Chapter 4

Elara Vance's POV:

He pulled out of me, leaving a cold void where a moment before there had been brutal, searing friction. The air in the room was thick with the scent of sex and sweat, but the atmosphere was as frigid as a tomb. I lay still, a broken doll with vacant eyes fixed on the cracked ceiling. The new mark on my neck throbbed with a dull, constant ache, a pale imitation of the agony in my chest.

My inner wolf, finally sated, purred with a sick kind of contentment, while my human consciousness screamed. It was a horrifying duality.

During the worst of it, in the throes of his angry climax, he had leaned close, his voice a ragged, desperate whisper against my ear. He had called out a name.

It wasn't mine.

It was Nora's.

The memory was a poisoned blade, twisting in the fresh wound of my heart.

Ryker rose from the bed, his back to me, and began fumbling for his discarded clothes with jerky, irritated movements. As he turned, his gaze snagged on the bedsheet.

A dark, crimson stain bloomed on the pale fabric.

He froze. The drunken haze in his eyes seemed to evaporate, replaced by a sharp, focused disbelief. He knew what it meant.

A wave of shame washed over me, and I instinctively reached for the torn remnants of the blanket to cover the evidence of my stolen innocence.

His expression twisted. It wasn't guilt that I saw in his eyes. It wasn't even pity. It was a new, more venomous strain of suspicion.

A cold, dead laugh escaped his lips, shattering the silence. "Well played," he said, his voice dripping with acid. "A truly masterful performance."

I stared at him, my mind unable to process his words. What did he mean?

"All this effort, just to convince me of your 'purity'?" He gestured to the bloodstain with a contemptuous flick of his wrist. "Where did you get it? A vial of chicken blood? You really thought a cheap trick like that would work on me?"

The world tilted. He thought... he thought I had faked it.

The sheer, soul-crushing absurdity of it all was so immense I couldn't even form a response. I wanted to laugh, to scream, to claw his eyes out, but I had no strength left.

"Did you think this would make me feel guilty?" he sneered, stepping closer to the bed to loom over me. "That I'd feel some shred of pity for you? You're dreaming, Elara. This just proves how truly disgusting you are."

He had taken my virginity, my mark, and now he was taking the very proof of it and turning it into another weapon to use against me.

My head turned slowly on the pillow until my deadened eyes met his. I said nothing. The silence, the utter lifelessness in my gaze, seemed to unnerve him. I saw a flicker of something-annoyance, discomfort-in his eyes before he looked away, unable to hold my stare.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and extracted a few hundred-dollar bills. He tossed them onto the nightstand beside my head.

"Here," he spat, the act a final, searing humiliation. "Payment for your little show."

My eyes drifted from the money to his face, and the corner of my mouth lifted in a broken, tragic smile. The expression seemed to enrage him further. He turned and strode from the room without another word, slamming the door as if fleeing the scene of a crime.

The moment he was gone, I closed my eyes. A single, hot tear escaped, tracing a path of silent sorrow into my hair.