Chapter 3: My Sins Have a Name

⋅ ⋅ ❦ Blaire Rose ❦ ⋅ ⋅

I woke up with my body feeling incredibly sore, yet awakened in a way I had never felt before. Every muscle ached, a reminder of everything that had happened.

I—Blair Rose—had spent the night with a stranger. I had let him in. I had trusted him with my body.

I sat up, burying my face in my hands. “Blair Rose… what have you done?”

The memories of the night flooded back. It was so different from what people said. They said it was supposed to be an obligation, a duty. For me, it was a transformation. It had almost hurt—it wanted to hurt. But I had craved it so badly that I pushed through the initial sting. The sensation of him pushing into me, claiming me inch by inch, had turned the pain into something instinctive and undeniable. It was as if he had always belonged there, filling a space inside me that no man had ever touched. He hadn't just taken my virginity; he had taken up residence in my soul.

I climbed out of bed, my legs feeling heavy, and stood before the full-length mirror. My breath hitched. I was covered in him. There were dark bruises on my hips where his hands had gripped me, and faint love bites blooming across my collarbone, chest, and neck. I turned to look at the bed. He was gone—the room was cold and silent—but these marks were proof that it hadn't been a dream.

For a moment, a slow, triumphant smile spread across my face. I had done it. I had robbed Nolan of his prize.

But then a wave of regret washed over me. Not because of what I did, but because I didn’t even know his name. Who was he? Why did I feel so branded by a man I might never see again?

Then I remembered Nolan’s cruel laughter and his crude words. The regret vanished. It didn’t matter who the stranger was; he had been my liberation.

I travelled back home that same day, ignoring the dozens of missed calls from my parents.

I wore a heavy, oversized jacket, buttoned to the chin to hide the evidence of my sin. My parents needed to keep believing their trophy was perfectly intact. They needed to believe their investment was still pure.

The scolding I received from my father for travelling alone was a small price to pay. I was just relieved I wasn’t grounded. But my mother was relentless. She spent hours pressuring me to forgive Nolan, acting as if his betrayal was just a minor stumble.

“He’s a man, Blair. He’s an Alpha. You must be his peace, not his problem,” she had said.

I stayed silent, my mind drifting back to the stranger. I told myself it was a one-time thing—a beautiful, reckless mistake best left in the past.

Three days later, the obligation I dreaded arrived.

“Nolan is back from training,” my mother announced, her eyes gleaming with social ambition. “He’s hosting a party at the pack house to celebrate his return. As his future Luna, it is your responsibility to attend. You will behave accordingly. You will smile, you will be graceful, and you will pretend absolutely nothing happened.”

Being the good Blair Rose—the girl who couldn’t yet find the voice to say no—I agreed. I put on a mask of innocence and walked back into the wolf den.

The pack house was teeming with people, music blaring and expensive liquor flowing. I scanned the crowd, my heart heavy, until I found him in the backyard by the pool. Nolan was lounging around the pool area, surrounded by women in tiny bikinis. When his eyes met mine, he didn’t even stand to greet his fiancée. He just smirked and went back to his conversation.

One of the girls was tracing the tattoos around the Trifang symbol on his chest. For a split second, the image of the stranger’s chest—stronger, broader, and marked with the same symbol—flashed in my mind.

‘Stop it, Blair,’ I scolded myself. It doesn’t matter how much you want him, or how much you crave his body again. You will never meet that man again.

“Babe… is that your good girl Luna?” one of the women drawled, eyeing me from head to toe.

“That’s her?” another snorted. “You’re kidding.”

A third leaned closer to Nolan, biting his ear as she feigned a whisper loud enough for everyone to hear. “She dresses like a grandma. You really need to teach her how to please a man, Nolan. She looks like she doesn’t even belong in this pack, let alone on a throne.”

“She certainly doesn’t look like a Luna,” a third added, snickering.

“Relax,” someone else cut in with a laugh. “Maybe she’s full of surprises.”

“Doubt it,” the first one muttered. “He wouldn’t be with us this often if she were.”

A chorus of cruel laughter broke out. I stood there, feeling the heat of humiliation crawl up my neck. I looked at the girls—half-naked, draped over my fiancé—and then at the pack members watching. They weren’t seeing a future leader; they were seeing a joke.

Anger roared through me, igniting deep in my chest. It wasn’t the quiet, submissive anger I was used to. It was a forest fire.

“You know something, Nolan?” Easton said, Nolan’s closest friend, his eyes roaming over me. “Blair actually has a great figure under those layers. She should show it off more. Maybe then you’d stay home once in a while.”

They kept talking about me as if I were a piece of furniture—an object with no ears and no soul. And Nolan… he just sat there with a smug hint of a smile, enjoying the sight of me being torn down.

“Nolan,” I said, my voice cutting through the laughter. “You seem to forget that I am your fiancée—your future Luna. Are you really going to let them disrespect me like this?”

He finally stood up, grabbing a towel and carelessly rubbing his wet hair. “C’mon, Blair. They’re just harmless jokes. You’re way too uptight. You need to relax and learn to take a compliment, even if it’s a bit rough.”

Am I the uptight one? The irony was suffocating.

I let out a dry, brittle chuckle. “You know what? I think we should just cancel this engagement. Right here. Right now.”

A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. I had almost forgotten we had an audience, but the silence that followed was absolute.

Nolan’s face flushed an angry red, his eyes narrowing. Then he forced a laugh, trying to play it off. “Your family would never agree to that, and you know it. Stop being a brat and just behave. You’ll be my wife next month anyway. You have nowhere else to go.”

“I am dead serious, Nolan.”

“Well, if you were, you wouldn’t have shown up,” he sneered, stepping closer.

“Then maybe I should leave,” I snapped.

I turned to walk away, but before I could take a single step, a hard shove slammed into my shoulder.

I gasped as I lost my balance. My arms flailed, catching nothing but air, my heel slipping on the wet tile before I hit the water. The cold shock of the pool engulfed me.

It was deeper than I expected—far too deep. My feet couldn’t find the bottom. Panic exploded in my chest. I couldn’t swim. My soaked clothes dragged at me as I thrashed, sinking before I could fully catch a breath.

“Nolan!” I choked out, barely breaking the surface before the weight of the water pulled me under again. “Help—!”

Instead of a hand reaching out, laughter roared from the poolside as I sank beneath the water.

“Stay in there and cool off,” Nolan shouted. “Learn your lesson. You don’t walk away from me until I dismiss you.”

Laughter echoed above me, warped and distant beneath the surface as I struggled to stay afloat. My lungs burned, each movement weaker than the last as the water closed in.

Just as my strength began to fail, a booming, authoritative voice cut through the noise.

“What the hell is going on here?”

The laughter died instantly. The air in the backyard turned ice-cold. The pack members suddenly went stiff, their faces pale with pure terror. They scrambled back, stumbling over each other to clear a path.

I broke the surface, gasping for air—and saw him.

It was the man from the hotel. The stranger who had claimed my body and my spirit only nights ago.

He didn’t hesitate; he dived into the pool, his powerful strokes reaching me in seconds. His arms wrapped around my waist, and despite the freezing water, the moment he touched me, I felt a surge of warmth. He hauled me up, his grip possessive and firm, and guided me to the edge.

He lifted me out and sat me on the tile, his hand lingering on my waist as he brushed my wet hair back from my face. His eyes burned with a protective fury I had never seen before.

He climbed out of the water, and a man instantly rushed over to hand him a towel. He didn’t use it for himself; he draped it around my shivering shoulders, shielding me from the prying eyes of the remaining crowd.

Then he turned toward Nolan. I watched as Nolan literally shivered, his bravado vanishing as he shrank under the stranger’s gaze.

“Da… Dad?” Nolan stammered, his voice trembling.

Dad.

The world seemed to tilt. The hot stranger… the man who had taken my first time… was Nolan’s father? Zayn, the Alpha King. My heart hammered—what had I done?

But before I could process the shock, Zayn’s hand curled into a massive fist, and he struck. The crack of his knuckles against Nolan’s jaw echoed across the pool.

Nolan crumpled to the ground, clutching his face in agony.

Alpha Zayn stood over him, looking like wrath incarnate.

“I told you once, and I won’t tell you again,” he growled, his voice a low, terrifying rumble. “You never hurt a woman. Especially not one who belongs to this pack.”

He didn’t even look at his son again.

He turned back to me, his gaze softening just enough to let me know I was safe—and something in the way he looked at me made it clear: I wasn’t walking away from him again.