Chapter 01

Tesia.

Imagine coming home after a long, exhausting shift at your horrible minimum-wage job, only to find your husband and your best friend sitting calmly at the dining table.

Everything looks normal. They ask you to sit down… Then they tell you the news that completely destroys your entire world.

“I am five months pregnant.” My best friend Hannah spoke first.

At first, I was happy for her. I had grown up with her. I had known her my entire life. She was practically family.

Although, with the recent problems in her marriage, I knew a baby was probably the last thing she needed. Still, I was happy for her. I was happy because I was there. And so was Maverick, my husband.

Until he opened his mouth: “I am the father.”

The entire world stopped. All the blood drained from my body.

Werewolves.

You know how the goddess chooses our mates? How, at sixteen, we find the person destined for us, court them, eventually marry, and start our own families?

Folktales make it sound so simple.

They make it seem like we are automatically attracted to our mates. Like loving our fated partner is something written into our very souls.

But what happens when it isn't? What happens when the person chosen for you feels nothing?

That was exactly what happened with my best friend.

She was one of the lucky ones. She found her mate at sixteen, just like every other shewolf hoped to. Even better, her mate was someone we had grown up with. Someone we had known for most of our lives. Someone who, without a doubt, would have made an amazing partner.

Everyone considered Hannah fortunate. Every shewolf in town was jealous of her. But she wasn't fortunate enough. Because she didn't want him. She felt no attraction toward him. None.

Me? I was the unlucky one. I reached twenty-one years old without finding my mate.

For a shewolf, that was considered late. Most of them had already found their mates by then, and I was already preparing myself for the possibility of being sent to an outcast home.

Then, one night, I drank too much. I met Maverick at a bar. The same Maverick who was Hannah's fated mate. The same Maverick she had rejected.

That night changed everything.

It was supposed to be nothing more than a mistake. A one-night mistake. But the next morning, he showed up at my family's home and asked for my hand.

My family, desperate to see me settled before I was cast aside, accepted immediately. And I did too.

It has been six years since then. Six years of marriage. Six years of trying to build a life together. Six years of believing we were the perfect couple. Until that day.

Maybe you are judging me right now. Maybe you are thinking it was my fault for marrying a man who was originally chosen for my best friend.

A man who was never supposed to be mine. And maybe you are right. But there was more to our marriage. For almost six years, we had no children. That was always the biggest problem between us.

Except… I wasn't the problem. He was.

Maverick was infertile. We both got tested, and I found out the results before he did. I had already fallen in love with him by then. So I protected him. I begged the doctors to change the results. I asked them to tell everyone that I was the one who couldn't have children.

That I was the reason we weren't starting a family. I carried that shame for him.

And what did he do? He used it against me. For years, he reminded me that I had failed him.

Even when he betrayed me, he had the audacity to say I had no right to be angry because Hannah had given him something I couldn't.

“I think this is the goddess' way of saying Rick and I are meant to be together,” Hannah said.

Rick. She even called him that. Like he wasn't my husband. Like I wasn't standing right there.

I was completely broken. The cruelest part was that, for six years, Maverick had never marked me. We barely shared intimacy, only doing so when we were trying to have children.

Because of that, I never sensed anything. I never knew. All those years, he had been with my best friend behind my back, and I didn't even feel it.

Our marriage had happened so quickly. I agreed because I had already been rejected by fate itself. I was getting older. I hadn't found my mate. And I was terrified of being cast away. So I held onto the first person who chose me.

“You can stay here until you find somewhere else to go,” Maverick told me. “I’ll sleep in the guest room with Hannah. She needs special attention.” He stood up and helped her from the chair, guiding her toward the guest room.

Her pregnancy was obvious now. I had noticed her growing stomach weeks ago, but I never asked. I didn't want to be rude. And with all the problems she claimed to be having in her marriage, I thought it would be a sensitive subject.

I didn't stay. Not another day. The next morning, I packed my things and returned to my family's house.

My uncle wasn't happy. He told me I should go back. That I should accept being the first wife. That maybe things could still work out. But I couldn't. I simply couldn't.

Days passed. Then weeks. Eventually, Maverick officially separated from me. Because we lived in modern times, our marriage had been registered legally, making the divorce process simple.

I signed. He signed. And just like that, six years of my life disappeared.

Hannah even tried to visit me. I refused to see her. My entire life had fallen apart. I became the joke of the town. Nobody wanted to look at me. Even the omegas looked down on me.

My uncle was embarrassed to have me under his roof. I was almost twenty-eight years old, unmated, and considered a failure.

For an alpha, having a niece like me was apparently shameful. Then my uncle's son, my cousin Kai, arrived with news.

He and his mate wanted to get married. And that was how I was sent away.

Not to an outcast home. Somewhere far worse.

I was sent to the devil himself.

Drake.

The ruthless Alpha King of our town. And I wasn't sent there as a servant. I wasn't sent there as a sacrifice– that would have been better.

I was sent there to become his wife. I was sent to become the devil's wife.