Chapter 3

Elara Vance's POV:

My question hung in the air, a direct challenge. Seraphina's lips parted, a sharp retort ready on her tongue, but a voice cut through the tension before she could speak. A voice I knew better than my own.

"Elara! What in the hell are you doing here?"

Ryker Stone pushed his way through the crowd of onlookers. He was still in his training gear, his muscles slick with sweat, radiating an aura of raw, masculine power. He looked every bit the formidable warrior he was.

His eyes, however, never once met mine. He strode directly to Seraphina, pulling her behind him in a possessive, protective gesture that sent a shard of ice through my heart.

"Darling, don't worry," he murmured to her, his voice a soft caress. "This is just a misunderstanding."

Then he turned to me, and his face was a mask of cold fury. "I'm ordering you to leave my property. Now."

A bitter, painful laugh escaped my lips. "Your property? Ryker, have you forgotten where our home is? It's in the Silvermoon Forest."

A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. Seraphina's face paled, her hand tightening on Ryker's arm. "Ryker," she whispered, her voice tight with suspicion, "her neck... there's a mark."

Every eye was on him. This was the moment of truth. The moment he would either honor our bond or shatter it completely.

He took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his face was a carefully constructed canvas of sorrow and weary resignation. It was a performance, and he was playing the lead role.

"Yes," he announced, his voice ringing with false sincerity for the entire crowd to hear. "There is a mark. But it was a lie. A kind lie."

I stared at him, my mind refusing to process the words. Leo, standing beside me, stiffened in confusion.

Ryker began to weave his tale, his voice thick with manufactured pain. "Months ago, my mother was on her deathbed. Her last wish was to see me find my fated mate, to see me complete the bond before she passed."

He gestured toward me, not as his mate, but as an object, an exhibit. "Elara was a caregiver who looked after my mother in her final days. To grant my mother's dying wish, to let her pass in peace, I begged Elara to help me. To stage a fake marking ceremony."

The crowd erupted in murmurs. It was an outrageous story, but it was also... believable. A devoted son, desperate to comfort his dying mother. It was a narrative that pulled at the heartstrings.

I was too stunned to speak. He was using his dead mother. He was defiling her memory to cover his own treachery.

*Liar! Blasphemer!* Lyra howled in my head, a storm of pure rage. *He insults the Goddess and his mother's spirit!*

Ryker pressed on, his eyes, when they finally met mine, filled with a look of profound disappointment. "I paid you well for your help, Elara. I thought we had an agreement. It was just an act for a dying woman. I never imagined you would take that false mark and come here to extort me."

In a few short sentences, he had recast the entire story. He was no longer the villain; he was the tragic, noble son. And I was the greedy, conniving Omega, a lowlife trying to blackmail her way into a better life.

The tide of public opinion turned in an instant. The whispers of scandal became murmurs of disgust, all directed at me.

"So she's just a gold-digger."

"That's sick. Using a dying woman like that."

Seraphina relaxed against him, looking up at Ryker with eyes full of sympathy and adoration. "Oh, you poor thing," her expression seemed to say. "You've suffered so much."

I was shaking, not from fear, but from an anger so pure and hot it threatened to consume me.

"You're lying!" My voice was a ragged tear in the fabric of his deception. "Our bond was sealed under the full moon! Our whole pack witnessed it! The Goddess was our witness!"

Ryker just shook his head with a condescending sigh. "You see?" he said to the crowd. "She's still keeping up the act. I suppose the money I gave her wasn't enough."

He turned to Leo, his tone now firm and authoritative. "Leo, this is a private matter. I need you to remove this trespasser. She has no right to be here."

Leo was caught. He was the King's man, but Ryker's story, however vile, was seamless on the surface. He had no immediate proof to the contrary.

Believing he had won, Ryker took Seraphina's hand, ready to lead her into the house, away from the sordid mess he had created. He threw one last look over his shoulder at me, his eyes filled with contempt.

"I'll give you one last chance. Take the money you were given and get the hell out of here."