My hands moved before my mind could stop them, tapping on the screen. The video loaded. And then I saw him. Alpha Cain.
He stood in the center of a lavish hall, far grander than the one I sat in now. Music pulsed loudly in the background, laughter echoing around him. His arm was wrapped around a woman, his fingers resting possessively on her waist.
She was beautiful. Young. Smiling up at him like he was her entire world.
And he… he was smiling back. Not the polite smile he wore for formal events. Not the distant, cold expression he had given me for months. No. This smile was warm. Intimate. The kind of smile he used to reserve only for me.
My vision blurred.
“No…” The word slipped from my lips, barely audible.
But the video continued mercilessly.
He leaned down, his lips brushing against the woman’s ear as she laughed, pressing herself closer to him. Their bodies moved together to the rhythm of the music, slow and deliberate, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.
As if I didn’t exist.
My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white. This wasn’t a rumor. This wasn’t gossip whispered behind my back. This was real.
Broadcasted for the entire pack to see. The Alpha… cheating on his Luna. Again.
The livestream continued, the comments flooding in faster than I could read.
Some mocking me. Some pitying me.
I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt like it was caving in on itself, the weight of it all crushing me from the inside.
So this was why he didn’t come. Not because he was busy. But because he chose to be there. With her.
Tears slid down my cheeks before I could stop them, falling silently onto the screen of my phone.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until my vision became too blurred to see.
“Luna…”
The soft voice startled me. I quickly wiped my face, though it was useless. The tears wouldn’t stop.
I turned to see Elder Elisse standing at the entrance of the hall. Her once sharp and commanding presence had softened, weighed down by something that looked painfully like regret.
“I’m sorry,” she said gently as she walked toward me.
Her eyes flickered briefly to the untouched cake, the empty hall, the decorations that now felt more like a cruel joke than a celebration.
“For my son.”
Her son. Alpha Cain. The man who had just humiliated me in front of the entire pack.
I swallowed hard, forcing a smile that didn’t reach my eyes.