Chapter 4 - Cold Strenght

The door opened with the faintest creak.

At first, I saw only darkness. The heavy curtains were drawn, letting in just a thin shaft of moonlight that cut across the room like a blade. My heart pounded as I stepped inside.

And then I saw them.

Varrick, sprawled across our bed, his bare chest gleaming with sweat, his arm wrapped lazily around the pale-haired omega. Her hair spilled over his shoulder like liquid silver, her lips swollen, her body tangled with his beneath the sheets that were mine.

The scent hit me next - cloying perfume, mingled with the unmistakable musk of sex. My stomach lurched.

Varrick’s head turned lazily, as if I were nothing more than an intruding servant. His lips curled into a slow, mocking grin.

“Well,” he drawled, his voice thick with satisfaction, “look who finally decided to join us.”

The omega’s eyes flicked at me, wide for only a heartbeat before her mouth curved into a smirk. She didn’t shrink away, didn’t cover herself. She nestled closer to him, bold as sin, as though my place had already been erased.

My breath caught, rage and disbelief warring in my chest. “Varrick - ”

“Don’t look so shocked, wife,” he interrupted, his tone cruelly amused. “You’ve always known what I am. Did you really think being Luna would change that?”

I couldn’t move. My nails bit into my palms until they bled. My wolf howled inside me in such pain that it doubled mine.  

“You’ll never leave,” he said then, his voice dropping to a cold, razor edge. “No matter what I do. No matter who I take to this bed. You’ll stay. Because without me, Evelynn, you are nothing.”

The words sliced deeper than any blade.

The omega’s smirk widened, her hand trailing idly across his chest as though marking her territory right in front of me.

My throat burned, but no sound came out. I stood frozen, watching the ruin of my vows laid bare in moonlight.

Varrick leaned back, utterly unashamed, his smile sharpened to a blade. “Run along now, Luna. Leave us. You’re good at smiling for the pack, at keeping up appearances. Do that. Pretend you didn’t see.”

The omega laughed softly into his neck, her breathy giggle the cruelest echo in the room.

Something inside me broke then. Not loudly, not with rage or screams or shattered glass. No - this was a quiet fracture. The kind that cuts deepest.

I turned, skirts whispering against the stone floor, and walked out.

Not a word.

Not a tear he could see.

Only silence.

The door clicked shut behind me, and I moved through the corridors like a ghost. My chest was a hollow cavern, my hands trembling as I pushed into my cabinet. The familiar scent of books and parchment wrapped around me, but it offered no comfort.

My gaze landed on the crystal decanter. Whiskey. Varrick’s favorite. Once, ours.

I poured until the glass nearly overflowed, amber liquid sloshing against the rim. My hand shook so violently it spilled over, staining the carpet, but I didn’t care. I brought it to my lips and drank deep, the burn searing a path down my throat, grounding me in something other than pain.

The silence pressed heavy, broken only by the faint crackle of the fire. My reflection caught in the glass panes of the balcony doors - my hair loose from the night’s dances, my gown creased, my eyes wild. 

I shoved the door open and stepped into the night air. The chill wrapped around me instantly, cutting through silk and skin. I welcomed it. The sting kept me from shattering completely.

Above, the moon hung fat and silver, casting the courtyard below in ghost-light. My breath hitched as I stared up at it, that eternal witness to every joy and every sorrow a wolf had ever known.

“How foolish I was,” I whispered, the words lost to the wind. “To believe love could keep him. To believe I was enough.”

The glass dangled from my hand, forgotten, the whiskey sloshing dangerously near the rim.

I thought of the way Varrick had looked at her - lazy, smug, claiming. The way she’d smirked at me, as if she already knew I’d lost. The way he told me I was nothing.

My heart screamed, but my lips curved into a bitter smile.

“No,” I said softly to the moon, my voice trembling but sure. “I am not nothing.”

The night swallowed my vow.

And for the first time in years, I let myself imagine a future that did not have him in it.

The night air cut sharp against my lungs, yet it wasn’t enough to quiet the storm inside me. My fingers clenched so tightly around the glass I feared it would shatter.

A soft knock pulled me back.

I froze.

Another knock, firmer this time. “Luna?”

Aldric.

I swallowed hard, shame burning hotter than whiskey. Did he know? Had he seen? Had he been standing guard outside while my world crumbled?

“Go away,” I managed, my voice raw.

The door creaked open a fraction anyway. His scent - pine and steel - drifted in. He didn’t step inside, but his voice carried low, almost hesitant.

“I just wanted to say…” He paused. I could almost hear the war raging inside him, the duty to his Alpha against whatever loyalty he still held for me. “You don’t deserve this.”

My throat closed. My wolf stirred restlessly, caught between comfort and fury.

“Goodnight, Aldric,” I whispered, sharper than I meant, because anything else would break me.

The pause on the other side of the door lingered like a hand reaching out, then withdrawing. At last, the footsteps retreated, fading down the hall.

I stared at the moon one last time. “I'm not nothing,” I whispered again, softer now, more a promise to myself than a plea to the night.

I drained the glass in a single swallow and set it down with trembling fingers. The ache in my chest hadn’t lessened, but the whiskey burned enough to harden it.

And with that, something inside me shifted.

Tomorrow, I will stop bleeding. Tomorrow, I will fight.