Chapter 2 of Under His Mark, I Fell Apart

POV of Rachel

The mysterious text about Elena burned in my mind as I made my way back to the conference room.

My mother's necklace—a Moonshadow heirloom—had slipped off during... during what Keanu had done to me on that table. I needed to retrieve it before someone found it. Before there were questions I couldn't answer.

My hand was inches from the door handle when I heard his voice.

Keanu's voice. But different—stripped of the honeyed charm he used with me, replaced by something crude and triumphant.

"Did everyone get a good look?" His laughter was sharp, celebratory. "How's the video quality?"

Video quality.

My blood turned to ice in my veins.

"Rachel, we need to leave. NOW." Aria's warning came too late.

I was already frozen, my hand hovering over the door handle, unable to move forward or back.

"Boss, you're a fucking genius." That was Brian—Keanu's Beta, who'd always been coldly polite to me. Now his voice dripped with mockery. "Thomas actually thinks his precious daughter is some untouchable princess. If he could see her the way we just did—"

"She looked like a bitch in heat," another voice cut in. Jon, the head warrior. "Whimpering and begging for it."

Laughter erupted—male voices, multiple, echoing off the conference room walls.

"I always wondered what Thomas Moonshadow's perfect little daughter was really like," someone else added. "Turns out she's just another whore who'll spread her legs—"

"On her knees," Brian corrected, and the crude gesture was clear in his tone. "Like a cheap pack slut."

Boss. Team. They're watching. They're all watching.

The realization hit me like a physical blow. I staggered, my knees buckling. My hand hit the wall for support, but it wasn't enough. I crumpled to the floor outside the door, both hands pressed over my mouth to keep from making a sound.

Inside me, Aria was howling—a sound of such anguish it felt like my soul was being flayed alive.

The mate bond between us twisted, darkening, revealing itself for the poison it had always been.

Then a woman's voice cut through the masculine celebration. Sweet. Familiar. Smug.

"Darling, doesn't it feel degrading? Being with someone so... beneath you?"

Elena.

The name from the text. The voice from the phone call.

Keanu's response was immediate, tender in a way that made bile rise in my throat. "Jealous, sweetheart?"

His chuckle was intimate, affectionate—everything he'd never been with me.

"You know you're the only one who matters."

The sound of movement. Fabric rustling. Then Elena's satisfied purr: "Tell me again."

"You're my true mate," Keanu said, and each word was a dagger between my ribs. "She's just a means to an end. A weapon against her father."

"And our ceremony?" Elena's voice dripped with possessive satisfaction.

"Three days." Keanu's voice hardened with purpose. "During Rachel's Luna presentation to the council, I'll announce the truth. In front of everyone—all the neighboring Alphas, the council elders, her father's allies."

Cheers erupted from the gathered wolves.

"I'll screen the video," Keanu continued, his voice rising with vindictive pleasure. "Every moment of Thomas Moonshadow's precious daughter debasing herself for me. I want him to see exactly how thoroughly I've destroyed her."

"And then?" Elena prompted, clearly relishing every detail.

"Then I'll reject her publicly, claim you as my true Luna, and watch Thomas's political alliances crumble." His voice escalated to barely controlled fury. "I'll make him pay a hundred times over for what he did to my pack. For leading the council's vote to strip us of our northern territories!"

"He'll learn what it costs to cross Silverfang!"

The declaration was met with howls of approval, fists pounding on the table.

Through the door, I could hear Elena's triumphant laughter, the wet sounds of kissing, Keanu's appreciative growl.

"God, I can't wait to see his face," Elena gasped between kisses. "When he realizes his perfect daughter is nothing but your used little toy—"

I stopped hearing them.

The world had narrowed to a single, agonizing point of betrayal.

"The bond—" Aria's voice was breaking. "Rachel, the mate bond is shattering. I can feel it. It was never real. It was NEVER real."

The phantom pain struck like lightning—starting at the base of my skull where a mate mark should have been, racing down my spine, splintering into a thousand shards of agony that embedded themselves in every nerve.

This was what it felt like when a false bond broke.

When magic disguised as fate finally revealed its true nature.

I understood now. Everything.

Two years ago, I'd been vulnerable—my pack destroyed by rogue attacks that the council had failed to prevent, my mother dead, my father consumed by grief and rage at the council's inaction. I'd been easy prey.

Keanu had appeared like a vision during that ambush—conveniently nearby, perfectly timed, devastatingly handsome as he'd dispatched my attackers with brutal efficiency.

Silver moonlight had haloed him like some warrior angel.

"Did they hurt you?" His voice had been rough with concern, his eyes searching mine with such intensity I'd felt seen for the first time in months.

And then Aria had stirred, reaching toward his wolf Fenrir with an eagerness that had felt like destiny.

The mate bond had snapped into place with intoxicating force.

"My wolf recognizes you," he'd murmured, pulling me close. "Fenrir knew the moment I saw you. You're mine. My true mate. The one I've been searching for."

He'd said it with such conviction, such raw emotion.

Looking back now with clear eyes, I could finally see what I'd been too desperate to recognize:

The calculation in his gaze. The satisfaction of a predator watching prey walk into an elaborate trap.

The mate bond had been artificial—dark magic, probably. Something to manufacture the symptoms of a true bond while leaving him free to pursue his real mate.

Elena.

Every tender moment had been a performance. Every promise, a lie. Every intimate encounter, a weapon to be used against me.

Against my father.

I was sprawled on the hallway floor, my hand pressed against the cold marble, my entire body shaking.

Inside, Aria was keening—a sound of grief so profound it transcended human understanding.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry I didn't know. I should have protected us."

"It's not your fault," I told her, even as tears streamed silently down my face. "He fooled us both."

My phone was in my hand before I consciously decided to reach for it. My fingers moved with mechanical precision, finding a contact I hadn't used in two years.

Thomas Moonshadow's private line.

But my finger hovered over the call button as reality set in.

My father. The Alpha who'd lost everything when his pack was destroyed. Who'd spent two years rebuilding, clawing his way back to relevance on the council. Who'd been so relieved when his daughter found her "true mate" and secured a powerful alliance with Silverfang.

If I went back now—broken, used, pregnant with the child of my betrayer—would he even want me?

Or would I just be another failure, another reminder of everything we'd lost?

"Rachel." Aria's voice was steadier now, hardening with something I hadn't felt from her in two years: rage. "We are not broken. We are Moonshadow. Your mother didn't raise a victim."

She was right.

My mother, Luna of Moonshadow, had been a warrior before she was ever a mate. She'd fought in the pack wars, negotiated treaties, commanded respect from Alphas twice her size.

She'd given me her necklace the day before the rogues killed her—pressed it into my hands with trembling fingers and whispered: "Never let them make you small, Rachel. Never let anyone convince you that you're less than you are."

I'd let Keanu make me small. Let him convince me that degradation was devotion.

But I was still my mother's daughter.

And I was carrying a child who deserved better than a father who saw them as a tool for revenge.

I scrolled past my father's contact. Found another name.

Marcus Chen. My father's head of security before the pack fell. The man who'd taught me to fight when I was ten years old, who'd disappeared after the massacre to hunt the rogues responsible.

I typed quickly, my hands steadier now:

"Marcus. It's Rachel. I need extraction from Silverfang territory. Three days. I'm coming home to claim what's mine. Are you still loyal to Moonshadow?"

The response came within seconds:

"Always, Princess. I'll be there. Do you need immediate extraction?"

I looked at the conference room door. Inside, Keanu was probably still celebrating with his pack, still planning my public destruction.

"No. Three days. I have something to do first."

I pushed myself to my feet, straightening my clothes, wiping the tears from my face.

My hand went to my stomach—still flat, still hiding the secret that changed everything.

Three days until Keanu planned to destroy me in front of the council, my father, and every ally we had left.

Three days to become someone he wouldn't recognize.

Three days to prepare my revenge.

I turned away from the conference room door, my mother's necklace forgotten. Let him find it. Let him think I'd been there, heard nothing, suspected nothing.

Let him think I was still his naive little Luna, waiting to be sacrificed for his vendetta.

"What are we going to do?" Aria asked.

A cold smile curved my lips.

"We're going to remind them what it means to cross a Moonshadow."

Behind me, Keanu's laughter echoed through the door.

In three days, I would make sure he never laughed again.

But first, I had a phone call to make to someone Keanu had forgotten existed.

Someone who'd been waiting two years for a chance at revenge of their own.

I pulled up my contacts, found the name I needed, and pressed call.

The phone rang once. Twice.

Then a familiar voice answered—rough, dangerous, and very much interested:

"Rachel Moonshadow. I wondered when you'd finally wake up."