Se connecterRaina's POV"Mr. Rylan!" Kane called out the moment the chairman got close enough to hear him, straightening himself up like a man who believed he was about to receive backup. "These two imposters were posing as the Alpha and Beta of the Moonshade clan." He gestured toward Lara and Draven with the confidence of someone who had not for one second questioned whether he was about to make the worst mistake of his career. "But don't worry, I was just about to apprehend them before you got in here."The chairman looked at him.And then he slapped him.The sound of it filled the immediate space around us — clean and sharp, the kind that made heads turn even from a distance. And before Kane had even fully processed the first one, Mr. Rylan slapped him on the other cheek without pausing, not even for a second, like he had already decided how many were necessary and was simply delivering them efficiently
Lara's POV"Mr. Kane." Raina's voice came through immediately, sharp and pointed, directed at the council assistant who had just arrived at our spot like someone had summoned him on cue. She pointed her finger directly at me. "Well, it's her. She's the one who is impersonating the Alpha."I looked at Kane steadily. "You are Rylan's assistant."He straightened up as if the words had personally offended him. "You think that you are on a first name basis with the chairman?" He let out a short, disbelieving sound. "Unbelievable." Then he turned to his guards standing just behind him and gave the instruction without even looking back at me. "Take this woman away, right now."They started moving toward me.I raised one finger before any of them got within arm's reach of me, and the calmness in my own voice surprised even me. "I don't know if you are blind or if you just chose to be stu
Lara's POV"Get out! We don't want you here! Leave! Get out!"The shout that was gradually turning into some half-baked protest continued from the audience, but I was so unshaken. Instead, I started clapping my palms slowly, giving out the most nonchalant energy you could ever imagine … the kind that said I had heard everything they were saying and found none of it worth a single nerve ending.One by one the voices began to die down. Not because anyone called for quiet…I guess because they must have noticed. As they could see that I genuinely gave the least care about any of it, and nothing kills a crowd's momentum faster than a target who refuses to be a target. The energy my look on.,,..... of a protest needs resistance to survive, and I was not offering them any. So they petered out, one voice after another, until the room was mostly just the sound of people realising the performance was not landing the way they intended.The clapping stopped.Then, I turned to Raina.Because she wa
Raina's POV‘Did I just hear her well?’I replayed the sentence in my head. ‘I am the Alpha of the Moonshade clan.’ Which she said without flinching…Said to an Alpha who had just called her out in front of a room full of powerful people, and she had looked him dead in the face and said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.‘She's bluffing.’ That was the only explanation that made any sense. The Alpha of the Moonshade clan was one of the most talked-about, most feared, most sought-after leaders in all the land right now. Every pack here was falling over themselves to get an alliance with her. And Lara … miserable, inner wolf-less, omega Lara, who I had last seen bleeding on a bathroom floor before she left the clan… was claiming to be her?No!! Absolutely not!I couldn't hold it to myself any longer. I needed to remind her of her place right now before this went any further."Lara, you don't even have an inner wolf." I said it clearly, making sure the people nearby could
Alpha Lucien's POVI was so shocked and speechless that I couldn't help the thought creasing through my mind.‘I've never seen Lara act so bold. Is this really her?’Because the woman standing in front of me right now was not the Lara I had spent five years dismissing, not the Lara who had signed those divorce papers with shaking hands, not the Lara who had endured the expulsion ritual in silence with blood on her lips. This one gave out a *fuck you all* energy that filled the entire space around her, and she wasn't performing it — it was just sitting on her, naturally, the way things sit on a person when they have genuinely stopped caring what you think of them.The room around us was still buzzing from the slaps. Half the people nearby were watching with their mouths slightly open. The other half were whispering to the people beside them. And Lara was standing in the middle of all
Lara's POV.She hasn't made away with this malicious and manipulative act of hers.I stood there with my hand still half raised, staring at it, while the room buzzed with reaction around me. She had used my own hand. My own hand, that she had been holding, swung against her own face — and now she was sitting there with tears rolling down and her palm pressed to her cheek, performing pain in front of an audience that had no reason to question what they had just seen.She even wore the manipulation like a second skin now. Like it had become so natural to her that there was no gap between the decision and the execution anymore.And to think that everyone here was already buying this without a second thought — that was honestly what impressed me the most. Not in a good way. In the way that made you realise just how much practice went into a performance like that, and how long she had been doi
Lara's POVI swiped the screen open fully.And there it was.A photo of Alpha Lucien lying across Raina's body with his eyes closed and completely at ease — the kind of relaxed that only comes when a person feels truly safe where they are. And Raina was looking directly into the camera, front-facin
Lara's POVBy the time the nurse was satisfied that I was steady enough to be left alone, I had pulled myself together enough to look like a functioning person. Breathing was even and my hands had stopped shaking. The face in the small mirror above the sink looked tired but held together.That was
Lara's POVI moved out to the corridors, and guess what?Alpha Lucien was right there, placing a lady into a wheelchair that one of the nurses had just wheeled over — on his instruction, obviously, since that was what all the urgency had been about… The emergency. The ‘quick, I need a doctor.’ That
Lara's POV"Lucien, mark me."I moaned the words like a prayer I had been holding back for five years, helpless and wanting as we were both soaked from the shower. I had woken up from sleep and come to him in my nightwear — the thin kind that could be pulled off with one hand — and somehow we had e







