“Five years of pretending to be a fake mate, Sophia. How does that feel? Oh, that’s right. You didn’t know, did you?” Her eyes sparkled. “Maya is my daughter.”
In the next moment, she was no longer in her seat and was standing inches away from me, her presence sudden and heavy.
She hissed, “The mate certificate David and I have? That one’s real.” “Get out of here right now if you have any shame left. Stop holding on to something that was never yours.”
She grabbed a piece of bread from the table and pushed it against my lips before I could move.
“Enjoy the wolfsbane. This is what a dirty little parasite like you deserves.”
The bitterness felt like ash and acid on my tongue. I gasped, and my throat was already swelling. Breath clawed at my chest but wouldn’t come out. I fell to the ground, my body gasping for air.
Ella’s ears twitched; she had heard something.
Her right hand quickly turned into a claw, and she slashed her own chest. Crimson welled up right away, ruining her clean white blouse. She fell to her knees and screamed, which echoed through the house.
“Please, Sophia, don’t kill me! I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have moved in. I’ll leave. Please let me go!”
“Hey, Ella!” David yelled from upstairs.
He hit the ground floor in a flash, eyes wide with shock as he rushed to pick up Ella’s bleeding body. “What the hell, Sophia? Have you lost your mind?” His voice shook with rage. “She made you breakfast, stayed to help with our daughter, and this is how you thank her?”
He didn’t give them time to answer. “When I get back, I want you to say you’re sorry. For real.”
Ella leaned weakly against him, her head resting on his shoulder. She looked at me just before he left. Her eyes were full of tears, and her mouth was in a quiet, triumphant smile.
David didn’t look my way even once.
I was curled up on the floor, my body on fire from the inside out, and my lungs wouldn’t let me breathe as the wolfsbane worked its way through me. Pain twisted in my stomach. My wolf howled inside.
I somehow got myself up and staggered step by step to the bedroom. I fumbled for the antidote on the nightstand and drank the whole vial in one go. Slowly, the tightness in my throat began to ease.
But the relief never came.
Not to my heart.
Not to the place that used to believe in forever.
I looked at the picture of David and me getting married on the nightstand. I took the frame off. Then they opened the drawers.
All the pictures. Every memento. The mate ring, the wolf fang necklace, the fox-hide bag, the moonstone, and the hand-carved tokens.
All the memories he had given me.
I got them all together and then destroyed them.
I ripped out the rose garden in the backyard, which David himself had planted, roots and all, and burned it.
I didn’t want any of it.
Not even him.
David would no longer be a part of my life starting tomorrow.
The werewolves from my birth pack moved quickly. That afternoon, my father’s family came. I signed the papers to get out and packed up what was left of me.
I didn’t look back when I left the Moonlight Pack.
David sat next to Ella’s bed in the hospital.
He hadn’t gotten any sleep all night. His hands were shaking and his eyes were dark. Ella kept calling his name, but he didn’t hear her. “David,” she said in a weak voice. “My chest still hurts. But don’t blame Sophia. She was just jealous that I was with you and Maya.” Before she could finish, there was a loud knock on the door.
His Beta was outside, out of breath and scared, and they linked their minds right away.
“Alpha-Sophia is gone. She officially left Moonlight this afternoon. She’s gone.”
David’s point of view
A rush of blood went to my head, and the world around me spun.
I reached for my phone and called Sophia.
No signal.
The call kept failing to go through.
Panic dug its claws into my chest.
