CHAPTER 1: THE SCENT OF ANOTHER WOMAN

CHAPTER 1: THE SCENT OF ANOTHER WOMAN

I walked in on my husband fucking another woman while our five-year-old sat on her lap, and my legs gave out before my brain could process what I was seeing.

My knees hit the marble floor with a crack that should have alerted them. It didn't. Damian kept thrusting into her like nothing in the world mattered except the sounds she was making—sounds I'd never been able to draw from him in five years of marriage. The woman, some brunette with a face full of makeup and a body that belonged on magazine covers, threw her head back and moaned loud enough to wake the dead.

And on her lap, perched like he belonged there, sat my son.

Theo.

Five years old. Blond hair like his father, hazel eyes like mine. He was munching a cookie, crumbs falling on the woman's bare thigh, his little legs swinging happily as he watched his father fuck a stranger on our living room couch.

Our couch. The one I'd picked out. The one we'd made family memories on—or so I'd thought.

I couldn't breathe.

Liora, my wolf, woke from years of complacency with a scream so loud I pressed my hands to my ears even though the sound was inside my head. Mate. Another. On our mate. OUR MATE.

I know. I know. I wanted to tell her I knew. But my voice was gone, my throat closed, my entire body paralyzed on that cold marble floor while my world crumbled around me.

The basket I'd been carrying—herbs for Elder Margot, because apparently even after five years as Luna I was still running errands like a servant—had scattered everywhere. Rosemary and sage lay around me like funeral offerings.

How fitting.

The woman's eyes found me first.

She should have been ashamed. Caught in the act, naked and sweaty, with her lover's wife literally on the floor ten feet away. Instead, her painted lips curved into a slow, victorious smile. She didn't stop moving. If anything, she ground against him harder, her moans becoming exaggerated, theatrical.

Watch, that smile said. Watch me take everything you have.

Damian felt her attention shift. His rhythm faltered, and he turned his head, following her gaze.

Our eyes met.

Five years. Five years of loving this man. Five years of cooking his meals, managing his pack, bearing his son, warming his bed. Five years of telling myself he just needed time, that the ice in his eyes would eventually melt, that my love would be enough.

He looked at me like I was a cockroach that had scurried into the wrong room.

No guilt. No shame. Not even a flicker of regret. Just annoyance. Pure, cold annoyance that I'd interrupted.

"Seraphina." His voice was flat. "You're back early."

You're back early.

Not "I'm sorry." Not "This isn't what it looks like." Not even a flinch of human decency.

Just annoyance.

Theo noticed me then. His face lit up with the pure, uncomplicated joy that only a child can have. "Mommy! Look, Auntie Ivy brought cookies! She's been playing with Daddy all afternoon!"

Auntie Ivy.

Playing with Daddy.

The words hit me like physical blows. Auntie. Ivy. Playing. Daddy.

How long had this been going on? How many afternoons had I been sent on errands while this woman played house with my family? How many times had Theo sat on her lap, called her auntie, watched them together?

Ivy giggled, adjusting her position on the couch without any attempt to cover herself. "Theo baby, why don't you go find Nanny and get another cookie? Your mommy and I need to have a little chat."

Theo slid off her lap, all eager obedience. He trotted toward me, pausing to pat my cheek with a sticky hand. "Mommy, your face is funny. Are you sick?"

Sick. Yes. Sick with betrayal. Sick with grief. Sick with five years of wasted love.

I shook my head, unable to speak.

Theo shrugged and disappeared toward the kitchen.

The moment he was gone, Damian finally pulled away from Ivy. He stood, doing up his pants with the casual indifference of someone who'd just finished a mundane task. Ivy lounged on the couch, completely naked, watching me with those triumphant eyes.

"Close the door, Sera." Damian's voice was cold. "We need to talk."

Close the door. Like I was the one who'd done something wrong. Like I was the intruder in my own home.

Something inside me cracked.

Liora stopped screaming. She went silent—not defeated, but waiting. Waiting to see what I would do. Waiting to see if I'd finally, finally fight.

I pushed myself up from the floor. My knees hurt. My heart hurt more. But I stood, and I looked at my husband—this man I'd given everything to—and I waited for him to speak.

He didn't apologize. He didn't explain.

"Sera, you need to understand something." He crossed his arms, his cold blue eyes never wavering. "Ivy is my mate. My true mate. The Moon Goddess chose her for me."

The words hung in the air like poison.

"Five years," I whispered. "Five years of marriage. A son. A pack. I'm your mate."

Damian actually laughed. A short, humorless sound. "We were never mates. Not really. You were... convenient. A pretty girl who loved me, who I could use to run the pack until my real mate appeared."

My vision blurred. Tears. I hadn't even realized I was crying.

"You were a free babysitter, Sera." His voice grew harder, crueler. "A warm body in my bed when I needed one. A doormat who never asked questions, never demanded anything. Ivy is my equal. She's strong, she's beautiful, she challenges me. You? You're just... there. Always there, with your pathetic love and your desperate eyes."

Each word was a knife.

Ivy draped herself over the couch arm, watching the show like it was entertainment. "Don't be too hard on her, Damian. She clearly didn't know her place."

I should have screamed. Should have thrown things. Should have shifted and attacked.

Instead, I pulled off my wedding ring.

The simple gold band caught the light as I held it up. So small. So cheap. So utterly inadequate for the weight I'd placed on it.

Damian watched, still cold. "What are you doing?"

Something inside me shifted. Liora lifted her head, and for the first time in five years, she wasn't whimpering. She was growling.

"What I should have done years ago." My voice came out steady. Calm. The voice of someone who'd already made a decision. "I'm setting us both free."

I threw the ring at his feet.

It bounced once on the hardwood, rolled twice, and disappeared under the couch.

"You're right about one thing, Damian." I met his eyes and held them. "I was convenient. A warm body. A free babysitter. A doormat who never asked questions."

I took a step closer, and for the first time, something flickered in his eyes. Uncertainty.

"But here's what you forgot, doormats can get up. And when they do, they tend to walk away. And they never, ever come back."

Ivy sat up, her smug expression faltering. "You can't just—"

"I can. I am." I turned to leave, then paused at the door. "Enjoy her, Damian. Enjoy your true mate. I hope she's worth everything you just threw away. I hope she loves you half as much as I did. And I hope, one day, you remember this moment and realize what you lost."

I walked out.

Through the living room, past the scattered herbs, through the foyer I'd decorated with such hope, out the front door of the pack house I'd called home for five years.

Behind me, Damian's voice: "Sera. Wait."

I didn't wait.

I kept walking toward my car, and I didn't look back.

But the moment I reached the driver's seat and closed the door, the tears came. Not a dignified trickle—ugly, wracking sobs that shook my entire body. I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel and cried for five years of wasted love. For the girl I'd been at twenty, so desperate for someone to love her that she'd ignored every red flag. For my son, still inside that house, unaware that his mother was driving away.

Liora howled with me, her grief echoing mine.

I sat in my car at the end of the long driveway, too broken to drive, too broken to do anything but cry.

An hour passed. Maybe two. Ivy's red Mercedes finally pulled out of the pack garage, speeding past me without a glance.

Another hour. The pack house lights flickered on. Life continued without me.

Finally, in the darkness, I saw Damian appear at his office window. Looking down toward my car. Watching.

Waiting for me to crawl back.

Waiting for his doormat to return.

I started the engine.

And I drove away into the night, with nothing but a suitcase, a broken heart, and a secret so powerful it would shatter everything he thought he knew about me.

I didn't know it yet, but the worst was still to come. My son was still in that house. My heart was still bleeding. And the man who would change everything was about to enter my life when I least expected it.

But first, I had to survive the night.