My unrequited love for Jaxson had been a seven-year-long agony, and my best friend, Diana, couldn't stand to watch it anymore.
On the night of the full moon when we turned eighteen, she slipped an ancient moonpetal herb into my drink and locked me inside Jaxson's penthouse at the Vance Group headquarters.
I pounded on the door, my voice shaking. "Diana, what on earth are you doing?"
Diana leaned against the door, a sly smile on her face. "I've known for a while that Jaxson feels it too. He reacts to your scent. He's just too proud to admit it. When he shifted last full moon, I heard him howling your name."
I tried to fight it, but the scent of Jaxson—a potent mix of expensive cologne and raw musk—set my body on fire.
Diana's laughter echoed from outside the door. "Enjoy your night, darling." Then I heard the decisive click of the electronic lock.
That night, Jaxson possessed me like a man bewitched. The way he touched me, held me, marked me—that frantic possessiveness made me believe he had always wanted me too.
When we woke the next morning, Jaxson's voice was ice. "I'll take responsibility. We'll have the bonding ceremony next week."
I thought it was just his gruff way of showing his feelings. I thought our happy life was finally about to begin.
But at the celebration after the ceremony, I overheard a call between him and a friend.
"Jaxson, you're being too hard on yourself. She's a talented healer, she's gorgeous, and she clearly loves you. Besides, you're fated mates. Why not just accept it?"
Jaxson took a sip of champagne and laughed bitterly. From the shadows, I watched him pull out a sanitizing wipe and meticulously clean his hands—the same hands that had just held mine during the ceremony.
"I might have had feelings for her, yes. But now? After finding out she's the type to stoop to drugging herself with a moonpetal herb?"
He shook his head in disgust. "Every time I think about how she threw herself at me that night, how she used a drug to force a bond... it makes my skin crawl."
"An Omega who would stoop that low doesn't deserve to be a mate in the Vance family. Let alone mine."
Before I could explain anything about Diana's scheme, Jaxson left for Europe. He was gone for four years.
I gave birth to our pup alone. For four long years, I raised Desmond by myself, waiting every single day for the mate who had abandoned us to return.
Four years later, he finally came back, but with his ex-girlfriend and her son in tow.
The empty villa felt vast and silent. I tried to reach Jaxson through our mate bond, only to find a solid wall blocking me.
Then, out of the blue, he was there, striding into our home as if he'd never left.
I suppressed my fury, choosing my words carefully. "Desmond needs to go to the medical center tomorrow morning for follow-up treatment for the silver poisoning. Can you take him?"
Jaxson barely looked at me. "No. I'm taking Ashford to an important elite pup assessment tomorrow morning."
He then added coldly, "If you insist on taking Desmond, go in the afternoon. I don't want Ashford to see Desmond calling me Father."
The anger I had been suppressing finally erupted. "How dare you? You left our son to die in a pile of rubble yesterday!"
Fire flashed in Jaxson's eyes. "Selene's mate died protecting the Vance family. She couldn't go in to save Ashford alone. It's a blood debt I owe her!"
"You should have saved your own son first!" My voice was raw with pain.
"Making you my mate four years ago hurt Selene deeply," Jaxson roared. "You have no right to stop me from making it up to her and Ashford now."
His words struck me like physical blows, each one tearing me apart more than the last.
The mate bond between us went cold, a shard of ice in my chest.
I had been alone while pregnant with Desmond, alone while raising him for four years, all while waiting for a man who had been playing father to another woman's child.
Now Desmond lay in his bed, a wound that refused to heal marring his leg, still whimpering for the father who had chosen another pup over him.
The half-written application to sever our mate bond sat on my desk.
If it were just about me, I would have submitted it long ago. My wolf howled in agony every time Jaxson rejected our bond.
But whenever I saw the longing in my son's eyes as he watched other pups play with their fathers in the park, I found myself wanting to try just one more time.
