I Sent My Alpha Husband Away

My husband loved me.

That was what made everything so hard.

Callum Voss was not cruel when he was himself.

When he was himself, he warmed my coffee before I woke. He tucked my hair behind my ear when I worked too late. He remembered every flower I liked, every food I hated, every scar on my body and the story behind it.

We had been together for eight years.

Four years dating.

Four years married.

People in Moonfall City used to say I was the luckiest human woman alive, because a powerful Alpha heir had chosen me as his mate and treated me like his moon.

I believed them.

Then the blood-moon curse came.

At first, it was small.

A nightmare.

A fever.

A broken glass he could not remember dropping.

Then the curse grew teeth.

When Callum shifted under its influence, he no longer knew me.

His eyes turned black. His claws came out. His wolf did not recognize wife, home, love, or mercy.

He smashed our wedding portrait against the wall.

He destroyed the piano we bought together.

He threw our dog from the thirteenth-floor balcony.

I still heard the sound sometimes.

The worst part was always after.

When the curse receded and Callum woke in the wreckage, he would look at the blood on my face, the bruises on my arms, the claw marks across the floor, and break.

“Mabel,” he would whisper, voice shaking. “Did I do this?”

Then he would fall to his knees.

He would slap himself until his cheeks reddened.

“I don’t remember. I swear I don’t remember. I would never hurt you.”

I believed him.

Maybe I needed to believe him.

Because if the man who loved me could still do those things, then love was not protection at all.

So I stayed.

I learned to lock myself in the bathroom when his breathing changed.

I learned to hide the kitchen knives before the full moon.

I learned which sound meant he was still Callum and which sound meant I had seconds to run.

Then one evening, while making dinner, he walked out of the kitchen holding a silver hunting blade.

His eyes were black.

The blade flew toward me.

It missed my throat by less than an inch.

When he came back to himself and saw the knife buried in the wall behind me, he collapsed.

That night, he cut his own wrist.

At the hospital, after the healers sealed the wound, he held my hand and cried.

“Divorce me,” he said.

“I am a curse, Mabel. I’ll kill you one day.”

I did not divorce him.

I sent him to Silvermoon Sanatorium.

It was the best facility in the city for cursed werewolves, blood-starved vampires, and witches whose magic had turned violent.

It was expensive.

It was secure.

It was the only place I believed could keep both of us alive.

The next day, my best friend Vanessa Reed stormed into my apartment and slammed her purse onto my dining table.

“You sent Callum to a sanatorium?”

I looked up, startled.

Her face was flushed with anger.

“Mabel, how could you be so vicious?”

For a moment, I thought I had misheard.

“Vicious?”

“He is your husband,” she snapped. “One day as husband and wife means a hundred days of grace. Or did you just want him locked away so you could swallow the Voss fortune?”

I stared at her.

Vanessa and Callum barely knew each other.

At least, that was what I had always believed.

She grabbed my car keys from the table.

“Come on. We’re going to get him.”

I did not move.

“Put my keys down.”

“Mabel.”

“I’m not bringing him home.”

Her eyes widened.

“Why? You love him, don’t you?”

Yes.

I loved him.

I loved the man who braided my hair when my arms were tired. I loved the man who kissed my forehead before every business trip. I loved the man who once drove three hours in the rain because I mentioned craving blueberry pie.

But I also remembered my head hitting the wall.

I remembered blood in my mouth.

I remembered our dog.

I remembered the silver blade.

“Love will not stop him from killing me,” I said.

Vanessa’s mouth tightened.

“He is sick.”

“And he is getting treatment.”

“You could separate for a while. Hire someone to take care of him.”

“His curse is violent. I will not risk another person’s life.”

“He must be suffering in there.”

“So was I.”

The words left my mouth before I could soften them.

Vanessa looked at me as if I had slapped her.

Then she muttered something under her breath.

I almost missed it.

Almost.

“You really think you matter that much.”

I froze.

“What did you say?”

Her expression changed.

Awkwardness flashed across her face.

“I said there must be a better way.”

No.

That was not what she said.

But I did not argue.

Not then.

After she left, I sat on the sofa for a long time, staring at the keys she had thrown back on the table.

Something was wrong.

Vanessa had been my friend for years.

She had seen the bruises.

She had taken me to the hospital once when Callum slammed me into a mirror and I needed stitches above my brow.

She knew what the curse did.

So why did she sound less worried about me than about him?

I should have thought more about it.

But work swallowed the next few days. A project deadline kept me at the office until midnight three nights in a row.

By the time I finally had a chance to visit Callum, I missed him so badly it hurt.

I cooked his favorite food and carried it to Silvermoon Sanatorium in a thermal box.

The ward smelled of moon-silver, antiseptic herbs, and old magic.

I stopped outside Callum’s private room and reached for the handle.

Then I heard Vanessa’s voice inside.

“Mabel is cruel,” she said. “She hasn’t even come to bring you home.”

My hand froze.

Callum sighed.

“Vanessa, you shouldn’t be here.”

“I miss you every night.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because Mabel might come.”

There was a pause.

Then Vanessa laughed softly, but there were tears in it.

“She told me you threw a blade at her when the curse took you.”

My chest tightened.

Then she said,

“You should have killed her.”

The world went silent.

“If she died, I could take care of you openly. You wouldn’t have to suffer here.”

Callum’s voice sharpened.

“Never say that again.”

“Oh, now you care about her?”

“Vanessa.”

“You said we were just having fun,” she cried. “Fine. But what about the baby?”

My fingers went numb.

Vanessa’s next words struck harder than any blade Callum had ever thrown.

“I’m pregnant.”

“One month.”

“I dreamed it was a boy.”

The lunchbox slipped from my hand.

It hit the floor with a sharp metallic sound.

Inside the room, footsteps rushed toward the door.

I snatched up the box and ran.

Like a thief.

Like the guilty one.

Like the woman who had not just heard her best friend wish her dead and her husband learn he was going to be a father.

I made it to the emergency stairwell before my legs gave out.

There, where no one could see me, I finally cried.