Olivia POV
The Grand Hotel ballroom was suffocating, a gilded cage closing in on me.
The air was thick with the commingled scents of hundreds of wolves—pine, earth, rain, and musk. But slicing through it all was that cloying, sweet orchid smell.
I stood in the shadows of a marble pillar, my camera clutched in my sweating hands until my knuckles turned white. My Inner Wolf was bristling, her hackles raised in primal warning.
The music was loud, a thumping bass that vibrated in my chest, but my heart hammered a frantic rhythm of its own, drowning out the beat.
Then, the crowd parted.
Michael stood in the center of the room under the crystal chandelier. He looked resplendent in the tuxedo I had bought him just last week.
But his arm wasn't empty.
Linked through it was a woman in a dress the color of fresh blood. She was stunning in a sharp, predatory way, with raven hair and lips painted crimson. But it wasn't just her.
In her other arm, she held a toddler. A pup.
My breath hitched painfully. The world seemed to tilt on its axis, vertigo washing over me.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Council," Michael's voice boomed, amplified by his Alpha aura, demanding absolute silence. "Tonight, I present to you my truth. My destiny."
He looked at the woman—Serena—with a look of adoration he had never given me. Not once in five years.
"This is Serena," he announced. "My Fated Mate."
The room gasped. In our world, the Fated Mate bond is sacred, dictated by the Moon Goddess herself. It overrides everything.
But to parade her here, while I stood in the periphery, heavy with his unborn heir?
Serena smiled, revealing teeth that looked too sharp, too eager. "And this," she gestured to the toddler, "is the proof of our love."
My Inner Wolf howled in agony. The pain was physical, like a serrated knife twisting in my gut. My knees buckled, threatening to send me crashing down.
Serena turned her head. Her eyes locked onto me in the shadows. She knew I was there. She had smelled me.
She whispered something to Michael. He stiffened, then turned. His eyes found me. There was no shame in them, no flicker of guilt—only cold annoyance.
They walked toward me. The crowd formed a circle, their whispers like the hissing of snakes.
"Liv," Michael said, his voice devoid of warmth. "You shouldn't be here."
"You have a child?" My voice was a broken whisper, shattered glass in my throat. "We have been trying for years... and you have a child?"
Serena stepped forward. Up close, the smell of her was overpowering. It was wrong. It didn't smell like a Mate bond; it smelled like lust and synthetic musk masked by crushed herbs.
"Oh, look at her," Serena cooed, her voice dripping with venom. "The heavy, barren Luna. Or... not so barren anymore?" She glanced pointedly at my stomach.
"Don't speak to me," I snapped, my Hayes blood flaring hot in my veins.
Serena's hand moved faster than a viper strike. *Smack!*
Her palm connected with my cheek. The force threw me off balance. I stumbled, clutching my belly instinctively to shield my pup.
My Inner Wolf roared. Power, ancient and white-hot, surged through my veins. I felt my eyes flash gold. I was about to Shift, right there in the ballroom, to tear her throat out.
"Olivia! Submit!"
The command hit me like a physical blow. It was the Alpha's Command. Michael was using his authority to crush me. My muscles locked up against my will, betraying me.
I couldn't move. I couldn't fight. I was forced to bow my head, my body trembling with the effort to resist.
"You are embarrassing the Pack," Michael spat, looming over me. "You are unstable. Look at you, trying to attack my Mate."
"She isn't..." I gasped, fighting the crushing pressure on my windpipe.
Michael stepped closer. He looked down at me with disdain, as if I were something he had scraped off his shoe.
"I, Michael Thorne, reject you, Olivia Hayes, as my mate."
The words were a guillotine.
The bond between us, the one I had nurtured for five years, didn't just break. It shattered. It felt like my soul was being ripped in half. A scream tore from my throat, raw and animalistic, echoing off the marble walls.
My vision blurred. The pain was too much. The connection to my pup felt weak, terrifyingly faint.
I fell to the cold marble floor, curling around my stomach in a desperate attempt to hold myself together.
*Mother...* I screamed through the blood-line Mind-Link, forcing the cry past Michael's blocks. *Help me.*
The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was Serena's triumphant smirk, and Michael turning his back on me to comfort her.
