Chapter 3
“Galadriel, there are Pack matters I must attend to. Go ahead and sleep. I’ll handle this.”
Alpha Lorcan’s voice was clipped, sharp- commanding, almost as though he couldn’t wait to get away. No time for pleasantries. The door slammed shut behind him, and his boots echoed down the hallway, each step a reminder of the distance growing between
- us.
I stayed frozen for a moment, my chest tight. When I finally moved, my fingers were shaking as I unlocked my phone, trembling so violently that I nearly dropped it. My breath caught in my throat as the surveillance feed flickered to life.
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Alpha Lorcan stood in the study, his arms wrapped around Marigold. She tilted her head back, her body pressed into his, as though they were one. His lips brushed against her neck, possessive, intimate, a sharp contrast to the cold detachment he’d shown me moments before.
“What’s the rush, Luna? Aren’t you excited to help me with this?” His voice was low, dripping with power, like he was the sun and she was merely another planet in his orbit.
“I need the medicine, Lorcan… but you know, I can’t reach it.” Marigold’s voice was a honeyed whisper, a challenge in every word. Her tone, sultry and unrestrained, made my blood run cold.
Alpha Lorcan chuckled darkly. “I’ll take care of it for you, Marigold…” His voice wrapped around her like a rope, tethering her to him, a
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predator offering his protection to its prey.
The image of them, so close, so intimate -just a wall away–sent a blade of pain through my heart. The bond I thought was unbreakable? It was nothing more than an illusion.
I collapsed back onto the bed, my body trembling not from cold, but from the sheer weight of betrayal. I had believed in him.
I had trusted him. And yet, here he was, tangled with the very woman I had fought to protect.
Marigold. Alpha Lorcan’s Beta sister–in–law. A woman he had taken in after the death of his brother–a death that had altered everything. No one had expected the accident to happen, but the consequences had rippled through our lives. Marigold had come to him broken, alone, and Alpha Lorcan
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had taken her in, offering her everything she needed. The line between kindness and obsession had blurred–and I had failed to see it.
Now, I could see it all too clearly. What I had once thought was his mercy had become something far darker. A sickening, twisted loyalty that tied him to Marigold in ways I had never imagined.
“You still don’t know who excites me more, do you?” Marigold whispered, her lips brushing his ear as she taunted him. “Your Galadriel, or me?”
I could hear Lorcan’s smirk even through the screen. “Forget about her. You’re the one who thrills me, Marigold. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
Marigold’s eyes flicked toward the camera,
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her gaze icy and unrepentant. She knew. She knew I was watching. And she wanted me to see. Every word, every glance, every touch -they were meant to rip through me. To destroy me.
Tears blurred my vision as I shut the app. It felt as though my soul had been cleaved in two. What was I even fighting for anymore?
Alpha Lorcan and I were done.
In two days, I would bond with another. A new wolf. Someone who wouldn’t turn his back on me the moment his past caught up with him.
The thought should have been comforting. But it wasn’t.
I forced myself out of bed, to wash the evidence of the nightmare off me, to start
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packing. MMyanands moved mechanically, my heart a void bassbsorted through the remains of a life that analadenever been mine. Not really
Alpha Lorcanawasas already gone by the time I finished, oblivious to my departure, lost st in his endless meeeetings and Pack duties. s. B But as always, he lealdad orie last demand. A bibusiness banquetetislis voice was casual, alalmost indifferent whelmemehe mentioned it.
“y“You’ll come, won’t you?ulehe asked, as if his alabsence had meant notbihing to me.
WWhen he mentioned the bananquet would bebe held at my family’s hotel,elfélfelt a surge ofof resolve. I had avoided it forfootoo long. DiDistanced myself from my trueueaPack to prprotect his fragile ego. But now??dNow, I wass going back. The place where te tutruly belelonged.
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A cold finality settled over me as I called a moving company. Nothing from Alpha Lorcan–no gifts, no tokens of his affection -would come with me. Every memory of him, every gesture, had been tainted by his betrayal.
I arrived at the hotel’s top–floor suite, the shower a small act of defiance. I scrubbed away every trace of him, every trace of us.
When he called again, I was already dressed, waiting in the lobby. The irony wasn’t lost on me. He would never know that everything had changed.
Alpha Lorcan entered the lobby with his usual presence–demanding, cold, every inch the Alpha. His tailored suit was flawless, but it couldn’t conceal the truth anymore. The way the women ogled him, the way Marigold hovered just behind him–claiming him in
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plain view–it was all a game now. And I was done playing.
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