Chapter 6: Toast to a Broken Heart

~ Maya ~

I don't think this evening can get any worse. I've endured enough for one day—all these fake "Congratulations, Luna" and "wishing you the best," said in voices sweeter than honey while mockery sits plain in their eyes.

Derek's heavy gaze on me all night, then him storming off after the mating ritual without letting me say a single word.

Harvey's fake tenderness for show, and the murderous glares he throws me whenever no one's watching, all while he downs one drink after another.

Lola rushes over and pulls me into a tight hug, batting her eyelashes. "You're the luckiest girl alive, Maya. A Luna now. And don't worry—Alpha Harvey will soften toward you eventually. You're his mate, after all."

I want to put a stop to this whole circus and leave. Instead I sit here repeating it silently like a mantra. "Nico… Stacey…" They're the only reason I'm still in this chair, plastering on a polite smile, playing the docile, pretty ornament.

And now I'm staring at my mate and his beloved, after catching them kissing. I shouldn't be jealous, and yet it stings anyway. Harvey looks at Georgina like a man in love, like she's his entire universe. Love is blind, I suppose—he sees an angel, while I see a predator who's already made it clear she'll fight for what's hers. She's won before the fight even starts. I won't challenge her for a wolf who was never mine to begin with.

"Thank you, Georgina, for your support," I say flatly, then turn to Harvey. "Luna Alana asked me to tell you it's time for the pack run."

His smug smile only spreads wider. "Maya, since you don't have a wolf, a maid will show you to your room."

A maid steps into the orangery as if she's been waiting on cue, and Harvey and Georgina simply leave, like I'm nothing more than a piece of furniture. I breathe in and smile, because as they go I hear Harvey tell Georgina he'll reject me the moment the scandal is sorted. It's the best thing I've heard in days. Soon I'll be free.

"Luna, please follow me," the middle-aged she-wolf says with a bow, and guides me to the Alpha's quarters.

His quarters are grand, done in a minimalist style—white, gray, and black, with the faintest splash of purple. Every piece of furniture costs a fortune and yet the whole place feels soulless, like a suite in a high-end resort. We pass through a large living room.

"Alpha's study. His bedroom. Movie room. Massage room. Nursery. Kitchen. Storage." The maid points at one door after another, until at last she pushes open one at the very end of the corridor. "Your room, Luna."

She bows and vanishes.

The moment I step inside, I have to suppress a bitter laugh. The room is the size of my walk-in closet back at my parents' home—a single bed, a wardrobe, a small table with one chair, an ugly old rug, and the most hideous curtains I've ever seen, printed with chamomile flowers. I check the bathroom: a toilet and the tiniest shower stall I've ever laid eyes on.

So this is how Harvey gets back at me—stuffing me into a shoebox. He's already taken my dignity and my freedom, and now he wants to humiliate me further.

"I'm not staying here long anyway," I whisper to myself. But a tear slides down regardless—not because of the room, but because I still can't believe how I've gone from cloud nine straight to hell in the span of two days.

The urge to strip off this mating gown and scrub the paint from my face makes my skin itch. I want to erase every trace of this fake parade and just be Maya again. As I peel off the dress and scrub my skin clean, relief loosens something in my chest. I haven't lost everything. I'm still the same girl. I still have my family, and Lola. I'll still graduate soon and chase my dream of becoming an architect. I still have my painting. My downfall is temporary, not a death sentence. As for Harvey, I'll simply do my best never to cross his path. Georgina will keep him plenty occupied.

My silk pajamas remind me of home, and I feel more like myself as I pad out of the bathroom like I can finally breathe—

—only to freeze mid-step, staring in sheer disbelief at the one man who completely throws me, the absolute last person I expected to find standing in my room.

There he is, dressed in nothing but shorts, covered in crimson stains, his stance coiled like he means to attack, ocean-blue eyes burning into me. His scent mixed with blood and alcohol makes my head spin.

"Are you hurt?"

"Just hunted. The blood isn't mine."

I don't move. Neither does he, only cocks his head, studying me the way a predator studies its prey. I step back and hit the wall.

He closes the distance between us, watching me in silence. My heartbeat is traitorously loud, and I hate that he can hear my fear. My palms go damp.

The silence stretches. Has he come to get rid of me?

"We need to consummate the mating, mate." His voice is thick with mockery, and I can't tell whether he's joking or serious.

He steps closer, and the bond flares to life between us, a current dragging under my skin, pulling me toward him. I press back against the wall, but the heat is already curling low in my belly—treacherous, undeniable.

"It's not like we haven't done it before," he murmurs, caging me in with his arms.

My mind screams that I should shove him away. That I don't even remember the first time, that I'm not ready to hand this arrogant brute a single thing. But the bond doesn't care what my mind wants. His scent floods me, and my body sways toward his before I can stop it.

"Tell me to stop." His mouth hovers a breath from mine, eyes blazing. "Say it, and I walk out that door."

The word sits right there on my tongue. Stop.

I don't say it.

Instead, my fingers curl into the waistband of his shorts and pull him closer.

That's all the answer he needs.

He kisses me—hard, demanding—and my gasp dissolves into something hungry. His tongue slides against mine, his hands roaming everywhere at once. My mind still wants to rage at him, to push him off, but my body is begging for more. Need clouds everything, and my knees threaten to give. Instead of telling him to stop, my fingers tangle in his thick dark hair, dragging him closer. His mouth, his hands, are everywhere, and I arch into him, shameless, heat pooling low in my body.

He scoops me up and carries me to the bed, stripping my shorts away in one smooth motion. I close my eyes, too overwhelmed to be so bare, so vulnerable. Foil tears—he came prepared, and some distant part of me files that away to hate him for later. Then I feel him at my entrance.

The first thrust splits me open. I brace to scream, but he swallows the sound with his mouth, holding still—one heartbeat, two—while my body fights him, then softens, then betrays me completely.

He starts to move, and the pain doesn't vanish; it changes. Every stroke drags the burn into something fuller, darker, until I can't tell where hurt ends and want begins. His scent is everywhere—the cedar and grapefruit I remember from that hotel room, buried now under blood and whiskey—and it's wrong, it should repel me, and instead I'm arching off the bed to get closer to it.

My nails find his back. He growls against my throat, right over his mark, and the bond detonates—white heat racing down every nerve, my body clenching around him like it knows him. Like it chose this. He drives into me harder, relentless, and I stop being angry, stop being humiliated, stop being anything but the place where we're joined.

I shatter with his name caught behind my teeth. I won't give him that.

He follows a moment later, a low, broken sound against my skin, and for three heartbeats his forehead rests on my shoulder—heavy, almost human—before he remembers who we are.

Harvey stands, tossing the used condom into the bin and pulling his shorts back on.

His eyes are frost-cold, his voice colder. "Maya, don't expect anything to change between us. You will never be my Luna. You will never carry my pup. You're a leech. Enjoy your empty title, because every time I look at you, I'll see the filth who slept her way to power."

Each word is a bucket of filthy water thrown over me. How can the same lips that kissed me a moment ago spit something so cruel? I drag the covers over myself, as if they could shield me from the pain and humiliation.

"You'll attend every public gathering and play the devoted mate. Beyond that, we're strangers."

He leaves, slamming the door as if he's the one who's been wronged. My body is still warm from his touch, his sweat and his scent still on my skin—and when I look down, a rust-dark smear of someone else's blood across my ribs, where his chest pressed against mine. Minutes ago I felt worshipped, like maybe there was still a chance for us. Now I just feel tainted. Dirty.

For a long while I don't move. I lie in the wreck of the bed, in this room the size of a closet, and let myself feel exactly how small they've decided I am. The mate who marked me and won't claim me. The fiancé who threw me away. Friends who ghosted me. A whole pack that named me a liar before anyone thought to ask. The silence settles over me, heavy and complete, until there's nothing left in it but the cooling hollow where he lay.

My eyes are too dry to cry, and I won't cry any longer anyway. I won't let anyone humiliate me again. I was forced into this mating, but that doesn't make me a possession to be used and discarded. I'm done playing nice, done being the docile, sweet little weakling.

Something in me goes very still and very clear—the way it does right before I start a new canvas, when I can finally see the whole picture. I see it now. The role they've cast me in. The role I'm going to play instead.

They want the perfect Luna at the table tomorrow. They're going to get a woman they don't recognize at all.