Aria POV
My eyes rested upon the man standing before me.
This was the Alpha of our Pack, the man who commanded thousands, yet he stood here casually dismissing the agony he had put me through.
He reached out, his large, warm hand moving toward my lower abdomen.
He released a small wave of his Alpha scent, trying to soothe my physical pain with his dominance.
A wave of pure, unfiltered nausea crashed over me.
I slapped his hand away with a loud smack.
Rowan froze, his golden eyes flashing with a sudden, dangerous light.
"Do not lay a hand on me," I said, the words vibrating with a disgust so profound it felt like a physical sickness.
He stood up straight, his jaw clenching.
"You are being unreasonable, Aria. You are allowing your Omega sensitivities to govern you," he chided, his posture straightening into one of condescending authority.
I gripped the edge of the plastic chair, forcing myself to stand up and face him.
"I will afford you a final opportunity to speak the truth, Rowan," I said, my gaze locking with his. "Where were you last night?"
He did not even blink.
"I told you. Things became complicated. My mother, Elder Martha, was injured during a border patrol in the forest," he lied, the falsehood rolling from his tongue with the practiced ease of a courtier.
"I had to sit by her bed all night. You can go ask her yourself if you don't believe your own mate."
The ease with which the lie rolled off his tongue sent a sharp, ringing tone through my ears, and the edges of my vision began to gray.
"You were at your mother's bedside," I repeated, my voice flat.
"Yes," he insisted, stepping closer.
Suddenly, the air in the corridor grew thick and heavy.
Rowan was releasing his Heat pheromones.
It was a biological weapon, a heavy, intoxicating scent designed to force a female mate into absolute, instinctual submission.
My body reacted against my will.
My skin flushed with sudden heat, and my knees trembled, wanting to bow to him.
He reached for my waist, his voice dropping to a husky whisper.
"Forget the ritual, Aria. Let me take you home. Let me make you feel better."
The smell of Serena's cheap perfume on his collar hit my nose again.
The dissonance—between his placating murmur and the foreign scent clinging to his collar—gave me the leverage I needed to defy my own biology.
I shoved him hard in the chest, stumbling backward.
"Get away from me. You make me sick," I spat, turning on my heel and walking out of the clinic.
When we returned to our massive, gothic-style manor, I did not go to our shared master bedroom.
I walked straight down the hall and locked myself in the guest room.
The room was cold and impersonal, but it was safe.
I sat on the edge of the bed and noticed Rowan's spare tablet resting on the nightstand.
We shared all our passwords. We used to share everything.
I picked it up and opened his messaging app.
The screen synced immediately.
Right at the top was a conversation with Elder Martha, his mother.
Rowan: Mother, if Aria asks, tell her you injured your leg on patrol and I was with you all night.
Elder Martha: Covering for that Rogue girl again? Rowan, you are the Alpha. Act like it.
Rowan: She has no one else, Mother. I am her only protector. Aria is my mate, yes, but Serena was my first love. I can't just throw her away.
I fixed my gaze upon the illuminated script until the words seemed to sear themselves onto the back of my eyes.
Duty.
That was all I was to him. A biological requirement.
A single tear slipped down my cheek, the last tear I would ever shed for this man.
I remembered the night we met.
It was raining heavily. He had shifted into his massive, black wolf form, running through the mud just to bring me a gift.
It was a silver chain holding a piece of carved obsidian, carrying his Alpha mark.
An ancient symbol of protection, claiming me as his own.
I reached up to my neck and unclasped the heavy necklace.
For five years, it had rested against my pulse, wrapping me in his scent of snow and berries.
I walked over to the trash can in the corner of the room.
I dropped the necklace in.
It hit the bottom with a hollow, pathetic clink.
The scent in the room immediately vanished, leaving me feeling strangely light.
The next day at noon, I finally walked downstairs to the kitchen.
Rowan was standing by the stove, wearing an apron over his designer shirt.
He had roasted a premium cut of deer meat, a rare delicacy usually reserved for Pack celebrations.
He smiled at me, trying to act as if yesterday had never happened.
"I made your favorite," he said, pushing a plate toward me. "To help you recover."
I looked at the meat, then looked at him.
"I am not eating that," I said coldly.
"Why not?" he asked, his smile faltering.
"Because your hands prepared it. And your hands are covered in the scent of a Rogue. It is dirty."
Rowan's face darkened instantly.
His patience snapped.
Without meaning to, he released the Alpha's Command.
The air pressure in the room crushed down on my shoulders like a physical weight, trying to force me to my knees. But a strange, glacial fire ignited deep in my core. My inner wolf, so long a creature of submission, met his command not with acquiescence, but with a surge of incandescent white energy that held my spine rigid. I did not so much as sway.
"You will not speak to me that way!" he roared, his voice echoing with the power of a hundred wolves.
I grabbed the edge of the marble counter, fighting the crushing weight of his command, refusing to lower my head.
He realized what he was doing and quickly pulled his aura back, looking horrified.
He turned around, grabbed his keys, and slammed the front door behind him.
An hour later, the door opened again.
Rowan walked in, carrying a greasy paper bag from a human fast-food restaurant.
He placed it on the counter, looking away awkwardly.
"I brought you some fries," he muttered.
I stared at the greasy bag.
After a major bloodline ritual, Omegas were strictly forbidden from eating processed human food.
It made us violently ill.
And even before that, I had hated the taste of fast food for years.
He did not know me at all.
His care was as cheap and thoughtless as his lies.
I looked at the greasy bag, then at the man who had sworn to the Moon Goddess that he would cherish me above all others. He had missed the ritual. He had lied about his mother. He had brought me food that would make me sick. And he stood there now, waiting for gratitude, as if a bag of cold fries could erase twenty-five hours of abandonment. I realized then that Rowan Blackwood had never loved me. He loved the idea of me—the compliant Omega who would bear his heir and ask no questions. The woman standing in this kitchen was no longer that Omega. And she was about to become his worst nightmare.
