Chapter 1 01 The Night I Tried to Forget

Lyra

I was not the nightclub type. Yet there I was, sitting inside Eclipse, one of the most exclusive nightclubs in Greyhaven, pretending the sweet Pinot in my glass could somehow erase the image of my boyfriend in bed with another woman. My ex-boyfriend, I corrected bitterly. The word did not feel real yet. Nothing about the last few hours did.

Eclipse occupied the upper floors of one of the tallest buildings in the city centre. Its tinted windows overlooked Greyhaven’s glittering skyline while deep blue lights washed over the expensive furniture and the bodies moving on the dance floor. The music was loud enough to drown conversation at the neighbouring tables, but it did nothing to silence the thoughts inside my head.

Everywhere I looked, there were people who belonged here far more than I did. Women wearing dresses that probably cost more than six months of my rent. Men with watches bright enough to blind anyone unfortunate enough to look at them directly. There were wealthy heirs, politicians, corporate executives and members of families whose names appeared on buildings, hospitals and organisations across Greyhaven.

The air was thick with expensive perfume, alcohol and carefully controlled shifter scents. Even without asking, I could tell most of the people around me were Alphas, Betas and Gammas. They carried themselves differently. They stood straighter, laughed louder and occupied space as if the world had been built specifically for their comfort.

Perhaps it had. The security officers positioned discreetly around the club were dressed in dark suits instead of uniforms. They looked harmless until one noticed the weapons beneath their jackets and the sharp way their eyes followed every movement. A nightclub filled with dominant wolves and powerful families needed more than a few large men at the entrance. One badly handled insult could turn into claws, blood and a corporate scandal before midnight.

No one had to ask my rank. My scent told them enough.

I was a Zeta, and while that did not make me weak, it certainly made me socially insignificant in a place like Eclipse. A few guests had already glanced at me twice, probably wondering how I had managed to enter. Their attention never lasted long. A Zeta without a prominent family name was not interesting enough to hold it.

Thankfully, I had not come here to impress anyone. I had come because my best friend had a date, and her date had asked her to bring someone since he was bringing a friend. Sienna had asked me to accompany her, and I had agreed because sitting in a deafening nightclub surrounded by strangers felt better than sitting alone in the house with ice cream, television and eighteen months of memories waiting to tear me apart.

I would rather speak to people I would never meet again. I would rather drink until Tristan Hale’s name no longer made something twist painfully inside my chest. I would rather stare at strangers dancing badly beneath blue lights than remember what happened earlier that day.

Anything was better than remembering. Unfortunately, my mind did not agree. Only a few hours ago, Tristan had still been my boyfriend. We had dated for eighteen months. Eighteen months of dinners, weekends together, private jokes and nights when I fell asleep believing I was safe beside him. I knew which coffee he preferred in the morning and the exact expression he made whenever he was trying not to laugh. I had attended tedious corporate dinners with him and smiled politely while women from influential families stared at me as if I had stolen someone else’s seat.

Tristan was a Beta from one of Greyhaven’s prominent families. The Hales controlled a large organisation with investments in real estate, security and transport. Their name opened doors. Their money kept those doors closed against people like me.

He was handsome, wealthy, educated and connected enough to appear regularly on lists of Greyhaven’s most eligible bachelors. I used to laugh whenever Sienna showed me one of those articles. Tristan would roll his eyes, pull me close and tell me the city could write whatever it wanted because he had already chosen me.

I had believed him. That was the embarrassing part. I genuinely thought we were building something serious. I thought that despite being a Zeta from an ordinary background, I had found someone who loved me enough not to care about the expectations attached to his bloodline. His family had never welcomed me, but Tristan always claimed he could handle them.

I had not realised I was the one being handled. That afternoon, I went to his residence because I wanted to surprise him. He had cancelled our dinner the previous evening, claiming he had an important meeting, so I bought his favourite meal from a restaurant near his office and used the access code he had given me.

I remembered smiling as I entered. That memory hurt almost as much as what happened next. There had been a woman’s shoes near the stairs. Expensive red heels I immediately recognised because I had seen Chloe Mercer wear them before. Chloe was Tristan’s best friend. At least, that was what he always called her.

I had met her several times. She was beautiful, polished and came from one of the same circles as Tristan. She had never hidden the fact that she disliked me, but Tristan insisted she was merely protective of him.

Apparently, she had been protecting him with her clothes off. I heard laughter upstairs. I followed it to his bedroom, pushed the partly open door and found them together in his bed.

For a few seconds, none of us spoke. Tristan did not jump away from her. He did not rush to cover himself or begin stumbling through excuses. He merely stared at me with irritation, as though I had interrupted an important meeting by arriving without an appointment.

Chloe had been the one to pull the sheet over herself, although modesty was clearly not her reason. Her smile had told me everything.

“How long?” I had asked.

My voice did not sound like mine. It was too quiet, too calm, while my wolf paced beneath my skin in confusion and humiliation. Tristan exhaled as he sat at the edge of the bed.

“Lyra, this isn’t the time.”

I remembered staring at him, unable to understand how those could be the first words out of his mouth. “Isn’t the time?” I repeated. “I just walked in on you sleeping with Chloe. When would be the appropriate time to discuss it?”

“Stop making this dramatic,” Tristan replied, reaching for his trousers. “We need to talk, but not while you’re behaving like this.”

I had almost laughed. I was not screaming. I had not thrown anything. I stood there holding the food I had bought for him while the man I loved dressed beside his naked best friend, yet somehow I was the unreasonable one. Chloe watched me with the kind of satisfaction only a cruel person could enjoy.

“You really didn’t know?” Chloe asked, tilting her head.

“Chloe,” Tristan warned, but there was no real force behind his voice.

“What am I supposed to know?” I demanded.

Chloe smiled as if she had been waiting eighteen months for me to ask. “Tristan and I have been on and off for years,” she explained. “You were something different for him. I allowed him to enjoy it for a while, but you couldn’t honestly have believed it would last.” Her words struck me harder than if she had slapped me.

“You allowed me to have him?” I asked.

“For a while,” Chloe answered carelessly. “You should be grateful. How many Zetas from nowhere get eighteen months with a man like Tristan?”

My fingers tightened around the paper bag until the container inside collapsed. Sauce leaked through the bottom and dripped onto the polished floor, but I barely noticed it.

I looked at Tristan, waiting for him to defend me. Even then, some foolish part of me expected him to tell Chloe to shut up. I thought he would deny what she was saying or at least show a little remorse for humiliating me. He did neither. Instead, he fastened his trousers and looked at the mess on the floor.

“Put that down before you ruin the rug,” he told me.

Something inside me broke then. It was not loud or dramatic. There was no thunder, no collapse and no formal rejection tearing through a mate bond. Tristan was not my fated mate. There was no sacred bond between us for him to destroy. It was simply my heart learning that the man I loved had never respected me. I placed the damaged bag on the floor because my hands had started shaking.

“Were you ever faithful to me?” I asked.

Tristan’s jaw tightened. “Don’t do this, Lyra.”

“Answer me.”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“It matters to me.”

“Well, it shouldn’t,” he replied coldly. “I’m done with this relationship.”