Chapter Three

Taylor's POV

The room caved in, like I’d been shoved underwater without warning. My ears rang, a violent buzzing that drowned out everything except the sight of them together. My stomach lurched hard, bile clawing up my throat as my heart slammed wildly against my ribs.

No. No, no, no.

The word looped uselessly in my head as my fingers went numb and the edges of my vision blurred. A broken sound tore out of me. Something sacred inside me had just been shattered.

“How long?”

My mouth tasted like metal. My breath came and went in big gasps. I needed to breathe, but I couldn’t seem to.

Clara tilted her head from her new seat in front of Brandon’s table, right above the file containing the divorce papers, and smiled. “How long what, darling?”

“How. Long. Have. You. Been. F*ck*ng. My. Mate?” I barely recognized the shaking voice that came from me. My eyes shut in a desperate attempt to block out what I was seeing.

They laughed loudly together.

She turned to slowly rub her hand down his chest, maintaining eye contact with me and smirking. “How long has it been, baby?”

“Four years,” Brandon answered with a matching smirk.

Four years. My mouth went dry. I blinked hard, because the number did not fit the years I believed. We’d only been mated for two years. I turned my face back to Brandon.

One corner of Brandon’s mouth lifted. “That’s right. I’ve been f*ck*ng Clara before I ever met you,” he said, eyes flat on me.

The words left him easily, with no hesitation or change in his expression, like he was telling the time.

My breath stuttered, locking painfully in my chest. I blinked. Then again.

“You never loved me.” My lips moved, my voice barely audible. I remembered the way he smiled when we met. The way he looked at me. I remembered the butterflies in my belly. Had it all been a lie?

A slow, knowing smile spread across Clara’s face. “You were always so clueless, Taylor. Didn’t it occur to you that Brandon was way too perfect? Didn’t you find it suspicious that he matched every quality you wanted in a guy? Or that even your first meeting was straight out of one of the fantasies you told me about? C’mon, think.”

My mouth opened to speak, but no words came out. The words formed in my mind and died on my tongue.

“You… you planned—told him. It was all fake?”

Clara clucked her tongue. “Of course it was,” she said. “You told me your sweet little childhood dreams. I fed them to him—and he finished the job.”

My throat closed as I remembered the words he used to woo me. The pet names, promises, future pictures he drew in my head. Everything he did was everything I had ever dreamed of.

Because she told him.

Strange heat rose inside me. Dark spots danced around my eyes.

My head snapped back to Brandon again.

“I… liked you.”

“You actually did.” He laughed and twisted the silver ring on his finger. “You still do. And that’s what made it easy. I didn’t even have to pursue you, Taylor. You acted like a desperate bulldog panting after a piece of chicken bone. You practically threw yourself at me."

“But why? What did I ever do to deserve this from the two of you?” My lips quivered. Hot tears ran down my face.

“Don’t be dramatic, Taylor.” His voice dripped with smug satisfaction. “This is nothing personal. You had something I wanted.”

“What?” I said again. “What was it you wanted so badly you couldn’t just ask?” I couldn’t stop gaping at the man I loved.

“Your father’s pack.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“You destroyed my life because of the pack?” I shouted at him, clenching my fists beside me.

Brandon sank deeper into his black office chair. “Ah, ah.”

“I liked you, Brandon. I only liked—” My voice broke. “I gave you my virginity. And this is how you repay me?”

He didn’t react at all.

“What did you even need the pack for? You already rule the third biggest pack in the world.”

A sudden calm moved through me. My shoulders dropped, and my hands fell limp beside me. My eyes glazed over as I stared blankly at the man I thought I loved.

Brandon shrugged.

“I want to rule the kingdom,” he said. “All of it. Not just a pack. All of it.”

The room tilted. The light from the blinds made bars across my lap. I gaped at the two of them.

“That’s not how it works,” I whispered. “The wolves can’t be under a sovereign rule apart from the Goddess.”

He chuckled darkly, “That’s nonsense. Why does the Goddess get to dictate everything? Why does the old way matter more than what’s possible now?”

She patted his hand like he was a child. “He needs the two biggest packs—yours and his father’s—to defeat the council. Getting the pack from his father would be like taking something from a baby. Yours was the hard one,” she continued calmly, “because your father refused to fall for our plans.”

I froze. “Daddy… knew?”

She chuckled. “Nah. He only pushed the mating, thinking it was what you wanted. And because he knew you couldn’t manage the pack alone.”

He warned me never to trust anyone, and I didn’t listen. Now he was dying, and the people I thought I’d have were liars.

“And then he met me,” Clara chuckled and rubbed a path down Brandon’s hands. The sores on my back started to burn.

He leaned back deeper into his seat, lacing his hands together with hers. “Your father was a roadblock. A damned good Alpha. Honest. Strong. And way too stubborn to see the big picture.”

He watched me, slowly smiling. “So we used you.”

Clara hummed. “It was too easy.”

A sob caught in my throat.

Oh Goddess, what had I done?

“I… yo… wh—please…” I said. My voice cracked. I couldn’t hold the sob in anymore.

Brandon’s expression narrowed. “Clean your eyes, Taylor. I haven’t even gotten to the good part.”

“What worse could you possibly do to me?”

Clara spoke up. “Well, seeing as you know all this now and we can’t let you leave…”

My blood ran cold. “What are you talking about?"

Brandon stood, and the office seemed too small for his shadow. The clock ticked loud and quick. “Wow,” he said. “You’re even more naive than I thought.”

My hands balled into fists, and I had the urge to punch his face in. How dare he? How dare she?

He gave me a wink. “Why do you think I’m telling you any of this, Taylor?”

“I don’t care. We're getting a divorce." I got up, but what I saw dropped me right back into my seat.

He reached into a drawer and brought out a gun. The metal caught the light, and my breath stopped.

“Finally.” Clara snickered and rolled her eyes.

“No,” I whispered.

He cocked the weapon slowly, glaring at me. “If there’s one thing I love about soundproof rooms,” he said, “it’s that no noise in here matters to the outside world. No one will hear you scream, Taylor.”

I slumped back toward the door, breath ragged. My chest hurt.

“Please,” I begged without thinking. “Please don’t. Don’t—”

“Shut up,” Clara snapped. “You stupid brat.”

“How can you do this to me?” My voice was small. Her betrayal hurt the most. “You are my stepmother. You raised me—”

She raised an eyebrow. “Easily, because I’ve always hated you.”

Brandon spoke softly to Clara and handed her the gun. “Do it.”

She lifted the gun, Brandon’s hand steadying her wrist. “You disgust me, Taylor,” she said. “You and your nonsense excuse of a father.”

Her face held no shame. Only a slow, satisfied hunger.

“No.” I squeezed my eyes shut. The room blurred.

My breath was a thin thread. “Please,” I whispered again, bargaining with her. “Please don’t. I promise—I’ll never tell. I’ll leave. Take everything. Just—”

Clara’s hand trembled for a second, only a second. Then she steadied. “You always were so dramatic.” She lifted the gun.

Bang.

I tried to move. My legs didn’t obey me. I felt fire bloom, warm and bright, in my stomach. I dropped to my knees. Heat spread under my shirt like ink. Air ripped out of me.

She shot again. This time the pain exploded through my chest, and the world tilted sideways. I tasted metal and fear and a dizzying, terrible calm. I fell back into the chair, and the room blurred before my eyes.

Brandon watched, satisfied. “You did well, baby,” he smirked.

Everything I loved spilled out of me—memories, smells, laughter. I was surprised how clean some of the images were. A sunlit kitchen. My father humming as he carved a roast. The way Brandon once touched my hair like a blessing, and how much I had loved him.

If only I had seen the signs. If only I had listened to my father.

Brandon leaned over me. “You were always too soft.”

I laughed. My lungs burned.

Clara whispered, acid dripping from her voice, “You want to say something, princess?”

I managed a crooked smile. “I wish you rot in hell.”

The look on her face was worth the energy it took to say that. She glared at me and slapped me across the face.

The last thing I saw was the white ceiling.

Moon Goddess, please help me. Give me a second chance. I promised to do better. I'll make them pay.