Chapter 1

After I left the clinic, I opened the video again. My fingers trembled so badly I could hardly hold the phone.

Someone in the comments asked with a laughing emoji:

"How old is the pup? So cute."

Calista replied almost immediately.

"Four."

I stared at that word, and a ringing sound filled my ears.

Five years ago, I had been gravely wounded by a silver blade from an enemy pack. The Healers had warned my family more than once that I might not make it.

Dorian, proud as he was, had gone to Moon Mountain like a man possessed.

The pack said he had knelt until his knees bled, that thorns from the forbidden grounds had torn open his palms, and that he had pressed his forehead against the cold moonstone altar, begging the Moon Goddess to let me live.

Calista had gone too. Her health had always been fragile, but she still followed Dorian through the forbidden grounds and kept the moon lantern burning for me outside Moon Mountain for three whole days.

Later, I woke up. Everyone said Dorian's devotion had moved the Moon Goddess. I had believed that too.

But while he was kneeling there and praying for my life, he had also been sleeping with my sister. They had even conceived a pup on that sacred mountain.

The pain in my chest nearly swallowed me whole.

As the screen dimmed, a new message from Calista appeared.

The last messages were from last night.

"Liora, I'm so jealous of you."

"An Alpha like Dorian must be so restrained and gentle."

"Not like my boyfriend. I don't know what's gotten into him lately."

"He clings to me every night and won't let me go."

"I tell him it hurts, and he just laughs against my ear."

"I feel like he's going to take me apart."

She had added several shy, laughing emojis after that.

Now, looking at those lines again, nausea rolled through my stomach.

So the boyfriend she talked about was Dorian. No wonder she had never brought him home in all these years.

Whenever my parents and I asked, she said his identity was complicated and that she would introduce him when the time was right.

Back then, I had laughed and told her she was being too careful.

Only now did I understand. She was not being careful. She was afraid.

My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles ached, and darkness swam at the edges of my vision.

After all these years with Dorian, he had always been almost painfully restrained in bed.

Once, I bought a revealing nightdress and awkwardly copied what I had seen in a video. Late that night, my face burning, I wrapped my arms around him and hinted that he could lose control a little.

Dorian simply took my hand and pulled me into his arms.

"Liora, your body is weak."

"I'm afraid of hurting you."

I used to think that was his way of cherishing me. I used to think he loved me so much he did not dare let himself go.

But that was not it. Every ounce of hunger he had denied me, every shred of control he had refused to lose with me, he had given freely to Calista.

A broken laugh escaped me as my tears splashed onto the screen.