02: Painful silence

Layla POV

The phone beeped just as we reached the car. My pulse immediately jumped. I knew whose text it was without looking.

Four months of stolen glances and coded messages and I had learned the weight of his silence, and I knew how my chest tightened when he broke it.

I ignored the buzz in my satchel.

Carla was right beside me and the last thing I needed was for her to see Draven's name light up my screen. Thank Goddess, no one seemed to notice the sound.

I climbed into the back seat and sat on my hands, telling myself I'd check his text when I was alone.

Lois lasted approximately thirty seconds before she started.

"Did you see how he held you?" She grabbed Carla's arm, beaming with excitement. "Tell me you felt that."

"I felt the ceiling nearly fall on my head," Carla said dryly. The tips of her ears turned pink anyway. "That's what I felt."

"I'm telling you. Draven is completely gone for you.”

I forced myself to laugh. Anything to avoid drawing attention to my silence and how uncomfortable this conversation was making me.

"The whole pack knows it," Savanna agreed from the driver's seat. "The whole realm too. Just wait until graduation. He's probably about to make things official.”

The graduation was in two days. Lois’ words lodged like glass beneath my ribs.

I knew they were wrong. Draven wasn't secretly planning to confess undying love to Carla. Yet doubt still slithered into my mind. Not merely because of how he saved her earlier.

My sister was beautiful. She had a wolf. She was confident. Respected.

Everything a future Luna should be.

What if, eventually, Draven started believing what everyone else believed? That she was the right choice.

The thought made my stomach twist. The urge to check my phone became so unbearable that I slipped a hand into my bag, brushing my fingers against it.

Meanwhile, the girls continued talking. Laughing. Speculating about mating ceremonies that didn't exist.

I wanted nothing more than to disappear.

If only they knew what their words did to me. If only they would stop. But that was the problem. They didn't know, and they couldn't.

My greatest fear had never been the Alpha's family or even the pack finding out about us.

It was this family. My own. The only one I'd ever had.

Carla would be devastated if she learned the truth. The betrayal would destroy her and I would lose her. Not just as a sister, but as a friend.

She was the first person in this pack to make me feel at home. Wanted. Part of the Beta's household.

By the time we reached the Beta Manor, my chest felt too heavy. I climbed out of the car before anyone else.

The sun had started sinking below the trees, painting the grounds gold.

We waved goodbye as the girls drove away. Then I saw Brutus. The steward. He was waiting near the entrance. The first sign that something was wrong.

He wasn't moving or pretending to do something else. Just standing there with his hands folded, watching us come up the path. My stomach shifted.

"Are we expecting guests?" Carla murmured to me.

"Not that I know of."

"I was checking on the garden when I saw you coming," Brutus said as we reached him.

His tone was smooth. Practiced. But his eyes slid past me entirely, landing on Carla with that specific warmth he'd reserved for the real daughter of this household.

That was the second sign.

I had learned to read Brutus the way you learn to read the weather. Not because he was expressive, but because the things he didn't do told you everything. And he hadn't met my eyes once this past few minutes.

I pulled out my phone for a quick glance at the text while Carla went inside calling for mom.

The ash tree. 8:30.

That was all. No explanation or warmth. Just coordinates and a time.

That was Draven Darkwood. Even in secret, he moved like an Alpha, certain that the world would arrange itself around his decisions.

Any other evening, I would have felt the familiar thrill. Tonight I stood in the darkening garden holding his text and feeling something closer to dread.

"Layla."

I looked up. Brutus was watching me now.

"The Beta will see you immediately." His voice had dropped to something that was almost gentle, which was worse than his usual coldness. "Don't keep him waiting."

He held my gaze just long enough for me to understand that he had waited for Carla to be out of sight before he even looked at me.

My blood went cold.

When we reached the Beta's study, I could hear Mom's voice before Brutus even knocked. Her tone was low yet sharp and clipped with the urgency of someone who had been pacing for an hour and was done waiting.

I knew that voice. I had spent eleven years learning which version of her to walk into a room with and which version meant I should find somewhere else to be.

There was nowhere else to be at this moment.

Brutus stepped aside. Another glance at the steward's face and the thought struck instantly.

They know.

My hand trembled as I lifted it to knock.

“Enter.” Beta Gordon's voice was cold and authoritative.

When I walked in, he stood at the edge of his oak desk with his arms crossed. His face was closed off in a way I had never seen directed at me.

He was the one who had sat with me three days ago and told me patiently, gently, that some wolves were late bloomers. Especially females. That I shouldn't stop hoping for my wolf.

That man felt very far away now.

Mom stopped pacing the moment I entered. Her eyes found me and something moved across her face, something hot and wounded.