Chapter 1 The Scent of Betrayal
The Scent of Betrayal
(Arwen’s POV)
The manor was alive with laughter.
Silvertail wolves drifted through the courtyard in swirls of silver and white, ribbons and petals scattered like snow across the flagstones. Honeysuckle, champagne, and the faintest trace of moonlit magic clung to the air—so bright it almost hurt to look at.
It should have been a perfect day.
Cindy’s wedding day. The Alpha’s radiant daughter. The pack’s pride.
And my twenty-fifth birthday.
Two reasons to smile. Two reasons to pretend the ache of being unmated didn’t still catch in my chest like a thorn.
I tightened my grip on the edge of my skirt and wove through the corridors of the Hawthorne estate, nodding politely at passing pack members. The omega in me had learned how to smile when needed, how to fade when not.
The mansion itself felt almost alive—every corridor humming with excitement, with whispers about the union between our pack and the Lycans. From the kitchens came clattering pans, bursts of laughter, and the scent of roasted meat; somewhere, a violin played a romantic tune that only made my chest ache.
But beneath all that joy, something in the air felt wrong. Heavy. Uneasy.
It wasn’t my imagination.
The air pressed against my skin like a warning—thick and restless, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Yet it wasn’t my wolf.
She had been fading for years.
Most wolves lived with their other half humming beneath their skin, a constant presence—a heartbeat beside their own.
Mine had never truly awakened.
Since my sixteenth birthday, I'd known only fleeting whispers of her before she slipped into silence again.
It was one reason why the pack called me weak—fragile. Losing both my parents had given them another excuse. Mothers looked at me with pity and warriors with disdain.
The reason Alpha Fenris’s gaze always lingered on me a fraction too long. Measuring. Weighing.
So when unease prickled through me now, I told myself it was nerves—the weight of Cindy’s wedding and my own unmated birthday colliding into one cruel joke of fate. I told myself I was being ridiculous. Overly sensitive. Omega-soft.
I couldn’t know my wolf was waiting.
Waiting for the scent that would tear my world apart.
“Cindy?” I called softly as I neared her chambers.
No answer. Strange.
The bride should have been surrounded by maids, squealing and fretting over curls and veils—not vanishing hours before her marriage to Kaine Lockwood. The Alpha King. The Lycan. The leader of the most feared pack in existence: The Bloodmoon Clan.
Alpha Fenris had already nearly torn the roof down once this morning over her lateness. If she’d gone missing again, there’d be hell to pay—for all of us.
I tried the carved door. Locked. Of course.
Jaw tight, I slipped behind the velvet curtain into the narrow servant passage that ran like a hidden vein behind the guest suites. The stone was cool beneath my fingers as I felt along the wall, heart pounding a little too hard.
“Cindy, are you—”
The words died in my throat.
The scent hit first.
Autumn leaves. Warm fur. Male.
It coiled through my lungs like a spark catching tinder. My pulse staggered. My knees nearly buckled.
And then—Nyra. My wolf.
She surged from the shadows of my mind, not fragile and trembling, not fading — but fierce. Too fierce. A blaze where there had been nothing but ash for years.
“Mate.”
The word wasn’t spoken so much as it was carved into my bones. My breath hitched. My heart thundered.
No. Not here.
Not now.
The room beyond the hidden door was dim, curtains drawn, air thick with warmth and something darker. Something that made my skin prickle and my stomach twist.
I pushed the panel, stepped through, and flipped the switch. The chandelier flared to life.
Silk sheets. Tangled limbs. Cindy sprawled half-covered, blond hair a halo against the pillows.
And beside her, turning with a curse, eyes widening in horror as the light hit his bare skin—
Jasper Hale.
The beta’s son. Next in line to inherit the role. Trusted by all. Destined for command.
The boy whose smile had once made me trip over my own feet during training. The boy who had raced me through apple orchards and held me the night my parents died. The boy I had loved quietly, hopelessly, for as long as I could remember.
That scent curling through the room, through me—autumn leaves and warm fur—it was his.
And he was my mate.
The bond crackled between us, a sharp, electric pull that made my fingers twitch toward him despite everything. Nyra keened inside me, a low, desperate sound.
“Mate.”
Cindy blinked awake, frowning as if I’d walked in on her napping instead of…this. Her gaze found me—irritation, not shame. She drew breath to snap back, then gagged, one hand flying to her mouth.
“Gods,” she hissed, stumbling off the bed and dragging the sheet with her toward the bathroom.
The retching that followed sounded furious.
I fought the urge to follow suit. My stomach clenched as the truth sank in. My mate was here, in Cindy's bed. Inside her.
Even after everything I'd witnessed, the bond still reached for him.
Nyra whimpered—a sound I felt more than heard.
I kept my eyes on the far wall, refusing to look at Jasper’s bare skin as he scrambled for his clothes.
“This is not happening,” I whispered, biting back a sob so sharp it hurt.
“Arwen—” Jasper’s voice came soft, full of something like regret.
No. Regret wasn’t enough. Regret couldn’t touch this.
“No…” My voice broke as he dragged on his trousers and reached for me.
The faint static of the bond sparked across my skin, hot and intoxicating and wrong. My stomach lurched. The room tilted.
Cindy stumbled out of the bathroom, wiping her mouth on a corner of the sheet. I turned and bolted past her for it, clutching a hand over my mouth.
Jasper. My childhood crush. My almost-everything. My mate.
And he had been in Cindy’s bed.
Not with me.
Never with me.
