Chapter Three
Christine's Pov
"Mistress?" I repeated the word, tasting rust on my tongue. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Christine." He watched me with patient eyes. "You know what the Elder Council demands regarding bloodlines. You'll never take the Luna's seat, but I don't want to lose you. This is the best arrangement."
The best arrangement.
Every morning I'd woken with my heart racing, convinced the pounding was the echo of our fated bond. Every time he said "You're mine," I truly believed I was his entire world.
I remembered how many sugars he took in his coffee, that his shirt size was sixteen and a half, that his left shoulder had been injured so he always needed a wool blanket draped over his chair in winter. I remembered everything about him—because he was my Mate, and I thought remembering these things was love.
And now he was telling me that "be my mistress" was the best arrangement.
If I had a wolf, she would be howling right now—raging, tearing through my skin to shred the traitor standing before me. If I had a wolf, I could at least shift, fight back, show him with fangs and claws what betrayal costs.
But I had nothing. Just a pair of empty hands, and a searing burn on my neck that cut straight to the bone.
"If you refuse me, your soul will suffer for the rest of your life." His voice dropped low, almost sounding like concern. "Don't be foolish, Christine. A Mate Bond isn't something you can sever at will. You know how much it hurts."
His scent flooded my nostrils, and the burning on my neck intensified another degree. But I looked at his face—that face I once thought was the most handsome in the world—and there was no trace of pain on it.
He didn't hurt at all.
Why?
"The child in your belly—you don't even know who its father is," he said softly.
I knew. Of course I knew. I knew the man that night wasn't him.
"I'll give you time to think it over. Get rid of the baby, and I'll—"
"I won't."
"What did you say?"
"I said—" I straightened my spine. My knees no longer trembled. "I won't be your mistress. And I won't get rid of this child."
"Christine—"
"I'd rather starve in the streets." The corner of my mouth twitched. "Than become your mistress."
The air in the office went silent for a beat.
Dominic's smile vanished. It was the first time I'd ever seen his face without one.
"Christine." His voice turned low and dangerous. "If I'm not mistaken, your cousin Oliver is still waiting on your money for his surgery."
Oliver. My cousin. Congenital aortic stenosis. The last words my mother ever spoke were "Look after Oliver for me."
My heart clenched violently.
"Don't forget who's been handling every little thing in your life these past two years," Dominic said. He was certain I'd buckle because of Oliver—certain that a wolfless Omega had no right to refuse him.
My stomach turned.
I didn't know if it was Dominic making me sick or the morning sickness. Maybe both. But I didn't let myself throw up. I forced the acid back down.
Then I reached into the back pocket of my jeans and pulled out a black card. The supplementary credit card under his name—the one he'd pressed into my hand two years ago, saying "This is your spending money. Don't be shy about using it."
I had never used this card. Not once. Oliver's medication, my living expenses—every single cent had come from the design work I did myself. Dominic didn't know this. Vanessa didn't know. No one in the Shadow Pack knew.
I gripped it one last time, then swung my arm and hurled it straight at Dominic's face.
He tilted his head slightly, pupils contracting to pure black. His jaw clenched, teeth grinding behind sealed lips.
"Take your filthy money back." My voice was so steady it surprised even me. "Everything you've given me these past years—I haven't touched a single cent of it. Dominic, you make me sick." I stepped around him and walked toward the door.
"Christine, walk out that door and no one will come to save you." His voice came from behind me. "You'll come back eventually. On your knees, begging."
I didn't look back. I raised one hand over my shoulder and extended my middle finger. "Go to hell."
I pushed open the office door and walked out.
The corridor's motion-sensor lights flickered on one by one. When the elevator doors closed, the face reflected in the brushed stainless steel had red eyes—but a steady mouth.
I didn't need to look back. And I didn't need to cry.
Night had fallen completely.
I dragged my suitcase down the main streets of the city center, streetlamps stretching my shadow long behind me. I had no idea where I could go.
Friends? For years Dominic had consumed my entire social circle. Everyone I knew, he'd introduced me to. Every place I'd been, he'd taken me. And those "friends"—the she-wolves who'd linked arms with me at parties and called me "future Luna"—after the scandal broke, not a single one had messaged to ask if I was okay. No one wanted to be friends with a wolfless, red-haired Omega.
The Hayes main house? That place had never been my home. From the day my mother died, that mansion was nothing but a workplace to me—washing dishes, mopping floors, cleaning windows, doing everyone's laundry.
I hated that place. I hated Dominic. I hated Vanessa. I hated Richard Hayes. I hated every single person in the Shadow Pack who had ever mocked my red hair.
I would make them pay for everything they'd done.
Pay? Christine, worry about yourself first. You don't even know where you're sleeping tonight.
The wind picked up. I pulled my thin shirt tighter and kept walking. I tried several motels.
The first one—the receptionist ran my debit card. Insufficient funds. She glanced at the name on the card, then looked up at me. "Hayes?" Her expression shifted. "I'm sorry, we're fully booked tonight."
The second—I hadn't even reached the counter before I was stopped. A middle-aged man in a flannel shirt blocked the hallway, arms crossed, nostrils flaring twice as he scented me. "We don't take Pack-related trouble here," he said. "You'd better leave."
Word traveled faster than my legs could carry me. Within the entire Shadow Pack territory, no one was willing to shelter a wolfless Omega cast out by both the Hayes family and the Lancaster branch—taking me in meant offending two surnames no one could afford to cross.
I walked into a twenty-four-hour waffle house and slid into a corner booth. The waitress brought a glass of ice water, glanced at me, and said nothing. I ordered the cheapest waffle on the menu—$3.50. It was my first meal of the day.
On the third bite, nausea hit—sudden and violent. I pressed a napkin to my mouth and rushed to the restroom.
After I finished vomiting, I leaned my forehead against the cold tile wall and forced myself to accept the truth my body had been trying to tell me all day.
I was pregnant. And I didn't know who the father was.
I felt a terror I had never known before—the terror of being responsible for a life I hadn't chosen, in a world that didn't want me.
I returned to my seat, opened my phone, and searched for tickets on the Greyhound app with numb fingers. Anywhere—as long as it was out of Shadow Pack territory. I needed to leave. A one-way ticket to Asheville, $47, departing at 12:50 a.m. from the gas station on the east side of the Crestview district.
I paid. My balance dropped to $83.20. I walked out of the waffle house and headed toward the gas station.
The blizzard came without warning.
Within minutes, the streets were blanketed in white. Wind laced with ice shards lashed my face like countless tiny needles.
I reached the gas station. The Greyhound sign was nailed to an iron post beside the convenience store—no waiting room, no roof, just a solitary metal bench and a faded greyhound logo. Snow had already buried the bench halfway.
I stood beneath the sign. My phone screen lit up.
A push notification:
"Due to severe weather conditions, your 12:50 AM bus to Asheville has been cancelled. A full refund has been issued to your account."
I stared at those words for a long time. Snowflakes landed on the screen, melting into tiny droplets that blurred the text.
The gas station convenience store lights were still on. I pushed through the door, and a wave of warm air hit me. A young guy in a baseball cap sat behind the counter scrolling his phone. He looked up briefly.
"Can I wait in here for a while?" I asked. "There's a blizzard outside, and my bus was cancelled."
He looked me up and down. "We close at one," he said.
I was ushered back out. The snow was falling thicker. My legs gave way. The edges of the world blurred, dissolving into white.
My bones were cold, but my belly was warm. From deep within my body radiated a faint, steady heat—stubborn, defiant, impossibly alive.
I pressed both hands to my lower abdomen. That fragile yet relentless pulse grew clearer with every step, beating in the silence like a second heart.
I couldn't hold back the tears. Hot and fast, they melted the snowflakes still clinging to my lashes.
I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry.
I didn't know how much farther I could walk. But I'd already stopped feeling the pain—my body had moved beyond cold into a numb, floating emptiness.
Then—headlights.
A black sedan, sleek and silent, glided toward me through the blizzard like a beast emerging from dense fog. Its tires rolled over the snow with barely a sound.
The window lowered slowly, revealing a man in a dark suit—broad-shouldered, with a hard-set face.
"Miss Hayes." His voice was formal and clipped. "Please come with me. My master—"
I struggled to hear what came next, but darkness swallowed me whole.
