damian stood in the doorway.
He wore his dark beta uniform, the silver insignia shining against his chest.
For six months, I had imagined what I would say if we were ever alone again.
Now all those imagined conversations disappeared.
I held up the document.
"Did you know about this?"
His expression tightened.
"Where did you find that?"
"Answer me."
He looked at the signature.
Then at my face.
"Sarah, the council is reorganizing certain responsibilities."
"Did you know someone signed my name?"
He didn't answer quickly enough.
My chest tightened.
"Damian."
"Some arrangements were made after the rejection."
"By whom?"
"Alpha Thorne."
I stared at him.
"You rejected me because I was an omega. Was taking my work away part of the bargain?"
His jaw hardened.
"That's not fair."
I almost laughed.
"Neither was what you did to me."
For the first time, his eyes dropped.
Then he said something that made my hands turn cold.
"Don't interfere with the wedding, Sarah. There are things happening that you don't understand."
I placed the document on the desk.
"Then explain them."
"I can't."
"Can't? Or won't?"
He looked toward the open doorway.
"Just attend the ceremony, sit where you're assigned, and let everyone move forward."
There it was.
The same man who had publicly broken my heart was asking me to make his life easier.
I folded the paper carefully.
"No."
His eyes narrowed.
"No?"
"I won't give anyone permission to use my name."
I turned the document over again.
That was when I noticed the second signature, stamped beneath the council seal.
A witness had supposedly confirmed that I signed the relinquishment voluntarily.
The witness was Beta Damian Cross.
And beside his signature were four handwritten words.
Executed during mate rejection.
May you like
I looked up at him.
"Damian," I whispered, "what exactly did you make me give up that day?"
