The Price of Betrayal: My White Wolf Path

I was the Luna of the Moonstone Pack, but to my husband, Alpha Blake, I was nothing more than a placeholder.

While he showered his "fragile" childhood friend Ariana with attention, I kept a secret black notebook.

It wasn't a diary. It was a countdown.

Missed our anniversary dinner for her? Minus 10 points.

Saved her from a falling sculpture while leaving me to be crushed by steel? Minus 20 points.

I lay in the hospital with broken ribs, watching him leave to comfort Ariana because she was "traumatized" by my accident.

But the final straw came the night I was hit by a truck in a storm he abandoned me in.

Desperate to save our unborn baby, the doctors called Blake. They needed his Alpha energy to anchor the fetus.

"I can't come," Blake said coldly over the speakerphone.

"Ariana is having palpitations. If the fetus is strong, it will survive. If not, it wasn't meant to be."

He hung up.

I felt the life inside me wink out.

With trembling hands, I opened my notebook for the last time.

Incident: Killed our child for her. Final Score: -100.

I signed the divorce papers, left them on the ashes of my life, and vanished.

When Blake finally returned to the empty house, realizing he had lost his True Mate, he fell to his knees and howled.

But he didn't know the truth yet.

The wife he called weak had just awakened as the legendary White Wolf, and I was never coming back.

Chapter 1

Blake Santos never expected to find the notebook. He was in the back of their shared closet, searching for a pair of platinum cufflinks, a gift from his father, when his knuckles, grazing the dusty cardboard of a shoebox tucked behind a pair of winter boots, met the unyielding spine of a leather-bound journal. It was not Caroline's; her journals were riots of color, filled with the sharp, clean lines of architectural sketches. This one was plain, funereal black. A flicker of curiosity, an emotion so rare in him it felt foreign, took hold. He opened it.

The first page was titled in Caroline's precise, almost severe script: The 100-Point Divorce Plan.

Blake's brow furrowed. He read the rules inscribed beneath.

Starting Points: 100.

For every action that proves this marriage is a mistake, points will be deducted.

When the score reaches zero, I will file for divorce. No exceptions.

He let out a short, humorless exhalation of breath. A game, then. Some peculiar, childish ledger of perceived slights. He flipped through the pages. Each entry was dated, a meticulous log of his supposed transgressions.

-1 Point: He forgot our anniversary. Again. He was having dinner with Ariana.

-2 Points: He canceled our vacation because Ariana's dog was sick. He spent the weekend at her apartment.

-1 Point: He called me Ariana by mistake.

-3 Points: He bought the last bottle of a vintage wine I'd been searching for, only to give it to Ariana for her birthday.

The list unspooled, page after page, a detailed and damning chronicle of his neglect. Blake felt a prickle of annoyance, not of guilt. He saw it not as a record of his failures, but as evidence of Caroline's fixation on his friendship with Ariana Whitfield. Ariana was his first love, the girl who had left a void in him years ago, a space he had never quite managed to fill.

Caroline knew that. He had married Caroline on the rebound, a convenient, stable choice from a good family, a person who could manage the Santos household while he focused on his career and, if he was honest, nursed the old wound in his chest.

He shut the notebook, the mild annoyance curdling into a familiar, protective disinterest. He tossed it back into the box. A ridiculous list. It meant nothing. He found his cufflinks and shut the closet door, the journal already dissolving from his thoughts. He had more pressing matters to consider. A custom-made necklace for Ariana was nestled in his briefcase. Her art gallery was having its grand opening, and he needed to be there.

He walked into the living room. Caroline was on the couch, sketching on a large pad, her brow furrowed in concentration. She looked up as he entered, a hopeful light in her eyes he had long since ceased to register.

"You're home early," she said, her voice soft.

"I have to go out again soon," he replied, loosening his tie. "Ariana's gallery opening."

The light in her eyes seemed to retract, pulling back into itself. "Oh. Right."

He saw the notebook on the coffee table, a different one, one of her sketchbooks. He glanced at an open page. It was a drawing of a nursery, rendered in painstaking detail and suffused with a soft, imaginary light. A crib, a mobile of tiny silver stars, a rocking chair. He felt a brief, unidentifiable pressure behind his sternum, a sensation he could not name and did not care to inspect. They had been trying for a child for over a year.

"Is that for a client?" he asked, his voice flat.

Caroline quickly closed the sketchbook. "Just an idea."

He didn't press. His mind was on Ariana. He looked at the clock. He should leave soon. He wanted to be the first one there, to see her face when she saw the necklace.

He stood there, a silent wall between them, when his phone rang. It was his best friend, Mark.

"Blake! Turn on the news! Now!" Mark's voice was strained, urgent.

Blake grabbed the remote and switched on the television. A live news report filled the screen. A building was engulfed in flames. Thick gouts of black smoke coiled into the night sky. The reporter's voice was clipped with urgency.

"Firefighters are on the scene at the new Whitfield Gallery downtown, where a massive fire broke out just an hour before its scheduled grand opening..."

A chill traced a path down his spinal column, causing the fine hairs on his forearms to prickle against the fabric of his shirt.

Ariana.

The reporter's voice, the distant city traffic, the very hum of the refrigerator-all of it receded, replaced by the frantic, hammering pulse in his own ears. He grabbed his keys, his coat, and bolted for the door without a word to Caroline. He didn't look back. He didn't see the look of utter devastation that settled on her face as she watched him go.

Caroline followed him. She didn't know why. Some desperate, foolish part of her needed to witness the finality of it. She drove through the city, her hands locked on the steering wheel, her heart beating a sick, unsteady rhythm against her ribs.

When she arrived, the scene was chaos. Police barricades, the strobing glare of emergency lights, the guttural roar of the fire. Blake had abandoned his car and was arguing with a firefighter, his face a mask of raw panic.

"She's in there! I have to get her!" Blake yelled, trying to push past the man.

"Sir, it's too dangerous! The structure is unstable!" the firefighter shouted back.

"I don't care! She's trapped!"

Mark was there, trying to restrain him. "Blake, calm down! They'll get her!"

"They're not fast enough!" Blake's voice was ragged with a desperation Caroline had never heard from him. Not for her. Never for her. He stared at the burning edifice as if it were a reliquary containing the only sacred thing he knew. In that moment, Caroline knew it did.

He shoved Mark away and made a run for the entrance.

"My hands!" he screamed at the firefighter who grabbed his arm. "Do you know who I am? I'm Blake Santos! These hands are insured for millions! They perform miracles! But I would trade them, I would trade my entire career, just to know she's safe! Let me go!"

It was a declaration. A confession. A truth so brutal it felt like a physical blow.

Mark saw Caroline then, standing in the shadows, her face ashen. He looked horrified.

"Caroline... I..."

She heard Mark's wife, Sarah, whisper to him, "God, Mark, he's been fixated on Ariana since they were in school. I thought marrying Caroline might cure him of it, but it seems only to have made it worse."

Sarah's words were the confirmation. It wasn't just neglect. It was a love story in which she had no role. She was an obstacle. An afterthought.

For three years, she had tried. She had loved him with all she possessed, hoping that one day he would see her. She had decorated their home, managed his social calendar, comforted him after long surgeries, and endured his family's cold scrutiny. She had believed her love could eventually mend his old wounds, that it could be enough.

It was a lie she had told herself. The truth had been there all along, in every missed anniversary, every canceled plan, every time he looked through her as if she were made of glass.

The 100-point plan was not a game. It was an instrument of measure, a cold calculus she had devised to quantify the slow, seeping hemorrhage of her own devotion. It was a way to give herself a finish line, an escape from a marriage that was hollowing her out. And tonight, watching him ready to immolate himself for another woman, she felt a massive portion of those points turn to dust.

A cheer went up from the crowd. Blake emerged from the smoke, carrying Ariana in his arms. She was conscious, coughing, but otherwise seemed unharmed. He held her as if she were an object of irreplaceable value, his face buried in her hair. He carried her to the ambulance, whispering things only she could hear.

He never once looked for Caroline.

After ensuring Ariana was safely with the paramedics, Blake's body finally surrendered. The adrenaline receded, and he collapsed to the ground, unconscious from smoke inhalation.

In the sterile white waiting room of the hospital, the smell of antiseptic sharp in her nose, Caroline's mind drifted back. She remembered the charity gala where she first met him. He was the most brilliant, captivating man she had ever seen. A star neurosurgeon from the powerful Santos family. She, a promising young architect, had been bold. She had pursued him.

He had been grieving Ariana's marriage to another man. She knew that. But when he proposed six months later, she thought she had won. She thought her devotion had finally breached his reserve.

That illusion did not shatter; it slowly dissolved. It began a year into their marriage when, at a party, she heard a friend of Blake's, his words lubricated by liquor, explain the truth to a guest. "Blake only married her because Ariana got married. He needed a distraction, a wife to satisfy his family. Poor girl thinks he actually loves her." Each syllable was a nail, pinning the delicate tapestry of her marriage to a board marked 'Convenience'. The images of their life together did not break; they simply warped, twisting into something grotesque and unrecognizable.

That was the day Ariana became a thorn in her heart, a constant, painful presence in her marriage. It was the day she went out and bought the plain black journal. It was her last act of self-preservation. A way to measure the pain until it became unbearable.

Ariana's return to Boston after her own divorce a year ago had accelerated everything. The points on her list disappeared with terrifying speed. Her heart, once full of hope, had become a cold, heavy thing in her chest.

A doctor approached her, pulling her from her thoughts. "Mrs. Santos? Your husband is stable. He inhaled a great deal of smoke, but he will be fine. Miss Whitfield is also fine, just a few scratches."

Mark and Sarah came over, their faces etched with pity. "Caroline, he'll come to his senses," Sarah said, placing a hand on her arm. "The Santos family will make sure he treats you right."

Caroline just looked at them, a bitter taste in her mouth. She stood up and walked out of the waiting room, leaving them behind.

Back home, in the silent, empty house, she walked to the closet and took out the black journal. She opened it to the last entry.

-5 Points: He ran into a burning building for her.

-10 Points: He said he would give up his career for her.

She uncapped her pen; the nib pressed a minute, perfect dot of ink onto the page. She did not write immediately, but felt the cool weight of the barrel against her knuckles, which had gone white from the tension of her grip.

-10 Points: He collapsed after saving her, and his first and last thought was of her, not me.

She did the math. Only a few points left. Very few. The end was near.