My husband Ethan Voss, Beta of the Voss Pack, brought his female assistant into our bed. When I caught them, he barely flinched. “Selene is gentle and unassuming. And she’s my Gamma-ranked aide. Why can’t you just accept her?” Ten years together. I swallowed my inner wolf’s howl and paid him off to disappear. Then my phone buzzed. My mother’s surgery had been forcibly halted. Every asset I owned had been frozen. I rushed to the hospital with an emergency specialist I’d managed to reach — only to find the parking garage sealed off by dozens of Ethan’s supercars. “Rowan.” His voice was lazy, almost amused. “You always loved throwing money at problems. Why not hire someone to move the cars?” I stared at him, fury clawing up my throat. “My mother handed you her research patents. That’s the only reason the Voss family empire ever rose to what it is. And this is how you repay her?” Ethan tilted his head and leaned back into Selene’s arms. She laughed, soft and sweet. “A hundred thousand per car, sweetheart. Better start dialing. Oh — and hurry. Dad’s running out of time on that operating table.” I sent the message I had hoped never to send. 【Dr. Ashford is under deliberate threat. Requesting immediate Pack Command support. Sending location now.】 I kept my eyes locked on Ethan as I hit send. “Is this because I paid for Selene’s relocation years ago?” He smiled and pulled her closer, his expression perfectly innocent. “Baby, I already told you. You can pay to move the cars.” The hospital was at least thirty minutes away. Every second here was another second bleeding from my mother’s life. Her heart condition was rare. In the entire pack, only two surgeons could perform this procedure. Ethan had already neutralized the first one. Now he had trapped the last along with me in this garage, playing games for his new lover’s entertainment. I tightened my fist. “You froze everything I own. You know I have no money. You’re not stalling me, Ethan. You’re killing her.” Laughter rippled through the crowd surrounding us. “She can’t even scrape together pocket change now.” “Mess with Selene, mess with everything Ethan holds dear.” In the middle of it all, Selene looked at me with quiet triumph, her fingers laced through Ethan’s. She raised their joined hands slowly, a wordless declaration of ownership. Watching them, I felt something hollow open in my chest. Once, he had held my hands with that same reverence when he made his vows to me. I never imagined that one day, the man I loved would drive my mother toward death just to shield the person he was sleeping with. I bit down until I tasted blood. The specialist beside me reached for his card — and was immediately shoved against a car and pinned down by Ethan’s men. Then my phone rang. “Ms. Ashford, is the surgeon still not here? Your mother is fading. We need her on the table now.” I stared at the garage exit. The specialist was being held against a car. Supercars sealed every lane. Without moving them, I wasn’t going anywhere. The call had barely ended when Ethan’s voice drifted behind me, soft as a caress. “Baby. A hundred thousand per car. I already said so.” My whole body shook. I squeezed my phone, knuckles white. But there were too many of them. Force would only make this worse. The taste of blood spread across my tongue. I reached up and unclipped my cufflinks. The first year of our startup, we’d been crammed into a tiny apartment. He had pressed them into my hands with red-rimmed eyes, whispering that once he inherited the Voss family empire he’d give me everything the world had to offer. He had. And then he’d become someone else entirely. Next, I unclasped my watch. The Voss family empire had built its legacy on horology. On our bonding day, Ethan had knelt through the night in the Pack Hall to receive this heirloom. It was because of that gesture — that proof of devotion — that his friends and Pack elders had never once looked down on me. Finally, I pulled the bonding ring from my finger and threw it at his feet. “Is this enough?!” Ethan glanced down. Something shifted in his eyes, and he opened his mouth — But before he could speak, Selene let out a small, perfectly timed laugh. She looked at me with just the right degree of mock-surprise. “Rowan,” she said, “these pieces… they’re replicas, aren’t they? Did someone con you?”
Selene unhurriedly removed her own cufflinks and watch. Identical in design to what I’d just thrown on the ground. But the quality — the weight, the finish — was incomparable. She met my gaze and smiled, her tone perfectly light. “Ethan gave them to me. Said they were one-of-a-kind.” My breath stopped. I turned to look at my husband. He didn’t meet my eyes. His gaze dropped to the floor. My heart seized. I pulled in a slow breath, forced my voice low and flat. “Ethan. Everything I’ve been wearing — all of it was fake?” He finally looked up. His expression was soft, almost coaxing. “Selene is young. She loves pretty things. Is it so hard to just let her have them?” Let her have them. Four words. Weightless. Like soothing a child throwing a tantrum. Selene tilted her head toward him, obedient and sweet. “Ethan, Rowan did mean well… let’s just say those were real and move three cars. Okay?” Three supercars at the outer perimeter rolled aside. But the gap they left wasn’t wide enough for a single person to squeeze through. Ethan looked at me. His eyes settled on my face, and he frowned slightly — like he was weighing something. Then, in the same gentle tone he used to reserve only for me: “Rowan. If you kneel down and give Selene a proper apology… we’ll call it even.” I looked into his eyes, and for a moment, I almost laughed. On our bonding day, he had refused to let me kneel even before his own parents. Now he was asking me to kneel before the woman he was sleeping with. In front of a crowd. He seemed to sense something. His gaze lingered on my eyes — just for a second — and his lips parted. Then my phone went off. A message. A photo attached. My mother, on the operating table. Tubes everywhere. Blood-soaked sheets. 【Ms. Ashford — you have ten minutes. Dr. Ashford is going into shock.】 The ground fell out from under me. I almost said yes. I almost opened my mouth — Then Selene reached out and tugged lightly at Ethan’s sleeve. Her eyes dropped to the pendant at my throat. She smiled, gentle as ever. “Rowan doesn’t want to kneel — that’s fine. We can keep moving cars… that pendant looks lovely, though. Maybe start with that?” My hand flew up instinctively, closing around the fang pendant. My father had left it to me. During the wildfire that swept through our territory, I had been trapped in the Pack shelter. He had run back into the smoke to find me. The fire took him before he got out. In his last moment, he had pressed the pendant into my palm. His lips moved. Three words. Stay alive, Rowan. My knuckles went white. I thought of my mother bleeding out on that table, and something in my chest cracked open. I raised my head and fixed my gaze on Ethan. Word by word: “And you, Ethan, do you think I should give this up too?”
Ethan’s eyes fell on the fang pendant. Something flickered across his face. He knew what it meant to me. Selene glanced at it and said nothing. Instead, she rose onto her toes and pressed her lips to his ear, whispering something only he could hear. Whatever hesitation had lived in Ethan’s eyes vanished. He stopped looking at me. Without a word, he reached out and seized the pendant and yanked. The chain bit into my skin. A sharp sting at my throat. The pendant came away with a smear of my blood. He passed it to Selene without looking back. She turned it over in her palm. The corner of her mouth lifted. She dropped it into her pocket, then looked up at me — and her eyes were full of it. Ethan finally turned. His voice was soft, cold as midwinter. “Rowan. Your father refused to bring Selene away from the mountains. Because of him, she spent years being abused. Your family owes her this.” My father had done aid work in the outer Pack territories. He had mentioned a boy named Selene once — said the child had latched onto him. I stared at Ethan’s face, and the pieces snapped into place. Selene. The girl from the mountains. That was her. But I remembered what my father had told me — he’d wanted to bring the child home. It was Selene who had said she couldn’t leave her parents. I almost laughed at the lie. I didn’t get the chance. Selene leaned close, and her voice dropped to something only I could hear. “Rowan. Aren’t you curious how Ethan knows all of this?” A small smile. “I told him. In bed, piece by piece. And you should have seen how much he pitied me. It was so satisfying.” I turned slowly and stared at her. She let the look land, then softened her eyes just slightly, as if genuinely concerned. “By the way — I should thank you. The one who locked you in that shelter during the fire?” She paused. “That was me.” “Your father was begging me to open the door. Down on his knees. Like a wounded animal.” The nightmares I’d carried for ten years. My father’s death had never stopped haunting me. And every time over the years I’d tried to investigate the details of that fire — every time I’d gotten close — something had intervened. Now I understood why. They had been together since before I even knew her name. The last thread holding me together snapped. I swung without thinking. My fist connected with her jaw. She went sideways and struck the side of a car with a dull, heavy sound. She straightened slowly, touched the blood at the corner of her mouth, and said nothing. Ethan shoved between us, eyes blazing as he turned on me. Before he could speak, my phone shattered the silence. “Ms. Ashford!” The surgeon’s voice was breaking. “Your mother has gone into shock. If you are not here in three minutes, we will lose her. Where are you?!”
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