Chapter 3

Elara POV

The DARPA facility was my sanctuary. With its fluorescent lighting, beige carpet squares, and the constant hum of the server rooms, it was a world completely devoid of the suffocating, territorial scents of the Pack. Here, I wasn't a broken Luna or a wolfless Omega. I was just a data analyst.

I shifted the loose bandage on my right hand, the movement sending a dull throb through my burned knuckles. The blistered skin snagged against the rough fabric of my sleeve with every small motion-a constant, aching reminder of the morning's humiliation. I had wrapped it myself before leaving the house, hiding the red, weeping flesh beneath layers of gauze.

I dropped my worn canvas tote bag next to my desk with my left hand, but before I could sit, Chloe popped her head over my cubicle wall. She was a young she-wolf from accounting, always eager for high-society gossip.

"Ooh, is that Hermes?" Chloe asked, her eyes locking onto the bright orange corner peeking out of my bag. Before I could stop her, she pulled the box out and flipped it open. "A silk scarf? Oh, Elara."

I watched her, saying nothing. She was only stating facts I had already uncovered that morning. But hearing the words spoken aloud-spoken by someone who assumed I was simply a clueless Omega receiving a generous gift-turned my cold fury into something sharper.

"I know what it is," I said, my voice flat.

"It's purchase-with-purchase trash," Chloe whispered anyway, a mix of pity and secondhand thrill in her voice. She clearly believed she was delivering news I hadn't yet pieced together. "You only buy these useless add-ons to build enough purchase history for the real prize. A silver-free Birkin. Some lucky Luna or Alpha's pet is getting the ultimate status symbol, and whoever bought it dumped the leftover requirement on you."

Each word was a confirmation, not a revelation. I had spent the drive to work mentally reviewing the forum posts, the transaction patterns, the cold arithmetic of Adrian's betrayal. Chloe's gossip changed nothing-it only stripped away the last thin layer of denial I hadn't known I was still wearing.

"I see," I said quietly.

Before I could process the sheer magnitude of the insult any further, the air in the open-plan office shifted. The sterile scent of filtered air was violently overpowered by a sickeningly familiar aroma-tuberose and champagne.

The crowd of office workers parted instinctively, yielding to the aura of wealth and Alpha-adjacent power. Seraphina strolled down the aisle. She was supposed to arrive next week-Adrian had said so himself-but here she was, a day early, representing her family's tech firm for a project consultation. And there, resting on her forearm, was the pristine, custom silver-free Birkin.

She stopped directly at my cubicle. Her eyes dripped with condescension as she looked at the corrupted spreadsheet on my monitor.

"It's so important to have... Omegas... for these foundational tasks," Seraphina purred, making sure the word 'Omega' sounded like a terminal disease. "So tedious, but necessary."

I didn't look up at her. I kept my burned hand hidden beneath the desk, the pain grounding me, keeping my voice steady. "The foundation is everything," I replied. "Without it, even the highest towers crumble."

Seraphina's smug smile faltered. She shifted uncomfortably, her instincts warring with her arrogance as she sensed an invisible, chilling weight in my tone. Unable to assert dominance over a woman who refused to cower, she cleared her throat and loudly announced to the floor manager that she was heading to the boardroom.

I watched her walk toward the conference wing, her Birkin swaying from her arm. She disappeared through the doors, and I returned my attention to my screen.

Twenty minutes passed. Then thirty. I buried myself in spreadsheets, forcing my mind to focus on numbers instead of the slow, simmering rage in my chest.

Then I saw her again.

Seraphina emerged from the conference wing, her phone pressed to her ear. She walked past the cubicles with quick, purposeful steps, heading not toward the exit but toward the elevators that led to the parking garage. Her voice was too low for me to hear the words, but her tone was intimate-soft, almost playful.

She didn't look back.

The glass doors of the elevator slid shut behind her, and she was gone.

A cold certainty settled over me.

I pulled my phone from my pocket with my left hand, my right too stiff to grip properly. I opened the Pack security tracking app-a digital leash Adrian had forced me to install under the guise of 'protection.'

A blinking blue dot showed Adrian's location. He was parked near a five-star hotel in a neutral territory, a place famous for its absolute discretion.

I refreshed the map. The blue dot hadn't moved.

Then another dot appeared-faint, unauthorized, but unmistakably Seraphina's personal vehicle tag. It was moving toward the same hotel.

I watched both dots converge.

The betrayal was complete. It wasn't a theory or a suspicion anymore. Adrian had lied about her arrival date so she could slip into the city unnoticed. She had come to my office to gloat, to leave her scent on my territory, and then she had walked out to meet him at a hotel.

He was with her. Right now.

I watched the screen for three seconds before Adrian's blue dot abruptly vanished. Location services disabled.

A deliberate choice. He didn't want to be tracked while he was with her.

The hotel, the disabled tracker, her early arrival, her smug face in my cubicle-the pieces locked together like a mechanism designed to break me.

I slipped the phone back into my pocket and looked at the clock on my monitor. Five hours until my shift ended. Tonight, I would go to that hotel and see his lies with my own eyes.