Chapter 4 – Here For A Reason

“Amani,” Vance stuttered.

He actually took a half-step back, his boots scuffing against the hardwood floor. “You're awake. I… I didn't think you'd be up yet.”

I sat up slowly, the silk sheets sliding off my skin.

I felt the morning chill hit my shoulders, but I didn't reach for a robe. I didn't try to hide the way my eyes were likely bloodshot from the 'death' I’d just experienced. I wanted him to see me, really see me, standing in the wreckage of the mating he was currently torching.

I kept my eyes locked on Zebub's face, her ‘victim’ mask.

She was leaning into him, her small hands clutching his forearm so tightly her knuckles were white. It was a performance that deserved an award, but I could see the way her eyes darted to the expensive heirlooms on my nightstand.

She was already measuring the value of my room.

“You're late, Vance. You were supposed to be back at midnight.”

My voice was flat, devoid of the frantic worry he was probably expecting. In my past life, I would have spent those hours pacing the floor, imagining him dead in a ditch, howling for my mate until my throat was raw. Now, I just felt a cold, hollow space where our chosen bond used to pulse. It was incredibly liberating.

“There was an ambush at the creek,” he explained, stepping further into the room and pulling Zebub closer as if he needed her for protection.

The irony wasn't lost on me, the big, bad Alpha-heir using a 'traumatized' girl as a meat-shield against his mate's stare. “The rogues had a camp. It was chaos, blood everywhere. And this girl… I found her in a cage, Amani. She was trembling so hard she couldn't even tell me her name. I couldn't just leave her there to rot.”

Zebub made a small, helpless sound and buried her face in his chest.

The movement was so practiced, so perfectly timed, it made my stomach turn. I could almost smell the fake fear rolling off her, masked by a scent that was designed to drive a male wolf insane. It was an oily, cloying sweetness, something like rotting lilies, that made Sara, my wolf, snarl behind my ribs. She knew exactly what this girl was, even if Vance’s wolf was currently being led around by its pheromones.

I kept my face cold and unreadable.

Deep down, a part of me was screaming. In my last life, I had jumped out of bed, wrapped her in a blanket, and treated her like a pack sister. I had been the one to play right into her hands, offering her tea while she planned my execution. I had been a fool, blinded by the sacredness of the mate bond and the belief that being a good mate meant being a doormat.

But the Moon Goddess had reached into the void and pulled me out for a reason.

“I got her out,” Vance continued.

He finally looked me in the eyes, and I saw the helplessness there, the look of a man who had already surrendered his brain to his wolf’s basest instincts. He looked exhausted, but there was a spark of something new in his eyes, a feverish, obsessive light that told me the 'bond' she’d faked was already working its poison.

“But as soon as I touched her… the bond hit me hard. Like a blow to the chest. My wolf went crazy, Amani. Willow is not letting her go. He wouldn't even let the pack doctors near her.”

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in a throat tight with guilt.

“She's my fated mate. The Goddess gave her to me. And I’m going to keep her.”

The words should have been the end of me. In our world, 'fated mate' was the ultimate trump card. It was supposed to be the most sacred connection in existence, blessed by the moon herself. But standing there, having just spoken to Selene herself, I knew it was a lie. This wasn't a gift, it was a curse designed to tear my lineage apart.

In my old life, I'd have burst into tears.

Begging him to think of us, of the years we’d spent as mates, of the future we’d promised to the pack. I would have made myself small, hoping my grief would make him choose our history over her scent. I would have spent weeks trying to prove I was a better Luna than her.

What a massive, pathetic waste of time!

I swung my legs out of bed and stood tall, ignoring the way the floor felt like ice against my feet. I didn't look like a she-wolf who'd just been told her mate found another. What stood here was a general preparing for battle, surveying the enemy before the first strike. I felt the power the Goddess had branded onto my forehead starting to pulse, a low rush of ancient authority in my veins.

“Fated mate?” I repeated coldly.

I let a small, mocking smile play on my lips. “That's quite the story, Vance. A girl just happens to be found in a rogue cage at the exact moment our border negotiations are falling apart? And she just happens to be your destined match? That's almost too perfect, don’t you think, hon?”

I began to walk toward him, my movements slow and deliberate.

I watched his pupils dilate as I entered his personal space. He expected me to be weak, to be the 'soft' Luna everyone talked about. He didn't realize that the woman he mated was gone, and the one standing here was a ghost with a grudge.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Vance snapped, his face flushing a deep, angry red.

He was always so easy to trigger. “You think I'm lying about the bond? I can feel it pulling at my soul! It’s literal agony to be more than a foot away from her! You have no idea what it feels like to finally find the other half of your wolf!”

“I think you're being played,” I replied, walking toward him with the slow, predatory grace of a wolf who had already seen the end of the world.

I stopped so close I could see the individual drops of sweat on his neck. I could smell the blood on his hands, rogue blood, and soon, if he wasn't careful, the blood of our own pack. A foot away from him I stopped, close enough to smell the rogue forest scent on his clothes and the cloying, sweet stench of the woman in his arms.

“And I think you're being a fool. A weak-willed, easily led Alpha who wouldn't know a blessing from a parasite if it bit him in the face.”