Chapter 3 She’s Gone

Irene's Point of View

For a moment, Eugene lowered his head.

He looked exhausted.

Broken.

Once, seeing him like this would have destroyed me.

Now, all I felt was pain.

“The battle was intense,” he said at last. “You wouldn't understand. You weren't there.”

He paused.

“I was lonely.”

Something inside me went cold.

“So your solution was to sleep with another woman?”

Eugene's face tightened.

“You don't understand how I feel!”

“You're right.”

My voice shook.

“I don't understand how you could come home with another woman's child and expect me to understand.”

“You weren't the one fighting those lycans!” he snapped. “You don't know what it was like to nearly die every day!”

“And you don't know what it was like waiting for you.”

He went silent.

“I waited for you for a year,” I said. “I tried to become the perfect Luna. I wanted you to come home and be proud of me.”

My eyes burned, but I refused to look away.

“I was lonely too.”

Eugene's expression changed.

“Every day. Every night.”

I swallowed.

“I prayed for you. I waited for you. And not once did I think about another man.”

The mate bond stirred between us.

I could feel his guilt.

His regret.

But I could also feel something else.

He was still trying to defend himself.

“It was different, Irene,” he said.

I stared at him.

“Different?”

“Our situations weren't the same.”

That hurt more than I expected.

“You didn't even apologize.”

Eugene froze.

I looked at him carefully.

“I thought at least you would be sorry for hurting me.”

His expression changed.

For the first time, he seemed to understand what I had been waiting to hear.

“Irene...”

His voice softened.

“I'm sorry.”

The words should have comforted me.

They didn't.

“You don't mean it.”

His eyes widened.

“You regret being caught. That's not the same thing.”

“I do regret it.”

“Then why haven't you apologized until now?”

He had no answer.

Instead, he stepped closer and took my hands.

“Irene, we can fix this.”

I stared at him.

“Fix this?”

“We can still be together.”

For a moment, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

He had betrayed me.

He had brought home another woman's child.

And now he was talking as if our relationship were something he could repair and continue.

“How?”

He hesitated.

That hesitation told me everything.

“You don't even know how,” I whispered.

“Irene—”

“If you think I'll simply accept this, then you never really knew me.”

I pulled my hands away.

Eugene stared at me.

For the first time, fear appeared in his eyes.

He finally understood that I might actually leave.

But it was too late.

I turned and ran.

I didn't know where I was going.

I only knew I couldn't stay there another second.

The music from the celebration still filled the pack house.

People were laughing.

Warriors were being welcomed home.

Everyone was celebrating.

But I couldn't hear any of it clearly anymore.

All I could think about was Eugene.

Ruby.

The child.

The lies.

Then the mate bond twisted inside me.

Pain shot through my chest, forcing me to stop.

I grabbed the wall and tried to steady myself.

The bond was still there.

Even after everything he had done, I could still feel him.

His pain.

His fear.

His desperation.

For one terrible moment, I thought about rejecting him.

If I broke the bond, there would be no going back.

I would lose my mate.

I would lose the future I had spent a year waiting for.

But maybe that future was already gone.

I closed my eyes.

Eugene had made his choice.

Now I had to make mine.

For the first time since Eugene came home, I wasn't sure I wanted to choose him.

But I still couldn't reject him.

Not yet.

Because the worst part was that I still loved him.

Days passed.

One day became two.

Then three.

By the end of the week, I barely left my room.

The curtains stayed closed, and I stopped answering the door.

Eugene came every day.

Sometimes he knocked softly.

Sometimes he called my name.

When I refused to answer, he would stand outside for a while before leaving.

I never opened the door.

I couldn't face him.

Only a few people knew what had really happened. Luna Lorraine, Alpha Dave, and my closest friends.

The rest of the pack only saw the distance between Eugene and me.

They noticed the silence.

They whispered.

They watched.

But none of them knew how badly I was struggling.

“Irene, you can't stay in here forever.”

Skylar sat beside me on the bed.

“Come outside with me. Just for a little while.”

I shook my head.

“I don't want to.”

She was quiet for a moment.

Then she gently touched my shoulder.

“I know you're hurting. But hiding won't make it disappear.”

“I don't want it to disappear.”

The words came out before I could stop them.

Skylar looked at me.

“I just want to disappear.”

Her expression changed.

“Irene, don't say that.”

I looked down at my hands.

“I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore.”

Skylar wrapped an arm around me.

“You don't have to know yet.”

She stayed beside me in silence.

That was Skylar.

She had been beside me since we were children at the orphanage.

She had seen me at my weakest before.

But this time, even she didn't know how to help me.

After a while, she spoke again.

“There is a party tonight.”

I almost laughed.

“A party?”

“For the warriors and the lycan pack.”

I looked at her.

“They're staying for a week. Their Alpha is arriving tonight for the peace treaty discussions. All five Alphas are already here.”

The world was moving on.

Warriors were celebrating.

Alphas were making alliances.

People were laughing.

Only my life seemed to have stopped.

“I don't want to go.”

“I know.”

Skylar squeezed my hand.

“But maybe you should.”

Before I could answer, someone knocked.

This time, the door opened slowly.

Luna Lorraine stepped inside.

She looked at me for a moment.

Her eyes filled with the same guilt I had seen since the night Eugene returned.

“I want to show you your dress for tonight,” she said.

“I don't want to go.”

“I know.”

She walked closer.

“But you deserve to be there.”

I looked away.

“Why?”

“Because you shouldn't have to hide because someone else hurt you.”

Her words stayed with me.

I wanted to argue.

I wanted to tell her that she didn't understand.

But she did.

Maybe not completely.

But enough.

She had watched me fall apart every day.

“I can't pretend I'm fine,” I whispered.

“You don't have to.”

Luna Lorraine sat beside me.

“You don't have to smile. You don't have to talk to anyone. Just come downstairs.”

I stayed silent.

The thought of seeing Eugene made my stomach tighten.

But staying in this room was becoming its own kind of prison.

For a week, I had hidden from him.

From the pack.

From myself.

It hadn't changed anything.

The pain was still there.

The betrayal was still there.

And the mate bond was still there.

Maybe it was time to stop running.

I slowly looked at Luna Lorraine.

“What if I don't want to see him?”

“Then you don't have to.”

“And if he comes near me?”

“I won't let anyone force you to talk to him.”

I studied her face.

For the first time in days, I felt something other than helplessness.

It wasn't happiness.

It wasn't forgiveness.

It was something smaller.

Strength.

I took a slow breath.

“Fine.”

Skylar's eyes widened.

“Really?”

I nodded.

“I'll go.”

Luna Lorraine smiled softly.

“Good.”

She stood and reached for my hand.

But before I took it, I looked toward the closed curtains.

For seven days, I had hidden behind them.

Tonight, I would open them.

Not because I was ready to forgive Eugene.

I wasn't.

Not because I was healed.

I wasn't.

I was going because I needed to know whether there was still a part of me strong enough to face him.

I stood.

My legs felt weak, but I stayed on my feet.

Skylar smiled at me.

“That’s my Irene.”

I didn't smile back.

Instead, I walked toward the curtains and pulled them open.

Light flooded the room.

For the first time in a week, I looked outside.

The pack was alive.

People were gathering for the celebration.

Music had already begun.

And somewhere downstairs...

Eugene was waiting.

I took one final breath.

Then I turned toward the door.

I had spent a week hiding from the man who broke my heart.

Tonight, I was going to walk into the same room with him.

But I had no idea that by the end of the night...

I would meet someone who would change the way I saw my broken life forever.