Chapter 2

I didn't cling to him or fuss over him like I usually did, but walked right past him.

Nathan grabbed my wrist before I could walk away.

"What's wrong? Why are you being so cold to your boyfriend?"

I looked up and met his sincere gazes, I felt a sharp pain as if something stabbed deep inside my heart.

Back in school, I'd had a crush on Nathan for three years.

The day we got together, the school forum nearly exploded. Nobody believed Nathan and I would last.

After all, the two of us belonged in different worlds.

He was the Alpha's only son, the rightful heir, and the golden boy everyone envied.

My parents were ordinary folks. I had average looks and average grades, the kind of person who disappeared into a crowd.

I knew someone like me wasn't worthy of someone like him.

But when he approached me, I simply couldn't push him away.

…

That night, he drove me home. When the car stopped in front of my house, he suddenly spoke up, "Kira, you're my girlfriend. You could be my Luna someday. When are you going to get that temper of yours under control?"

I froze. My hand hovered over the car door handle, and it took me a long moment before I slowly turned to look at him blankly. "What did you say?"

"You disappeared from the banquet without leaving me a message. Do you know how long Serena and I spent looking for you?

"I'm your boyfriend, but more importantly, I'm the Alpha with a pack to run. Serena is my Beta. We already have more than enough to deal with every day. Can you stop making things harder for us?"

He said they'd spent ages looking for me, but I hadn't received a single call or message from the mind-link.

Yet they still branded me as "immature" and "temperamental" on me.

I lowered my head and said flatly, "Okay. I get it."

"Good. Go home. Serena and I still need to go over some management plans."

When I got home, I pulled out a resignation letter and a pack withdrawal application that I'd written long ago from the drawer.

The first time I consider leaving him was the day he started pushing me aside for Serena, but I couldn’t bring myself to give up on a relationship I'd fought so hard to keep.

After a long hesitation, I locked them back in the drawer.

But the disappointments kept piling up, and my love finally turned to ashes.

"Kira, once I become Alpha, you'll come work with me at the Pack Administration."

Because of that promise, I gave up my dream of becoming a doctor and followed him to this distant pack.

But once I started working, I realized things was far more complicated than I thought.

Endless revisions to proposals, business dinners I couldn't get out of, meeting after meeting. To keep up with Nathan, I stayed late at the office every single night.

Since I knew nothing about pack management, I had to work ten, even a hundred times harder than everyone else.

But Nathan never appreciated my effort. He casually tossed the proposal I'd spent an entire week pulling all-nighter to finish onto the desk with a sigh.

"Why can't you be more like Serena? Look at this proposal. Did you ever put any thought into it?"

He frowned, pressed a hand to his forehead. "Forget it. Let Serena handle this. She gives me far less trouble than you are."

He dismissed a week's worth of my effort as worthless.

After that, he never gave me another project. I stayed as the entry-level staff, year after year.

When I went to Nathan's office to submit my resignation and pack withdrawal application, he wasn't there.

Instead, Serena was lounging on the sofa like she owned the place. She glanced at the resignation letter in my hand with contempt.

"If Nathan hadn't pulled strings to hire you, you wouldn't even qualified to work here. Quitting is probably the smartest thing you could do."

She took my papers and signed her name. "Nathan is away for a business trip today, so I'm in charge of all the administration's affairs. The fastest we could process a resignation is one month. You've got plenty of time to pack up your useless junk."

I took the papers back without a flicker of expression. I said a quiet "thank you," and leave.

At the doorway, I heard the sound of a glass shattering.

Serena seethed through gritted teeth, "Why you? I'm smarter, prettier, better than you in every way. So why did Nathan pick you and not me?"

My hand froze on the doorknob. I turned back to see the twisted look on Serena's face and couldn't help saying, "If you want him, then take him. I'll break up with Nathan and leave this pack. You were right. This place was never mine to begin with."