Chapter 2

Now Lucas looked up at me.

“Bad mom. You ruined Lyra’s entire life. If it weren’t for you, she should’ve been my mom. Not you.”

I knew he favored Lyra. But hearing the sentence spoken aloud still sucked the air from my lungs.

My body trembled.

“Who told you that?”

Lucas puffed out his small chest and crossed his arms. “I know it myself. I just want Lyra to be my mom.”

I turned to Ethan, my eyes burning.

A seven-year-old could not possibly fabricate things he had never been told.

“Lyra just… sometimes says,” Ethan avoided my gaze, “that if those things hadn’t happened… I might have… chosen her.”

But I was the one who met him first.

We were the ones who became lovers first.

And it was only after he marked me that everything else happened.

On what grounds did she believe Ethan would choose her over me?

The answer had long been laid out before me—

It had always been Lyra.

And it always would be Lyra.

If it were the past, that Rosalie would have cared.

But now, none of it matters anymore.

I walked toward the front door, casting only a brief glance back at the place I once called home.

“Have your lawyer contact mine once the papers are signed,” I said flatly. “Until everything is finalized, I’ll be staying at my family’s financial residence.”

Ethan’s expression finally changed.

He hadn’t expected me to actually leave.

He probably thought this was just another cycle: I exploded, he brushed it off, I endured—and everything returned to normal. A gift, an expensive dinner, a few hollow love words, and I’d be coaxed back into this gilded cage once more.

He lunged toward me, arm lifting—whether to grab me, or to say something else.

But he never got the chance.

Because at that exact moment, the front door was pushed open from the outside.

Lyra.

The woman I had explicitly said I never wanted to see in this house again.

She stood there, leaning against the doorframe, as though she were the mistress of the house.

“Leaving already, Rosalie?” she asked sweetly.

Before I could respond, a small figure shot past me like a cannonball.

“Lyra!”

Lucas cried out, throwing himself straight into her open arms.

I watched the scene.

The memory detonated in the deepest recesses of my mind.

A Christmas many years ago, at Ethan’s family’s ancient estate.

It was the first time since that incident that I had been “allowed” to attend their Christmas dinner.

I thought it might be a turning point.

But throughout the evening, Lyra introduced the origins of each dish, commented on the wines, and basked in the table’s admiration.

I, meanwhile, felt like an outsider—awkward and unnecessary no matter how hard I tried to blend in, even when I actively offered to help.

Then everything changed.

Halfway through the meal, Lyra suddenly sucked in a sharp breath, her fingers flying to her throat—red blotches blooming visibly across her skin, her cheeks swelling.

“My throat feels itchy… I can’t breathe…” Her voice carried a strained, nasal edge of pain, her eyes rimmed red. “I think… I ate something with peanuts. I’m allergic to peanuts…”

“Allergic?!” the elder Luna cried out. “That lamb dish’s sauce—didn’t it have homemade nut crumble in it?”

The table fell instantly silent.

“Who checked the menu tonight?” the elder Alpha asked grimly, his brow furrowed. “Does no one remember Lyra’s restrictions?”

An Omega servant spoke up timidly. “The sauce was prepared by the kitchen, but… but Luna Rosalie was in the kitchen earlier, and she did handle the seasoning jars…”

Every gaze stabbed toward me at once.

“Rosalie!” the elder Luna whirled on me, her aristocratic composure shattering. “It was you! You knew she was allergic! You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

No one asked what I had actually done.

No one remembered that I had only tried to help set the napkins.

Lyra leaned against Ethan’s shoulder. Her eyes full of confusion and hurt.

“Rosalie… why… I thought… at the very least, we could share one peaceful meal together…”

Then Lucas throw his arms around Lyra before turning to shout at me:

“Bad mom! You made Lyra sick!”

A child’s words became the most damning testimony of all.

The elder Luna strode toward me, raising her hand—

“Mother.” Ethan’s voice cut in.

He steadied Lyra and looked at me.

“That’s enough. Rosalie, go upstairs and wait in the small sitting room. Don’t come down unless you’re told to. Lyra needs quiet. The dinner can’t be ruined because of you.”

The elder Alpha’s face was ashen. “Don’t show yourself again tonight. Think carefully about what you’ve done.”

Bound by invisible ropes, under everyone’s gaze, I turned and left the bright, warm dining hall alone.

The dinner eventually ended.

I ran outside. No one stopped me.

I turned back.

Through the window, I saw Lyra by the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket, her color much improved. She was smiling gently as Ethan’s mother fussed over her.

Ethan sat nearby, rubbing his brow, while Lucas lay across her lap, playing with a new toy.

And I, standing in the freezing snow, was outside the window —

the excess, malicious other.