Chapter 3

Eleanor's POV

The next morning, Cassian left the house just like he had countless times before.

He stood in the entryway adjusting his cuffs, then leaned down to fix a strand of my sleep-mussed hair.

"There's an Elder Council meeting today. I might be a little late getting home."

His voice was as gentle as ever.

If this had been before, I would have reminded him not to push himself too hard.

I would have overseen dinner preparations myself, then sat in the living room that evening and waited for him to come home.

Because for the past five years, that was what I always did.

When Cassian was busy, I waited.

When Cassian was tired, I was there for him.

I always believed that being his wife meant understanding his responsibilities and accepting how busy he was.

But today, I just stood there, watching his silhouette disappear.

I didn't ask when he would be back.

I didn't remind him to be careful on the road.

I didn't even hug him before he left, the way I always used to.

The moment the door closed, I looked down at my hand.

The ring was still on my ring finger.

In five years, it had become a part of my body.

I once believed it stood for Cassian's promise to me.

Now it felt like a reminder of how much I had never truly seen over the past five years.

After confirming that Cassian had left, I didn't stay home. Instead, I took out the address from yesterday's order again.

In five years, it had never crossed my mind that I would one day need to investigate my own husband this way.

If anyone had told the woman I used to be that one day she would go digging for Cassian's secrets, I would never have believed it.

Back then, I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world.

But the man I had trusted without question had deceived me for five years and, in doing so, cost me three pregnancies.

I stood outside the house for a long time, unable to make myself go in.

Up close, I realized this place looked just like my home. Almost identical.

The flowers in the yard were the same kind I had once told Cassian would look beautiful around a house.

The furnishings in the living room matched the style he and I had picked out together.

The vase by the window was identical to the one at our estate.

Standing there, I suddenly saw how absurd it all was.

All those things I thought belonged only to us could apparently exist in another place.

I pushed the door open.

Seraphina's face showed only a flash of surprise. But when she noticed the dark circles under my eyes, she quickly composed herself and said coolly, "So you finally came."

I looked at her.

This woman showed no panic. No fear.

She sat there like the lady of the house.

And I stood before her, feeling the bitter irony of my own position for the first time.

I was Cassian's wife in name.

Yet this place felt more like where he truly lived than my own home ever did.

When I said nothing, Seraphina gave a soft laugh.

"You've been wondering who I am, haven't you?"

I didn't answer.

She didn't wait for one.

"Actually, I've been curious too."

"I've been curious whether Cassian ever told you about us."

My fingers slowly curled tighter.

"When did you and Cassian start? Before our wedding, or after?"

I asked the question that had been gnawing at me since last night.

I couldn't hold back any longer. I had come here to torture myself with the truth because I needed to hear it from her own mouth.

Once I had my answer, I could make up my mind about what to do.

Seraphina looked at me.

Her eyes held the composure of someone who had already won.

"Eleanor, do you really not know?"

"Or do you just not want to admit it?"

I said nothing.

Because she was right.

Last night, I had still hoped it was all a misunderstanding.

I had hoped the child wasn't Cassian's.

I had hoped Seraphina was nothing more than an old friend.

I had hoped the ring was just a coincidence.

But reality was staring me in the face.

Seraphina leaned back on the sofa and said slowly, "Cassian and I grew up together."

"Everyone knew we were the ones who were supposed to end up together."

"Our families had always assumed we would eventually marry."

I watched her.

I didn't interrupt.

Because I wanted to know the full story of the past that Cassian had kept hidden from me.

"But then I married someone else."

"So when the Elder Council proposed that Cassian meet you, he agreed."

"He needed a marriage to dull the pain."

"And you happened to fit everyone's expectations perfectly."

The color slowly drained from my face.

These were the very fears I had once harbored.

When I first learned I was to marry Cassian, I had doubted it too.

I was just a human, and I had never even met him.

I had been consumed by anxiety and fear, convinced he was marrying me only because a woman with the right bloodline could serve as his public wife and bear him a powerful half-blood heir.

But Cassian's tenderness made me forget those fears.

He told me I didn't need to change who I was to be his wife.

He said that even without children, he would love me forever.

So I believed him.

I believed he saw me as a person, not as something to be used.

Seraphina watched the color drain further from my face, flashed a provocative smile, and continued, "Later, before your wedding, I got divorced."

"Cassian said he had no idea I'd been so unhappy all those years."

"He said he regretted not stopping me from leaving. He also regretted accepting the match the Elder Council arranged with you."

My breath caught for an instant.

Cassian had never told me any of this.

He had only said that Seraphina was a childhood friend.

Someone who had long since left his life.

But now I knew.

This woman had never left his world.

In fact, during the moments when I had felt closest to happiness, he had been filled with regret.

Regretting being gentle with me. Regretting having to keep up the act. Regretting marrying me.

Seraphina walked to a cabinet and opened a drawer.

"He said that keeping me in this position, only able to stay by his side like this, was unfair to me. So he would make our son his only heir."

My fingers went ice-cold.

Unfair.

So Cassian did know what it meant for a woman to be treated unfairly.

But for the past five years, the one who had sacrificed for this marriage was me.

I had left my parents.

I had left the human world I knew.

I had come to live in vampire territory.

I learned their language, their customs, their etiquette.

I bore the Elder Council's pressure to produce an heir, trying my hardest to be the wife everyone deemed worthy of Cassian.

During my pregnancies, I endured the toll on my body again and again.

When I lost the babies, I told myself not to blame him.

Because I believed Cassian loved me.

I believed all that sacrifice was worth it.

But now, I finally knew.

He had known what it was to ache for another woman.

And every promise he'd made me, every embrace, had been perfunctory.

The woman he cared about was never me.

Seraphina opened a box.

Inside was a necklace.

My breath stopped.

That necklace was identical to the one Cassian had given me.

She took out another box.

Inside was a woman's ring.

It was also part of the matching set Cassian and I had chosen together.

I stood there, unable to speak for a long time.

The gifts that had once made me happy for days now felt foreign.

I had thought Cassian remembered my preferences because I mattered to him.

I had thought those carefully chosen gifts were memories that belonged only to us.

But now, I found that those same things existed in another woman's life.

He had given Seraphina an exact copy of everything he had given me.

No.

Maybe what he gave her was far better. Maybe the necklace and the ring bore engravings mine never had.

So what did that make me?

I was his wife, yet standing there, I felt like the one intruding on their relationship. The whole thing was absurd.