Chapter 4

Simone’s POV

"Do you honestly think he would choose a broken thing like you over me?"

I leaned against the stone pillar at the back of the hall, my breath hitching as the words left my lips. The crowd was a blur of expensive fabric and shocked faces. Scout stood at the altar, her skin the color of old parchment. She looked like a ghost haunting my wedding dress.

Every gasp from the guests hit me like a physical rush. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I settled for pressing a hand to my ribs, feeling the sharp sting of the bruises I had given myself. I had spent an hour in the bathroom, slamming my own cheek into the vanity until the skin bruised purple. I had ripped the lace of the dress with a pair of sewing scissors. I had messed up my hair until I looked like a victim of a struggle.

It was perfect.

Scout stared at me, her eyes wide and wet. She was trembling. Good. She needed to feel the weight of every day she had existed, every day she had stolen from my mother.

People whispered that I was the villain. They didn't know the first thing about it. They didn't know the sound of my mother’s sobbing when Father first brought that woman home. That woman was a pregnant Omega, a "fated mate" who arrived to tear a family apart. I was five years old, and suddenly I was told to call a stranger Mother. I watched my real mother, the Luna of this pack, become a piece of furniture in her own home.

I remember the day it happened. Father was so proud of his new mate. My mother held me, her hands shaking, trying to hide the fact that her world had just ended. She had been the perfect Luna. She had given him an heir. She had kept the pack running for years. None of that meant anything once the Moon Goddess decided to drop a new mate into his lap.

Everyone told us to move on. They told us to smile. They said we should welcome the interloper and the baby she carried. I hated them for it. I prayed every night that the baby would disappear. I prayed that the childbirth would go wrong. I wanted them gone.

Scout lived. Her mother didn't last much longer, but Scout survived. She was small, delicate, with those wide eyes that made everyone want to protect her. Even when she was a toddler, she stole the light. I would stand in the corner with my mother while everyone crowded around my father to see his new, precious child.

I waited for her to show her true colors. I wanted her to be a Luna, just so I could watch her fail. But she was an Omega, just like her mother. Weak. Soft. She had no place in the inner circle of the pack. I assumed she would eventually just fade away.

She never did.

That was the worst part. She had this annoying, quiet confidence. She walked around like she had every right to be there. She didn't bow when she saw me. She didn't apologize for existing. People loved her for it. They said she was sweet, approachable, natural. It made my skin crawl.

I tried to break her. I spread rumours about her mother. I made sure she wasn't invited to the best parties. I told her exactly what she was: an interloper’s daughter, a mistake. She just blinked, smiled, and kept walking. She didn't even try to fight back, which only made me hate her more.

Then she found Simone.

Simone was a sentinel. Strong, quiet, and devoted. He was her fated mate. When I saw them together, I felt like my chest was being crushed. She had the bond. She had the destiny. I had nothing but my name.

I was eighteen. I had no mate. I watched them hold hands and trade looks, and I decided then and there that I would take him.

It was so easy. Simone was just a man, and men were simple. I didn't need to do much. A few late-night encounters, a touch on his arm in the hallway, a whisper that Scout would never understand him the way I could. He didn't stand a chance.

The sex was fine. He was good at it. But the real reward was the look on Scout’s face when she realized her precious mate bond didn't mean anything. I loved knowing I had something that belonged to her. But he was just a sentinel. He didn't give me the power I needed.

Then Alpha Nixon arrived.

He was the leader of Brown Reed. His pack was a mountain of iron and blood. If I married him, I wouldn't just be the daughter of a disgraced Luna. I would be a force to be reckoned with. And for some reason, he wanted a bride from our pack.

I watched Scout sway on her feet, the silence in the room becoming heavy and thick. She finally opened her mouth, her voice trembling like a leaf in the wind.

"Simone, tell me the truth, did you really do all this just to ruin my life?"