He Asked for Divorce

I waited in the stairwell until Vanessa left.

It took twenty-seven minutes.

I counted every one.

When I returned to Callum’s room, my hands were steady.

My face was not.

Callum noticed immediately.

He knew me too well.

His eyes softened when I entered.

“Mabel.”

He was sitting by the window in loose gray sanatorium clothes. Moon-silver cuffs circled his wrists, not locked, but present. A precaution. His hair had grown longer since I last saw him, and the shadows beneath his eyes made him look fragile in a way that hurt me.

For one stupid second, I wanted to run into his arms.

Then I remembered Vanessa’s voice.

I dreamed it was a boy.

Callum reached for me.

I let him take my hand.

His thumb brushed over my knuckles the way it had a thousand times before.

“You’ve been crying.”

I forced a smile.

“Work has been tiring.”

Guilt flashed across his face.

“This is because of me.”

I said nothing.

He pulled me gently closer and pressed his forehead against my hand.

“Mabel, I’ve been thinking.”

The room was quiet.

Too quiet.

I already knew what he was going to say.

Still, hearing it nearly broke me.

“We should divorce.”

I looked at him.

He lifted his head. His eyes were wet.

“The healers say the curse may never fully disappear. Even if it stabilizes, it could come back. I can’t keep dragging you down.”

Dragging me down?

He was in a locked ward.

I was outside paying bills, working overtime, cooking meals, researching treatments, and sleeping alone in a house full of broken memories.

What suffering of mine had suddenly become unbearable to him?

Then I thought of Vanessa’s belly.

Of course.

He was not freeing me.

He was making room for them.

“You are the person I love most in this world,” Callum whispered. “That is why I can’t bear to watch you suffer.”

I almost laughed.

The man who had betrayed me was still holding my hand like a devoted husband.

The cruelest lies were always wrapped in tenderness.

I did not confront him.

I did not ask how long he had been sleeping with my best friend.

I did not ask whether he was happy when she said the baby might be a boy.

I did not ask if he remembered telling me that a life with only me was enough.

Because I knew Callum.

He would cry.

He would explain.

He would say it was a mistake. A moment of weakness. A physical impulse. A meaningless comfort during the worst year of his life.

He would make me want to forgive him.

And I did not want to forgive him.

“I understand,” I said softly.

His shoulders loosened, relief almost invisible but not quite hidden.

I saw it.

That tiny relief.

It killed the last soft thing in me.

I stayed for another ten minutes.

I fed him the food I brought.

He smiled and said it tasted like home.

I smiled back.

Then I left his room and went straight to his attending healer.

The healer looked surprised when I asked to speak privately.

“Mrs. Voss, is something wrong?”

I sat down.

Then I began to cry.

Not delicate tears.

Not silent suffering.

I sobbed so hard the healer panicked and handed me three tissues at once.

“I’m sorry,” I choked. “I’m so sorry. We can’t afford the high-grade moon-silver treatment anymore.”

The healer froze.

“Mrs. Voss, your husband’s condition is improving. If we continue the current plan for another two or three months, there is a strong chance of clinical stabilization.”

“I know,” I wailed. “I know! But what can I do?”

I covered my face.

“My mother is old. My younger siblings depend on me. The company has delayed my salary. The Voss accounts are frozen. If I keep paying for this, my whole family will starve.”

The healer hesitated.

“Mr. Voss told us your family had considerable assets.”

I cried louder.

“My husband is so sick he has started imagining wealth we don’t have!”

The healer looked deeply uncomfortable.

Good.

I continued.

“And the private ward… I can’t pay for that either.”

“Mrs. Voss—”

“Please move him to a shared ward. Anywhere. A hallway, if needed. I just can’t do it anymore.”

By the end, the healer agreed.

Not happily.

But paperwork cared more about payment than romance.

That afternoon, Callum Voss, proud Alpha heir of the Voss Pack, was moved from his private moon-silver suite to a shared containment ward with twelve cursed wolves.

His imported stabilizing elixirs were replaced with the cheapest approved formula.

I stopped the automatic payments.

Then I went home and slept for ten hours.

For the first time in months, no one screamed.

No glass shattered.

No claws scraped my door.

And somewhere across the city, Vanessa Reed began learning that love was expensive.