"We need to talk, Aria."
I knew what those words meant. Logan's voice was low and rough around the din of the pack, a rumble. The night air had been full of excitement, the scent of smoke and cedar, but suddenly it was cold. I turned to him, my heart thudding, heavy with hope and dread tangled together. Logan's dark eyes pierced and were cold, his face set in an odd, detached resolve.
I muttered, "Logan," my voice barely steady, as I searched his eyes for any trace of that boy I grew up with, who had promised me protection from the world at times including himself. "What's going on?"
He did not answer but instead simply clenched his jaw and stepped back, leaving space between us that somehow felt like a canyon.
"It's over, Aria," he said finally. The words sliced through the rising excitement of the gathering pack and drowned out the cacophony of voices in the general vicinity around us. "I. I can no longer have you by my side."
For a moment, I thought I had to have misheard him. My fingers froze at my side, balled into fists.
"What?" I hated how small I sounded, and my voice was a quivering whisper. "Logan. Are you rejecting me?
He took a deep breath and didn't meet my eyes. His face was expressionless and granite, and that was enough of an answer in itself. He did not then, however, as if that would somehow soften the blow.
"Yes." A single word hung in the air, cruel and absolute.
The chatter and laughter continued unabated around us, oblivious to the earthquake shaking my world to its foundations in that instant. My heart broke in two sharp fissures tearing through all our memories, all our promises-and I felt the blood drain from my face.
"But why?" I stuttered, hardly finding my voice. I knew I was making it worse, reopening the wound in my throat with every broken word.
His voice was too calm, too calculated, and rehearsed, it seemed, as he said, "It's for the pack." "You're worthy of more." I deserve-
"No," I cut in, my voice shaking. "Do not use what I 'deserve' as an excuse. Logan, I know what's going on here. I know what we had. It was the pain churning inside me that made my voice bolder and stronger. "We are friends. Together, we're supposed to be stronger. No, you can't just throw this away because of some-
He cut me off abruptly, his eyes finally locking with mine. "This has nothing to do with us." "You think I wanted this?" I managed to glimpse the smallest flicker of something behind his eyes—a shadow of regret, guilt, maybe even pain—as his jaw clenched. "This is the better option. For you. for the group. Don't make this harder than it needs to be.
The breath was squeezed from my chest. "How can you say that?" I whispered because the pain in my heart from the betrayal felt like it was suffocating me. "How can you just let me go like this? after everything?
Logan's face hardened, and he looked away, his jaw clenched. Aria, you'll move on. You have strength. He seemed to be trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince me, and his voice was almost robotic like he was reciting a line. "Someone will be able to provide you with the things that I am unable to."
"What things?" I insisted, my initial sting of anger overriding my pain. "What do you think I might want that you are incapable of providing?"
He winced slightly, but then covered it. "It's over, Aria." His voice was detached and flat. "The bond severed."
I stepped back, the words falling heavy and smothering onto me, my head shaking as my breath caught. That's a broken bond.
"That is for you to decide." My eyes blurred over, my voice cracking. We have a bond, Logan. You can't just discard it because it's convenient. You—
His voice cold, he cut in, "I am deciding it." As your partner, as Alpha, as. Aria, I'm rejecting you. His voice was barely more than a whisper, and he turned away once more. "You are at liberty."
Free? The word sounded hollow and full, a bitter taste upon my tongue. As he spoke the words, I could have sworn the bond still pulsed in my chest, alive and defiant, resistant to breaking even. He tore it as though it had no meaning when it was sewn into the very fibre of me.
I forced the lump in my throat down and took another trembling breath. "Logan," I muttered in one last attempt, a plea. "Don't do this, please."
His face flared with regret, pain, and something nearly tender. The same hard, emotionless mask replaced it promptly.
"Goodbye, Aria." He pivoted on his heel and disappeared into the crowd, leaving me to myself in the cold, abandoned night.
I sensed the pack's eyes turn in my direction, the beginning of whispers, watching the Alpha go without his the sudden silence, the changed atmosphere. I couldn't bear it. I couldn't heal these raw wounds the whispers and compassionate looks were rubbing on, like daggers, and they kept twisting deeper.
I wordlessly stumbled away from the bonfire, away from the crowd and the light and the laughter, from the joy that had turned into a nightmare. I could hardly breathe as pain constricted in my chest and widened, circling my lungs. It was as if what he did the weight of it was dragging me under, pulling me down with every step.
By the time I reached the wood's edge, my vision was blinded by tears. I placed a hand over my chest and felt the ache of this heartache, this void where the presence of him had always been. A raw, aching wound that would never completely heal was what was left when something tore a part of me away.
I went to my knees and hit the floor as the sobs finally broke free. The sound of my heartbreak echoed through the forest hollow, an agonising cry that only trees and shadows could hear. Already Logan was gone, his footsteps starting to fade, but his words remained behind, decimating and tainting every memory I had of him.
Aria, goodbye.
Those two words were a brutal finality that snapped any hope or dream I would ever have of a future with him. Those two words echoed in my head. Even though it still pulsed weakly inside me against his rejection, by now it was too late. What remained after Logan made his decision was the pieces of a life which fell apart in one instant.
I felt the sting of my loss seep into every molecule of me as my eyes closed and the cold earth began to ground me.