CHAPTER 3

The cabin of the Bentley felt like a cage, the air thick with the scent of an agitated Alpha. Andrew’s eyes were golden whirlpools of lethal intent, his pupils blown wide as he loomed over me.

"Repeat that," he growled, his voice a vibration that rattled my very bones. "Say those words again, Lanka."

Before everything fell apart, I had always called him "Andy." It was a name from our childhood, back when I thought he was my protector. But after the night of the scandal, he had forbidden it. He didn't want the intimacy of a nickname from a "social climber" like me. It was a bitter irony; as his mated spouse, I was supposed to be his equal, yet I was only now finding the nerve to use his full name.

I met his predatory stare, my heart hammering against my ribs, but my voice didn't waver.

"I said, Andrew Wolfe, I want a divorce. Break the bond."

The world tilted. Before I could even blink, he had hauled me across his lap. I gasped as two sharp, stinging swats landed against my backside. The force wasn't just for show; he was asserting the dominance of an Alpha disciplining a wayward pup.

"Let me go!" I thrashed, heat crawling up my neck from a mix of humiliation and fury. "You bastard! You have no right to touch me like this!"

My struggles only earned me more forceful strikes. The stinging sensation dragged up a buried memory from when I was sixteen. I had been training for the Elite Moon-Dance, and I’d started binding my chest with tight linen. I wasn't ashamed of my body; I was just terrified that my changing physique would ruin my form and grace. Andrew had found out after weeks of me hiding the pain. After a healer lectured us about the damage I was doing to my muscles, he had taken me into the study and given me a similar thrashing. I’d had to walk with a limp for days while he mocked my "dramatic" sacrifice for art.

Back then, it felt like an older brother’s tough love. Now, it felt like a cage.

"Think before you howl, Lanka! Do you think a Pack Union is a game you can quit?" His voice boomed in the cramped space. "Now tell me—where are the ancestral earrings?"

He sneered, convinced I was bluffing. He knew how much I prized those gems—they were the only proof I had that he’d once cared. He thought I was addicted to the status of being the "Alpha’s Mate."

"I told you, I lost them! Or is your hearing failing with age?" I snapped back.

"Fine. You'd better pray to the Moon Mother that I don't find them."

He hauled me up and pinned my wrists behind my back with a single hand, crushing me against the leather seat. The physical disparity between a True Alpha and an Omega like me was a chasm I couldn't bridge.

His hand moved with clinical coldness, sliding beneath the hem of my tunic. It wasn't a caress; it was a rough, invasive search. His palm grazed my chest, then my waist, checking for the hidden jewelry. Suddenly, he forced his knee between my thighs, his hand moving higher.

"Stop it! They aren't on me!" I let out a broken sound, a mix of a sob and a gasp. "Let go of me!"

Andrew’s patience snapped. With a violent tug, the fabric of my tunic gave way, tearing from the collar down to my waist. I turned ghost-white, trying to pull the ruined clothes together. "We're in public! People can see!"

He didn't care. He hoisted me up until I was straddling his lap, my bare skin pressing against the expensive wool of his suit trousers. The heat radiating from him was suffocating, his grip on my waist bruising.

"Is this all because I won't give you a pup?" he hissed. "This whole tantrum?"

I looked at him, feeling the crushing weight of the rumors that followed me. To the pack, I was the seducer who had crawled into his bed at eighteen. To him, I was a burden.

"It’s not about the pups," I whispered, my strength failing. "I told you... I didn't touch the suppressants in the drawer. I didn't trap you."

The sound of a zipper sliding open echoed like a gunshot in the silent car. I froze. I hadn't expected him to actually take it this far—not here, not like this.

I fought with everything I had, kicking out at him. "Let me go! You're a monster!"

He caught my injured ankle in a vice-like grip. "Be careful, Lanka. Do you still want to dance? Or do you want that family you've been whining about? If I'm offering now, are you really going to say no?"

The throb in my foot was nothing compared to the hollow ache in my chest. For two years, he had treated me like a ghost. Now, suddenly, he was willing to claim me? I looked at his darkened expression and realized the truth. He’d been at the hospital. He’d heard about Lucas and the need for a blood-match donor.

He didn't want a mate. He wanted a biological resource.