Chapter 3

Kaelen POV

Hours after condemning myself to a loveless union, I stood before the floor-length mirror in my private suite, adjusting the cuffs of my custom tailored suit. I looked like the powerful Alpha of the Black Moon Pack, but inside I felt like a hollowed out corpse.

Traitor! My inner wolf Draegan roared, his claws tearing at the edges of my consciousness. You commit a greater sin to atone for a mistake!

I gripped the edge of the mahogany vanity, my knuckles whitening. Before I could force Draegan into submission, the door clicked open. Cassondra swept into the room, her lavish gown rustling. Her suffocating, artificially floral perfume assaulted my senses, a pathetic attempt to mask her painfully mediocre wolf scent.

"The florist says winter roses will be perfect for the ceremony," she gushed, her eyes gleaming greedily as she admired my reflection. "Everyone at the gala tonight will know I am your future Luna."

My jaw tightened. I felt nothing at her joy. It disgusted me.

Alpha, the car is ready, an elder's voice echoed in my mind through the mind-link.

"We are leaving," I interrupted Cassondra, my voice like a cold blade. Without waiting for her response, I strode out of the room, leaving her to chase my shadow.

The ride to the Moon's Embrace Charity Gala in the armored SUV was suffocatingly tense. I kept my eyes closed, focusing on the rhythmic hum of the tires to block out Draegan's restless pacing in my mind.

"I cannot believe this year's guest list," my sister Vanessa sneered from the seat across from me. She swirled a glass of sparkling water, her lips twisting into a malicious smirk. "Imagine if that filthy Omega were still here. She would not even be worthy of shining shoes tonight. I bet she is cowering in some rogue infested slum right now, clutching that little bastard."

The words "Omega" and "bastard" drove into my chest like silver daggers.

My eyes snapped open. The temperature inside the SUV plummeted as my Alpha aura expanded violently, crushing the oxygen in the enclosed space. Vanessa gasped, her glass trembling as she shrank back against the leather seat, her eyes widening with sudden terror.

I did not defend Seraphina. My pride and the lies I had swallowed would not allow it. But the deadly promise in my gaze forced Vanessa to shut her mouth. I turned my head to stare out the tinted window, my stomach churning with a nauseating mixture of guilt, primal possessiveness, and a twisted anticipation of seeing Seraphina crumble, just to prove I had not destroyed my soul for nothing.

When we arrived at the gala, the paparazzi's flash bulbs blinded us. Cassondra immediately hooked her arm through mine, strategically angling her wrist to flaunt the heavy moonstone bracelet, the traditional symbol of my Pack's future Luna. She whispered trivial gossip in my ear, but I tuned her out completely.

She was a silent accessory. My senses stretched wide, cutting through the expensive champagne and the thick scents of high society wolves. But I had not come here tonight seeking an ally. My son Liam had less than a month left. The Silverwood Pack possessed an ancient healing secret, my last hope. Dominic Rhodes was the man I needed to convince. I wanted nothing else.

My thoughts drifted briefly to the surname. Rhodes. A common name, not uncommon in this circle. I had no reason to connect it to the Omega I had rejected five years ago. She was just an orphan with no family background, a pawn my mother had forced into the ceremony. I had never bothered to learn her full name. Seraphina was just Seraphina, an insignificant Omega, nothing more.

I shook off the thought and stepped into the magnificent Golden Ball. Crystal chandeliers cast warm starlight over the sea of elites. I endured another twenty minutes of Cassondra's clinginess until the Master of Ceremonies approached the grand microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Alpha of the Silverwood Pack, Sir Dominic Rhodes!"

I turned immediately toward the grand staircase, squaring my posture.

Then my entire world stopped spinning.

The air vanished from my lungs. A scent pierced through the crowded ballroom, devastatingly familiar and intoxicating, the mixed fragrance of honeysuckle after rain and pure moonlight. It slammed into my chest, a violent electric shock that traveled straight to my marrow. My heart pounded against my ribs, and the open, bleeding void in my soul suddenly screamed for the only thing that could fill it.

*Mine! *Draegan roared, the sound deafening, nearly driving me to my knees.

Walking down the stairs was Seraphina, her hand elegantly resting on a man's arm.

She was not rotting in a slum. She had not crumbled. She was draped in a gown woven like silver thread, her dark curls cascading over her shoulders, her skin radiating an ethereal, untouchable power. She looked like a goddess.

My gaze shifted to the broad shouldered man beside her. His face was the exact match to the photograph Vanessa had thrown onto her lap five years ago. The deep scent of cedar and earth finally registered in my consciousness, the scent of Dominic Rhodes. The man I had believed she chose to betray me. The man I had traveled thousands of miles to beg from to save my son.

Rhodes.

Seraphina Rhodes.

The name finally detonated in my mind like a slap to the face.

I should have known. Five years ago, I had personally presided over the ceremony rejecting her. I had looked at that photograph with my own eyes. I had smelled that man's scent. Yet in the five years since, I had never connected the Alpha of the Silverwood Pack to the man in the photograph. I had never investigated his background. I had never cross checked his appearance. I had arrived desperate, blundering into tonight's gala like a blind man.

The Moon Goddess must be laughing at me, Draegan growled in my mind, his voice dripping with sarcasm. You rejected her with your own hands, and now you crawl to beg for her mate's help. And you were not even smart enough to see it coming.

And now she stood beside him, radiating a noble elegance that shattered every lie I had ever believed