Chapter 1 The scent of betrayal

"Jude? Baby, are you home?"

I pushed open the door to our cabin, my arms full of groceries. The smell hit me first. Not just Jude's scent, the one that usually made my wolf purr with contentment. No, this was different. This was wrong.

There was another scent mixed with his. Sweet. Familiar. Sickeningly familiar.

My wolf stirred inside me, uneasy.

"Jude?" I called again, my voice shakier now.

I dropped the grocery bags on the kitchen counter. Apples rolled across the floor. I didn't care. My feet were already moving, carrying me toward our bedroom. Each step felt heavy, like walking through mud. My heart hammered against my ribs.

Please, Moon Goddess, please let me be wrong.

The bedroom door was slightly open. I could hear sounds now. My hand trembled as I reached for the handle.

"Don't," my wolf whispered in my mind. "Don't look. We already know."

But I had to see it. I had to know for sure.

I pushed the door open.

The world stopped.

Jude was in our bed. Our bed. The one we'd shared for two years since the mate bond snapped into place on my eighteenth birthday. But he wasn't alone.

Lucy. My twin sister. Her dark hair spread across my pillow. Her body tangled with his.

"Hailey!" Lucy shrieked, grabbing the sheets.

Jude's head snapped toward me. His green eyes went wide, but I saw no guilt there. No shame. Just... annoyance?

"This isn't what it looks like," he said, climbing out of bed without even bothering to cover himself.

A laugh bubbled up from my throat. It sounded wrong. Broken.

"Really, Jude? Really? Because it looks like you're fucking my sister in our bed!"

The mate bond that had once felt like warm honey in my veins now burned like acid. I could feel it starting to crack, to splinter. My wolf howled inside me, a sound of pure agony.

Lucy wrapped the sheet around herself and stood up. She didn't look sorry. She looked defiant.

"I'm sorry you had to find out this way," she said, her voice steady. Too steady.

"Find out WHAT way?" I screamed. "That my mate is cheating on me with my own twin sister? How long? How long has this been going on?"

Jude ran his hand through his dark hair. "Hailey, calm down-"

"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!"

My wolf was clawing at my insides, desperate to get out. I could feel my eyes shifting, glowing with her anger. My fingernails lengthened into claws.

"Six months," Lucy said quietly.

The room tilted. Six months? Six whole months?

"Six months," I repeated, my voice hollow. "You've been sleeping with my mate for six months?"

"We didn't mean for it to happen," Jude said, taking a step toward me. "It just... did."

"It just did?" I backed away from him. The mate bond was screaming now, tearing itself apart. The pain was unbearable. "Nothing just happens, Jude! You made a choice! You both made a choice!"

"Hailey, please," Lucy started, but I held up my hand.

"Don't. Don't you dare say another word to me."

I looked at Jude. This man I'd loved since I was eighteen. This man I'd given everything to. The man the Moon Goddess herself had chosen for me.

"I, Hailey Moreno, reject you, Jude Castellan, as my mate."

The words left my mouth like knives. The moment they were spoken, the bond snapped completely. It felt like someone had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart. I collapsed to my knees, gasping. My wolf was howling, screaming, dying inside me.

Jude stumbled backward, clutching his chest. Good. I hoped it hurt him as much as it hurt me.

"Hailey, wait-" he gasped.

"I accept your rejection," he finally choked out.

The bond dissolved completely. The emptiness left behind was worse than the pain. I felt hollow. Broken. Like half of my soul had been ripped away.

I forced myself to stand, even though my legs shook. I wouldn't let them see me fall apart. Not completely.

"I want you out," I said to Jude, my voice cold. "This is my cabin. My parents left it to me. Get your things and get out."

"Hailey-" Lucy started.

"And you," I turned to my sister, "you're dead to me. Do you understand? You don't exist anymore."

Lucy's face crumpled, but I felt nothing. The pain of the broken bond was too overwhelming for anything else to register.

I turned and walked out of the bedroom, out of the cabin, into the night. I shifted mid-stride, my clothes tearing away. My white wolf burst forth, and I ran.

I ran until my paws bled.

I ran until I couldn't breathe.

I ran until the pain became something I could almost bear.

When I finally stopped, I was at the edge of our pack territory. The Blood Moon Pack. The pack I'd been born into. The pack where everyone would soon know what had happened. Small towns-even werewolf ones-didn't keep secrets.

I shifted back to human form, naked and shivering in the cold night air. Tears streamed down my face, hot against my cold skin.

"Why?" I whispered to the moon. "Why would you give me a mate who would do this?"

The moon offered no answers. It never did.

My wolf stirred weakly inside me. She was hurt, damaged by the broken bond. But underneath the pain, I could feel something else growing.

Rage.

Pure, burning rage.

"They will pay," my wolf growled. "They will both pay for what they've done to us."

"Yes," I agreed, wiping my tears away. "They will."

But how? What could I possibly do to make them feel even a fraction of the pain they'd caused me?

An idea began to form in my mind. A terrible, perfect idea.

Alpha Lucian. Jude's father.

The most powerful wolf in our pack. The man who'd been unmated for years, ever since his Luna had abandoned him and disappeared. The man every she-wolf in the pack whispered about, desired, feared.

If I wanted to hurt Jude, really hurt him, I knew exactly how to do it.

I would seduce his father.

A laugh escaped my lips, wild and unhinged. My wolf purred in approval.

"Oh yes," she whispered. "The Alpha. He will be ours. And when we're done, Jude will know what it feels like to lose everything."

I stood up, ignoring my nakedness, ignoring the cold. I lifted my face to the moon, feeling the rage and pain transform into something sharper. Something dangerous.

"I'm coming for you, Jude," I whispered to the night. "And when I'm done, you'll wish you'd never met me."