KYLIE'S POV
"My mate, I've missed you," Steven greeted me when I opened the door to my condo unit and saw him with shopping bags. "For you, my dearest" he handed me a handful of bags.
Steven, now my pack mate, loves giving gifts. It's his love language, very different from Carion, who always showed me love through service. But why would I compare the two if Steven is now the one I love?
Three months after Carion ditched me, and my shotgun marriage to Steven, the Herekin and Raven packs became united again. Steven is one of the candidates to be the new Alpha, and the other is Carion.
However, Carion returned months later, and he seems to have forgotten everything.
He didn't even recognize the pain he inflicted on me when we met again.
"Hi," he said. "I heard you married Steven. Congratulations."
And I'm annoyed by the way he said it because he sounded as if he were betrayed. He sounded sad, when, in fact, I was the one who was tossed upon a tumultuous sea of grief and betrayal.
I only smiled at him and left the meeting room after the council's session. Even in the meeting, I could feel his eyes staring straight at me, as if asking why I married his cousin and not him.
But I don't need to explain myself because I'm not in the wrong. Steven became my anchor when the storm happened, while Carion was the reason why I was drowning.
Steven showered me with small gestures of love. Delicate bouquets of lilies arrived on my doorstep almost every day. Each one was accompanied by a note filled with words of comfort and encouragement.
My mate was a great guy. He spent hours with me, sharing stories to make me happy, listening to my silent sorrows, and filling the empty spaces in my life with his gentle presence.
"You are strong, my mate," he'd say, looking at me with deep admiration. "You are beautiful, inside and out. And you deserve to be loved."
Steven saw me, truly saw me, and his love felt like a safe haven. I started to laugh again, began to feel a sense of peace, and a sense that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't the end of my story.
Maybe it was a new beginning.
We had decided that when our schedules were free, we would spend our time in a shopping mall buying anything we like.
And tonight, we went to a jewelry store.
"You look best in this."
He suggested a dainty necklace with a moon pendant. When he put it around my neck, the pendant shone under the lights. I thought it was just the fluorescent lamps above the ceiling, but I figured out that the flashes of light were from the paparazzi around us.
"Oh, damn," Steven murmured, a hint of amusement. "Looks like we've been caught."
He was right. The paparazzi had found us. After the scandal about my humiliation at the altar and my marriage to Carion's cousin as a payback, we had become public figures. And to be honest, this was not the life I had envisioned—a life of public scrutiny.
The next morning, my face's and Steven's graced the front page of every local publication. The headlines screamed: "Kylie from the Raven Pack Finally Found Her Ever After! New Beginning for the Abandoned Bride!"
It made me feel like I was truly in my new era. But the world had other plans.
The following day, my phone buzzed with a notification from the same publication. A new article had splashed my newfound happiness across its front page.
"Carion from the Herekin Pack Makes His Move! The Powerful Alpha-candidate Proposes to Hailee from his own pack, the Fashion Icon!"
The article included a picture of Carion kissing the stunning Hailee.
As I stared at the picture on my phone, a wave of emotions crashed over me—confusion, anger, a lingering sense of unease. I had just found happiness. It was my fragile hope amidst the wreckage of my past. But now, the world had thrown me into a new kind of storm.
And I couldn't help but wonder: Is Carion trying to compete with us? With me?
