Betrayal

10:00 P.M.

The pack-house was too quiet. The long oak table, set hours ago with roasted meat, baked bread, and the cake Amelia had begged for, lay untouched. Wax from the birthday candles had hardened, curling in strange shapes like frozen tears.

Clara Hayes sat rigidly in the dining hall, eyes on the clock mounted above the hearth. Its steady tick-tick-tick pressed against her skull like a hammer. She had waited all evening for her husband to return—for her Alpha, her mate. For Amelia’s father.

He had promised. Victor had promised their daughter that he would be home before five. Amelia had clutched the promise in her little hands as if it were sacred, as if her father’s word meant something more than the hollow air it so often turned into.

By nine, Clara had tucked her child into bed. Amelia’s wolf had sulked, restless under her skin, and her big brown eyes brimmed with confusion and hurt. Clara had kissed her forehead gently, whispering that her father was delayed. She lied, the way she always lied to protect her little girl’s heart.

Now it was past eleven, and the house smelled of cooling food and extinguished candles. 

Clara picked up her phone, her thumb trembling as she dialed. She already knew how this would end—she always knew—but she called anyway.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Hello?” Victor Quinn’s voice came through at last. His breathing was ragged, uneven. Clara’s wolf bristled instantly, recognizing the sharp undertone of lust rolling beneath the surface. That was not the breath of a man running late from a pack meeting or the council. 

That was the breath of a man entangled in another woman's arms.

Her chest tightened, but her voice stayed calm, soft—too soft.

 “Victor. When will you be home?”

“Huh? Uh…”

The hesitation sliced her. 

Victor Quinn never hesitated. He was Alpha of Crescent Moon, born with dominance in his blood. Yet now his silence betrayed him more than words ever could.

Clara’s nails dug into her palm.

 Not tonight. 

Not on Amelia’s birthday.

“You’re heartless, Victor,” she spat, her voice trembling as years of swallowed frustration broke free.

 “Amelia’s been waiting for you! All she wanted was a cake with her parents. She’s only six, and you couldn’t even—”

“Oh, shut up, Clara!” His voice turned sharp, impatient.

 “Get her something from the mall. I gave you my card. Buy her something expensive, whatever makes her happy.”

Her throat closed. Not once did he say our daughter. Not once did he speak her name. 

To Victor, responsibility had become a chore, affection an inconvenience.

Then came another voice, sultry and flirtatious.

“Victor, who are you talking to? Is it your fat wife again?”

Clara froze, her wolf stiffening in recognition. A she-wolf.

 The scent of female musk clung faintly to the line, taunting Clara through the speaker.

“Quiet,” Victor hissed, but the woman only laughed, bold and unashamed.

“Why bother hiding it? She already knows you fucked me into your office. Don’t you, Clara?”

Clara’s fingers trembled around the phone, yet she said nothing. 

The mate bond inside her chest burned, twisting painfully. The betrayal of a mate was no ordinary betrayal—it was the tearing of two souls bound by the moon itself.

The woman giggled, snatching the phone. “Hey, fatty! Victor and I are at the Maze Hotel. We’re having sooo much fun.”

There was silence.

“Oh, don’t pout now. You’ve seen us enough times. Don’t act shocked.”

The words echoed like claws scraping down Clara’s bones. Her wolf whimpered inside, the instinctive cry of a creature betrayed by the one meant to protect her.

“Anyway, I’m hanging up. Don’t disturb us again.”

BEEP.

The line went dead.

For a long moment, Clara sat unmoving.

Her hand shook as she set the phone down. Blood dotted her lip where she had bitten down too hard, the metallic tang spilling across her tongue. She would not cry. Not now. Not loud enough for Amelia to hear.

But the tears came anyway, one by one, falling into the glass of red wine at her side. They blurred the world, blurred the memory of the man she had once loved—the man who had once knelt before the Moon Goddess with her, swearing eternal devotion.

Fool. She had been a fool to believe in fairy tales of fated mates, in stories of forever love.

Victor had not just abandoned her. He had abandoned Amelia. And for Clara, that was the end of the line.

She looked at the polished table, at the crayon-drawn “Happy Birthday Daddy” card Amelia had left, and her heart split in two.

For years, she had endured: his late nights, his business trips, the scent of strange she-wolves clinging to his shirts. She told herself she was strong enough. That she could shield Amelia from the truth.

But tonight proved she could not.

Clara rose, poured the wine down her throat in a single bitter swallow, and set the empty glass beside a thick envelope. Inside was the divorce paper.

The elders of her family would sneer. Wolves did not sever mate bonds lightly—it was shameful, destructive. 

To reject one’s Alpha was to court ruin. But Clara knew if she remained chained to Victor, she would break beyond repair.

Her gaze lingered on the final empty line, the place where her signature belonged. Her wolf snarled inside her, torn between the agony of the bond and the desperate need for freedom.

“I can’t stay like this,” Clara whispered into the silence. “I will go mad if I let him torment me longer.”

Her hand closed on the pen.

With steady, unshaken strokes, she signed her maiden name.

Clara Hayes.

The bond quivered violently within her chest, as though sensing its end. A storm was coming. She felt it in her bones, in her wolf’s uneasy shift beneath her skin.

Tonight was the night Clara stopped being the obedient Luna of Crescent Moon. Tonight was the night she decided to own her life.