Low breaths. Rough groans. The room shook with raw, wild desire. I reached for the door without thinking. Then, I opened the gates of hell.
Gareth sat shirtless, muscles tight, sweat shining on his skin. His hand moved between his legs, his head tilted back, lost in pleasure. Papers lay scattered everywhere. On the floor, the bed, and the desk.
My heart stopped when I saw them.
Gwyneth.
He had drawn her face from every angle. Smiling, laughing, looking over her shoulder, and her hair messy like she had just woken up in his arms. And there was more. Sketches of her body.
Not dirty. But soft, intimate curves.
In one drawing, Gwyneth was lying on her back with her head turned and her lips slightly opened. In another, her arms stretched above her head, a thin sheet barely covering her thighs.
I froze as Gareth lifted one sketch. It was one where Gwyneth was topless, her back arched. He brushed his lips against the paper and moaned her name.
“Gwyneth … Gwyneth … ”
Everything inside me crumbled. Gareth hadn’t just used me. He had never even seen me.
Then, his voice broke the silence.
“No,” he growled.
“I can’t return to the pack until she’s mine. I want her as my mate. Gwyneth is everything I want for the Grey Wind Pack.”
My breath caught in my throat. The Grey Wind Pack? Did that mean Gareth was my former betrothed whom I had never met. Was he the one who rejected me publicly after my mother’s funeral, calling me unworthy of his blood?
A tear slipped down my cheek in horror. He had been beside me all this time, wearing a new name, a new face …
And I had let him in like a lamb walking to the slaughter.
“I am only here for Gwyneth,” he said again.
“I always was. Freya? Still throwing herself at me like a dog in heat. You think I would waste three years on her if she wasn’t useful?”
My chest tightened painfully.
“She’s lonely. That makes her easy. Always trying to tempt me with those clothes … like some cheap woman.”
I couldn’t breathe. My legs barely held me up.
Three years...
Three years I let him into every part of my life.
From my plans, my fears, even to my mother’s ashes. I thought he was emotionless, untouched by beauty or status. But all along … Gareth had been chasing Gwyneth.