CHAPTER 1
CELIA
The music hums through the floor beneath my heels as I stand at the entrance of the ballroom.
My eyes land on the banner spanning the far wall, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALPHA SILAS, block letters in gold, and my chest tightens just looking at it.
I’ve never forgotten his birthday. Not once in fourteen years. But this party? Nobody in this pack thought to tell me it was happening.
I shouldn’t be surprised, not really. Things between my mate and me have been strained for longer than I want to admit. Still, I’d let myself believe something had changed. Especially after last week.
His arms are braced beside my head, the muscles in his forearm flexing with every thrust.
“Fuck, Celia.” He groans it low against my ear, spilling his cum into me.
Heat floods my face at the memory.
I had risen before he did, careful not to wake him, and made him eggs the way he used to like them. I carried the tray up myself instead of sending a maid.
The room was empty when I got there. But even then, I choose to believe things are changing between us.
I glance at the gift tucked beneath my arm, a scarf I spent two months knitting. I reach for the doorknob, but a voice from the other side of the door stops me cold.
“So when’s the big day, Silas? You and Vivian.” A man’s voice. “You were staring at her gift bag for a solid five minutes over there. That eager to see what’s inside?”
“Come on, he can’t exactly set a date,” a second voice cuts in, dry. “The man’s still married. Or did everyone forget that little detail?”
A pause, then a woman’s voice, lower. “Married on paper to a human girl this pack has had to call Luna for three years. He’s only kept that thing around this long because he’s too soft-hearted to deal with the fallout of throwing her out.”
“Truly, because there is no other reason Alpha Silas stays married to the human who put Phoebe in a vegetative state.”
My fingers tighten around the scarf in my hands until the soft wool bunches beneath my grip.
I did not do that to Phoebe, but it doesn’t matter what I think.
Through the gap in the door, I can see him. Silas sits in the middle of the room in a black suit, sleeves rolled to his forearms, a lighter turning end over end between two fingers. Someone leans in and says he should just file the divorce papers already, put everyone out of their misery.
“No rush,” Silas says, and flicks the lighter open, shut.
Then his eyes come up, and they find me through the gap in the door. The room goes quiet.
“Who invited her?” someone finally asks.
Nobody answers.
I push the door open, because turning around now would mean admitting their words affected me, and I refuse to give them that.
His brows draw down the second I’m inside. “Who told you to come?”
The room turns to look, and I feel every one of their stares pierce through my skin. Vivian crosses the room first, her hand closing warm and easy around my wrist. “Oh, don’t be like that,” she says to him, mild reproach in her voice, and steers me toward an open seat. “She’s still your wife, Silas.” She smiles at me like we’re friends. Like, she isn’t the reason half this pack thinks I’m disposable.
I sit because standing feels worse.
Someone spots the paper bag in my lap and plucks it open before I can stop them. The scarf unfolds.
“Aw, she made this herself,” the she-wolf says, holding it up. Then, brightening: “Vivian’s is a scarf too, look.”
They lay them side by side on the table. Vivian’s is store-bought, cream-colored, cashmere-soft even from across the room.
A wine bottle tips, red spreading fast across the table toward both scarves.
Silas moves. One hand, fast, closes around Vivian’s scarf and lifts it clear.
Mine soaks through. He doesn’t look at it or me.
I watch the wine bloom dark through two months of stitches. That’s exactly what I am to him now. Something left on the table.
The party thins out slowly, then all at once. I stand when the last car pulls away. Silas is by the door. Irritation is carved into every line of his face.
“Silas.”
He doesn’t turn around.
I open my mouth to ask him about last week, whether any of it meant what I’d let myself hope it meant. What comes out instead is smaller.
“Happy birthday.”
Nothing. He looks through me like I haven’t spoken at all.
Something sour climbs up through my chest, fast, and before I can stop it I hear myself say.
“Let’s get a divorce.”
His head snaps around. He crosses the space between us in two strides and his fingers close around my chin, tilting my face up.
“What new trick is this?” His voice has gone low and rough. “You drugged me to get me into your bed, and now you want to play the wounded party asking for a divorce. Celia. Aren’t you tired of these games?”
I hold his eyes. “No game. I’m asking for a divorce, for real this time, and I’m sorry for wasting three years of your life, but I want out.”
“You wasted three years of my life.” His fingers tremble against my jaw. “And you’re only realizing that now? Why couldn’t you have figured that out sooner?”
Why couldn’t I have realized it sooner?
Because I didn’t want to. Because some part of me kept hoping there was still something worth staying for.
But he looks at me the way you look at someone who took something from you, and there has never been a version of this conversation where my answer changes that look.
“I’ll leave with nothing,” I tell him.
His throat moves, once, then his hand falls away from my face, and he steps back.
“Fine. Leave with nothing.” He’s already walking away. “Don’t you regret it?”
