Chapter 2: Engraved in Lies

- WILLOW

Callum rushed out of the bathroom. He was no longer indifferent but totally panicked. He rushed to the door, then hesitated just long enough to glance back at me.

“Look, Sherlyn's taken it really hard,” he said, his words running, trying to justify himself. “She’s completely traumatized by the battle. With my brother dead, I'm the only person she has left in her corner. She needs me to have her back. I have to go calm her down, okay? So just try to understand.”

He didn't give me the chance to give him an answer. He really didn't want one. Before the last word even left his lips, he threw the bedroom door wide open.

Sherlyn stood right there in the brightly lit hallway. Her swollen, tear-red eyes were filled with panic. As soon as the door opened, she didn't even give it a second thought. She jumped into Callum's arms in a wracked sob, burying her face in his chest.

“I was so scared,” she choked out. Her perfectly manicured hands clutched at the fabric of his white button-down shirt, wrinkling it as she hauled him closer. Then, she lifted her hands and gripped his jawline, gazing into his eyes, vulnerable but terrifyingly so, as though calculating some new formula. “Please don't leave me again.”

This didn't pull him back. He didn't push her away and said nothing to correct her. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tightly to him.

I could see that his face had grown tender as his eyes were sliding down to her with an impartial, protective warmth that I never had before, not in years.

Standing frozen in the center of our dark bedroom, I could only watch them in silence, while bitterness rose in my chest. I looked at the way his hands held her. I watched their shared intimacy and how easily he set his own wife aside to play savior for his brother's grieving widow.

In front of the open door, the quiet rustle of clothes and soft murmurs continued.

Callum kept holding Sheryl, treating her as the rarest, fragile glass, allowing her to lean against him. She kept her face buried in his shoulder, pretending as if she hadn't even noticed me standing right there in the room.

She leaned against him, and her voice became a weak, needy squeal as she told him what she wanted. And without hesitation, Callum turned his back, letting her lead him away in the corridor.

A sudden jolt in the back of my mind came just before I could no longer hear them. The mind-link was opened, and there was a heavy, rushed tone in his voice as he spoke into my mind.

“I’ll come back down to the room later, Wil. Just wait up for me, okay? We’ll talk.”

The link was cut off.

I lingered at the window for a while, resting my forehead against the cool glass.

My mind was trying to come to terms with the logic of the pack bond. If he was telling me to wait, it meant he wasn't planning on spending the night with her. He was only doing his duty as the new Alpha.

A sad feeling of relief flickered in my chest for a moment.

Maybe everything he’d said out there in the courtyard was true. Perhaps his relationship with Sherlyn was merely a political manoeuvre to appease the old-money elders and to prevent the pack from splitting in the wake of a bloody conflict.

I dragged myself away from the window, walked back to the bed, and went under the thick blanket. I grabbed the book from my nightstand, and my eyes had to follow the lines of text in order to keep my mind from spiralling wildly to the dark side.

Hours crawled past. The grandfather clock in the hall rang the second bell at two a.m. Then three. The mansion was completely silent; the corporate-style celebration downstairs had finally subsided.

Then out of nowhere, the phone on my bed vibrated, jolting me awake.

I took it up and bristled at the glare of the screen. This was a text message. This was from an unknown number, but I knew the typing style immediately. It was Sherlyn.

Attached was a photo.

My breath caught in my throat, and for a second, I couldn't seem to breathe.

It was a shot taken from a high angle, clearly a selfie. The lighting was dim, coming from the bedside lamp of the master suite upstairs.

Sherlyn was lying in bed, her head resting comfortably on Callum's muscular chest. Curled up beside her, he slept peacefully with one arm around her waist. They were both naked. It was easy to see the dark ink of Callum's pack tattoos against the white sheet.

My hands started shaking, and I almost dropped the phone on the blanket.

The phone rang again before I could even react. Another text appeared immediately below the image.

“Already read it? Still waiting for Callum? Don't bother waiting, sweetheart. He won't be coming back down tonight.”

My chest tightened, and a cold sweat covered my skin.

My eyes were glued to the words, and then my fingers started hitting the keys before I knew what I was doing. I typed back between shaky breaths, "You're out of your mind. We are fated mates. The Moon Goddess gave us this bond. You’re lying. You took that photo to mess with me.”

There were several heartbreaking seconds. The typing bubbles just came out of nowhere, as if she was waiting for me to snap like a jealous, furious wife.

"Still not giving up?” the reply read. “Wow, you really are pathetic! You honestly think a fated bond means anything to him? You didn't know, did you? Both Javion and Callum confessed to me back when we were teenagers. He wanted me first. After I rejected him to marry Javion, he got desperate and started getting closer to you just to cope. If you don't believe me, go check his wedding ring. Our initials are engraved right inside the band.”

My phone fell, and it rolled softly off my fingers and onto the mattress!

The wedding ring.

My eyes fixed immediately on the other wooden dresser across the room.

Callum had complained about the grime from the battlefield making his skin itch before he went into the bathroom earlier. Right before the disturbing moment erupted, he had removed his watch, his silver cufflinks, and his wedding ring from his wrist and set them in a tidy little pile on the polished wood.

I sat frozen on the edge of the bed.

Callum had never mentioned there were any words inside the band. When we got married, he had handed me the ring, slipped it onto my finger, and told me it was an old family heirloom from the Kaur lineage. He said it didn't need any gaudy modern modification.

I set my feet down on the cold floor. I started towards the dresser like I was walking through deep water, and every muscle in my body was resisting me.

My hand shook as I reached out and picked up the heavy platinum band.

I flipped it over under the bedside lamp, angling the inner rim toward the feeble light.

There, engraved into the precious metal in tiny, elegant letters: C.K. & S.S.

I believed it stood for Callum Kaur and Sherlyn Stuart.

It all hit me at once and choked me. A lot of old memories came back. Moments I had tried to forget, excuses I had tried to explain, all came back with dreadful reality.

I recalled the summer that followed my 18th birthday. Callum had been aloof, completely unconcerned in the pack dynamics. Then, out of nowhere, he had suddenly started responding to my care. He took the food I had brought him; he would let me sit by the lake with him, and then he would finally agree to the courtship.

Callum had been spending all of his nights drinking in the local members-only bar during those summer nights. I had been the one who had cleaned him, who had held his head while he vomited, and whispered sweet words into his ear to comfort him when he cried himself to sleep.

It was not the mate bond that pulled him to me but a rebound. I was just the quiet, convenient omega willing to take the crumbs while his brother got the woman he actually desired.

I placed the ring back on the wood.

My hand went down reflexively and touched the slight curve of my belly. I thought about the little life that grew within me. The miracle I had asked for; the one thing I thought would make everything right.

My heart fell to a dark, deep, bottomless pit.

"No," I thought, tensing my jaw as the numbness grew to a hard, protective maternal instinct. I'm not going to sit here and take a mistress's word for it. I will not believe quietly based on a text message.

I had to look him in the eye. I had to ask him face-to-face and get him to say the words out loud. I wanted to get a straight answer, not just for my own sanity, but for the sake of my baby.

If everything Sherlyn said was the truth, if he had built our entire marriage on a lie and a stolen title, I wouldn't stay a second longer. I would pack my bags, sever the bond, and leave Ashbourne Pack with my pup before the sun even came up.

My arm slowly became numb, and my hand fell to my side. The paper containing my pregnancy report crinkled sharply in my tight grip.

Dexter’s voice echoed in the silence of my mind one last time.

He hadn't been lying. He wasn't merely a cocky gamma trying to stir up some trouble in the pack mansion. He had been attempting to give me the one ugly truth I had been too clueless to see.

I stood there in silence, refusing to scream or cry.

The frenzied, frantic, desperate fire that had been burning in my chest for many years had simply faded.

I gently folded the medical report and put it back in my pocket. I went to the window and looked out into the dark night.

The bond between the two mates was broken. And so was my time in the Ashbourne Pack.

Suddenly, a shadow shifted outside the large glass window of the balcony.

Jumping, my eyes fixed on the dark frame. The silhouette was a tall, muscled one, motionless. Someone was standing out there on the second-story mansion, completely hidden by the dark leaves of the oak tree.

I approached the window, taking my breath away, but without thinking, and I was about to move or call out to the guards. I gripped the handle of the balcony door and shoved it open as the cool night air hit my face.

“Who’s there?” I asked him quietly, but firmly.

The figure came out of the shadows. The subdued light of the pale moon lit up his dark eyes and the hard lines of his face, showing a cynical expression. With one shoulder leaning against the stone railing, he idly held an unlit cigarette between his lips.

Dexter.

Speaking of the devil. He looked at me and seemed to care nothing that he was trespassing in the middle of the night on the private balcony of the Alpha.

He chuckled quietly with the same arrogance that always irritated me, making my fingers curl into my palms.

“Told you so, honey,” Dexter grumbled.