Chapter Two
Christine's Pov
Of course he believed me. He was my Mate.
The Mate Bond between us was stronger than any bloodline in the Shadow Pack—it wasn't something anyone could forge, something money could buy, or something rumors could destroy.
The Mate Bond would speak for me. Dominic could feel my emotions, my fear, my anguish. He knew everything.
He knew everything, so he didn't need to ask. I quickened my pace.
Wind funneled into my collar, and the damp, cold cuffs of my shirt clung to my wrists, but I could barely feel the chill anymore. Only one thought consumed me—get to him. Once I reached him, everything would be alright.
By the time I came back to myself, I was already standing before the revolving door of that building.
The doorman glanced up at me, then looked back down. He recognized me—Dominic's "partner." I'd been here too many times over the past two years for the front desk to bother checking my visitor registration anymore.
As the elevator doors slid shut, I caught my reflection in the brushed stainless steel. Red hair tumbled in a mess over my shoulders. Grayish-blue crescents hung beneath my eyes, my eyelids swollen.
The elevator reached the fifth floor. Dominic's office was at the end of the corridor.
I walked down that hallway, my heartbeat hammering somewhere between my throat and my jaw—the way it always did before I saw him. That warm, insistent flutter I'd always believed was the mate bond resonating through my body, proof that the Moon Goddess had bound our fates together.
I raised my hand and knocked. Two dull thuds of knuckle against wood.
No answer.
I tried the handle—it gave.
The instant the door cracked open, a rush of warm air carried a blend of scents toward me.
Coffee. The dry smell of fabric baked by the heater. And—a perfume with a white musk base note.
My feet froze mid-step.
I knew that scent.
Dominic's office wasn't large. In front of the window sat a dark gray two-seater sofa—the one Dominic sometimes napped on when he worked too late.
Someone was sitting on it now.
Pale golden curls spilling over one shoulder, a cream-colored cashmere dress with a low neckline that bared her collarbones and a wide expanse of skin along her neck.
That skin was marked with red traces—not scratches, but the bruises left by lips and teeth, trailing from her collarbone to behind her ear, arranged like some brazen signature.
Vanessa.
She saw me and smiled, the curve of her lips identical to the one she'd worn looking down at me from the steps that morning.
"There you are, sister."
Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice.
"What are you doing here?" My voice scraped out of my throat. "Where's Dominic?"
"Dominic stepped out to take a call." Vanessa didn't rise from the sofa. She sat with her legs crossed, fingers idly toying with a button at the hem of her dress. "He asked me to keep you company while you wait."
"What the hell are you talking about—why are you in his office?"
"Sister." Vanessa finally stood. "Do you really want me to spell it out?"
"That night. The banquet," she said.
My stomach clenched violently.
"After you blacked out, I was the one who carried you out of the hall. You don't remember a thing, do you? The room. The man. It was all arranged."
"That's impossible." The denial left me on reflex. My lips were trembling, but my voice still held. "Dominic would never—"
"Dominic knew." Vanessa cut me off, her tone as flat as if she were reading from a checklist. "He told me to pick the room. He told me to find the man—some old wolf with rotting teeth and a gut like a beer barrel. He said the uglier the better, the older the better, so that when you woke up you'd never suspect us. He figured your cheap little sense of shame would keep your mouth shut for you."
Her perfume was overpowering. Vanilla and white musk, cloyingly sweet, clogging my throat. I was about to be sick.
"That's impossible," I said again. I remembered the sensations from that night—broad shoulders, a powerful body pressing down on me, heavy breathing right against my ear. That body had been strong, nothing like the picture Vanessa was painting. But the face—the face was blank.
"Let me be honest with you, sister." Vanessa tilted her head, a strand of gold slipping from her shoulder. "Dominic and I have been together for over a year."
"…What?"
"Did you think Dominic chose you for your looks? That hair of yours—" Her gaze swept over my red hair.
I didn't speak. Not because I didn't want to. My tongue had turned to stone.
"It was because of your mother," Vanessa said. "Gwendolyn Hayes. A member of the Shadow Pack's Elder Council, holding a seat whose vote was critical in Pack decisions. Dominic needed that vote—needed to secure it through your family. So he chose you."
My knees were going soft.
Two years ago, when Dominic had confirmed our bond to me, my mother was still alive. She'd been silent for a long time before finally saying just one thing: "As long as you're happy."
Had she sensed something?
"Too bad your mother died so early." Vanessa's voice dragged me back. "The seat passed to Richard, and Dominic didn't need you anymore. But the Marking Ceremony was already set for next month—once he marked you, he'd be bound permanently. So—"
"So you arranged that night." I finished the sentence for her. My voice was strangely level.
"See? I've always said you were smart." Vanessa smiled and stepped back, as if admiring her own handiwork.
The door opened behind me.
"What's going on?" A deep male voice came from the doorway. Over the past two years, that voice had said "goodnight" through the phone, had whispered "I love you" against my ear. It had once sung a birthday song so wildly off-key that I'd laughed until I cried.
Dominic stood in the doorway, a faint smile playing at the corner of his mouth. I used to love watching him smile, because that smile made me feel like the luckiest person in the world.
But his gaze passed over me and landed on Vanessa.
"Darling." Vanessa bounded toward him like a cat that had been waiting for its owner.
Dominic opened his arms. He drew her into his embrace. His palm settled on the curve of her waist, fingers tightening with a natural, possessive intimacy—the way a man touches something that has always belonged to him.
The ground tilted beneath my feet.
A searing pain erupted at my neck. I doubled over, one hand slamming against the desk to keep from collapsing to my knees.
The mate bond—when one half feels betrayal, the other is supposed to suffer the same pain. I'd memorized that passage in the Pack's codified laws.
I lifted my head and looked at Dominic through blurred vision. His expression hadn't changed. No furrowed brow, no clenched jaw, not even a flicker of discomfort crossing his handsome face.
"Wait for me in the car." Dominic patted Vanessa's hip, his tone dripping with undisguised intimacy. "Let me handle this."
Vanessa turned her head toward me as she passed. Her breath ghosted over the shell of my ear. "Bye-bye, sister."
The door clicked shut behind her. Only Dominic and I remained in the office.
I'd been to this office too many times. The pothos in the corner—I'd bought it three months ago because he said "this room needs something alive." The white mug on the windowsill was a gift from me—a moon printed on its side, with a line I'd written by hand: "To the moon and back."
The pothos was still alive. The mug was still there.
But everything in this room I'd believed belonged to us now tasted of something rotten.
"Christine." He walked toward me, reaching out to touch my face.
"Don't touch me!" I slapped his hand away hard enough to leave my palm stinging. "Dominic, is what Vanessa said true?"
I stared into his eyes. Deep green irises, gentle, like a lake in spring—I had loved those eyes so much.
"Christine, I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?"
"I truly am sorry." He stood there, suit immaculate, the silver cufflinks at his wrists catching the light. I'd given him those cufflinks last Christmas. He'd said, "This is the best gift I've ever received."
"Two years," I said. "You lied to me for two years."
"I wouldn't call it lying." He slid his hands into his trouser pockets, his posture as relaxed as if we were discussing the weather. "You got what you wanted too, didn't you? An Alpha's protection. No one in the Pack dared bully you anymore—"
"That's because you were my Mate!"
"Christine." He took half a step forward. The toe of his leather shoe met the toe of my boot. I stepped back; the edge of the desk dug into the small of my back. He followed with another half step.
"You know as well as I do—even if I were willing to marry a wolfless Omega—" His voice dropped half a register, as though stating an unfortunate but unavoidable fact. "The Shadow Pack elders would never allow it."
"That's not what you said before."
"People change," he said.
His gaze slid down from my face, tracing my jawline, my neck, my collarbone, then stopped at my chest.
"Come to think of it, your figure's been getting fuller." His tone turned flippant.
Heat rushed to my face—not from shyness, but from humiliation. It felt like being stripped naked under a spotlight in front of a crowd, while the person who'd torn off your clothes stood there smiling and holding up a scorecard.
"I hear Vanessa mentioned that Richard threw you out of the family."
"So what?" My fists clenched tight.
"A wolfless Omega with no family, no income, carrying a child of unknown origin—" He counted off on his fingers as if itemizing a list. "How exactly do you plan to survive?"
"That's none of your concern."
"But I wouldn't mind, Christine." He took one final step forward. My knees hit the desk's edge; there was nowhere left to retreat. He leaned down, his breath falling warm against my forehead. "Every inch of you is truly beautiful. Captivating."
He paused for a beat. His gaze drifted an inch above my face. "Except for that disgusting red hair of yours."
Ever since my mother died, I'd heard people call my hair disgusting every single day.
From Pack members. From girls circled up in the school hallway, laughing. From my father's second wife. From Vanessa.
The only person who had never said it was Dominic.
He had said: "Your hair is like fire, and fire is beautiful."
He had said: "Don't care what anyone else thinks."
He had said: "Be my Luna. I'll protect you."
He had said—
"Get rid of the child."
I jerked my head up. The back of my skull cracked against the wall, the pain making me clench my teeth.
"I can provide you with material comfort, and just as much love as before." His voice was calm and steady. "You become my mistress."
