Chapter 5 THE DOOR

I didn’t even remember how I got back to the room. One second I was still out there in the forest behind that tree watching him kiss her and the next I was just sitting on the floor with my back against the bed my hands sitting useless in my lap.

The room was dark as hell and way too quiet the kind where you can hear your own blood rushing in your ears. I stared at the door the whole time waiting for it to open but it never did.

I didn’t cry or anything and that felt weird as shit. No tears no screaming no falling apart on the floor. Nothing. Just this empty hollow spot in my chest like somebody had reached in and yanked everything important out and left me sitting there like a shell.

My hands shook a little but the rest of me felt calm. Too calm. Like my body had decided to switch everything off so I wouldn’t lose my mind right there.

He kissed her. The thought just sat there in my head at first not really hurting yet just flat and cold like a fact I couldn’t argue with.

He kissed her. I kept repeating it over and over hoping it would start to make sense if I said it enough times. It never did.

Time kept sliding by. Could’ve been minutes could’ve been hours I honestly don’t know. I didn’t move didn’t think didn’t even breathe normal. Then the door finally clicked open.

I didn’t look up. Lucifer walked in quiet and careful like he always did like the whole night had been nothing. Her scent hit me first stronger now fresh and all over him like he hadn’t even tried to hide it.

Something inside me just snapped. Not with a big noise or anything just gone like a light switching off for good.

I lifted my head real slow and looked at him. Really looked this time. His hair was messed up his shirt all wrinkled and his lips... I looked away fast before I could let that one sink in.

“Hey,” he said like it was any other night.

I didn’t say shit back.

He took a couple steps closer then stopped. “You still up?”

I almost laughed in his face but I didn’t. I just muttered “Couldn’t sleep.” My voice sounded wrong too flat and empty like it wasn’t even mine anymore.

He watched me for a second like he was trying to figure out if something was off. Then he just nodded. “Go back to bed.”

Go back to bed. Like I hadn’t just seen him out there with her. Like I hadn’t followed him through the woods.

Like his skin wasn’t still carrying her scent right in front of me. Something twisted hard in my chest and this time it actually hurt.

“Where were you?” I asked before I could stop the words from coming out.

He went still just a little. “Patrol.”

The lie slid out so smooth it almost sounded real.

I nodded slow. “Alone?”

His eyes flicked to mine real quick and sharp. “Yeah.”

The silence got heavy after that stretching out between us like it was waiting for one of us to crack. I held his stare a second longer then I gave him a small smile. “Okay.”

That was the moment everything flipped for me. Because I knew the truth now and he knew I knew and I decided right then not to call him on any of it.

He relaxed a tiny bit like he’d just dodged a bullet. That little move made something dark and cold curl up in my gut.

“Get some rest,” he said already turning away like the conversation was done and forgotten.

I watched every move he made. He stripped off his clothes climbed into bed and turned his back to me like I wasn’t even there. Like none of it mattered. Like I didn’t matter.

I stood there a long time just staring at him. Then I killed the light and lay down on my side of the bed. Close enough to feel the warmth coming off him but far enough that we didn’t touch at all.

I stared up into the dark listening while his breathing slowed down and evened out. I counted in my head. One. Two. Three. By the time I hit fifty he was out cold. Of course he was.

I turned my head a little and looked at him lying there, this guy, this Alpha, this person I’d trusted with every damn piece of myself... smelling like her in our bed. My chest squeezed tight. Not in a sad way. Sharp. Cold.

I swallowed it all down pushed it deep and locked it away because losing it right now would’ve been the stupidest thing I could do. And I wasn’t stupid anymore.

I closed my eyes and made up my mind in the dark. I wasn’t gonna confront him. Not yet. I wasn’t gonna cry or scream or beg him to pick me.

No. I was gonna watch. I was gonna listen. I was gonna dig up every single lie every secret meeting every plan they thought they were hiding so well.

And when I had it all when I had every last dirty detail I was gonna burn their perfect little secret to the ground. No matter what it cost me.