Chapter 7

Elara Vance POV:

I leaned against the wall, trying to even out my breathing. Through the thin door, I could hear the rustle of silk as Seraphina changed. The sound was an intimate violation.

Footsteps approached, and then his shadow fell over me. Ryker stood there, blocking the soft light of the boutique, trapping me in darkness.

"Elara," he said, his voice low and tight with a pain he couldn't hide. "We need to talk."

I didn't open my eyes. "I have nothing to say to you, Alpha." My voice was a sliver of ice.

That word, "Alpha," hit him like a physical blow. He reached for my arm.

My eyes snapped open and I scrambled back, evading his touch. "Don't touch me!" The words were quiet, but they were filled with a finality that stopped him cold.

At that moment, the fitting room door cracked open. "Ryker, darling?" Seraphina's voice was a sweet poison. "I need help with the zipper."

It was a command disguised as a request. A power play. She knew he was out here. She knew I was, too.

Ryker's jaw clenched. He looked from my defiant face to the partially open door, torn.

A bitter, mocking smile touched my lips. "Your fiancée is calling you."

He took a ragged breath and, with one last tormented look at me, he stepped into the fitting room. He didn't close the door all the way, leaving a narrow gap.

I could see them through the crack. Seraphina stood with her back to him, clad in the pristine white gown. His large, dark hands went to the delicate zipper at her back.

Her skin, her dress, now carried his scent. The combination was a powerful, olfactory claim of ownership. That scent drifted out of the room, a targeted assault on my senses, and something inside me snapped.

My wolf, dormant in its despair, erupted with a feral jealousy. A searing heat, the first warning sign of a she-wolf's Heat, flooded my veins. My own scent changed, the simple mint becoming thick and sweet, an involuntary mating call meant for him and him alone.

Inside the room, Ryker smelled it. He had to. That scent, designed by the Goddess to be his undoing, hit him like a lightning strike.

His wolf roared to life in his mind. I could almost hear it. *Mine! She is ours!*

He yanked the zipper up with a rough tug, muttered "It fits," and stalked out of the room. Before I could react, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me into an adjacent, empty fitting room.

The lock clicked shut behind us. The small, curtained space was instantly filled with the suffocating intensity of our combined scents.

His eyes had changed. The stormy grey was gone, replaced by a molten gold, the sign of his wolf breaking through his control. He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in harsh pants as he pinned me against the door. "What have you done to yourself?" he rasped.

"Let me go!" I struggled, but my body, weakened by the onset of the Heat, felt like jelly.

He buried his face in the curve of my neck, inhaling my scent like a drowning man gulping for air.

"Look at me, Elara," he growled, the full force of his Alpha's Command washing over me. "Tell me you want me."

My body trembled, on the verge of surrendering to the primal command. But then an image flashed in my mind: his hands on Seraphina's zipper. His silence in the car. His acceptance of her claim.

A strength I didn't know I possessed surged up from the depths of my soul. I lifted my head and stared directly into his blazing golden eyes.

My voice was clear, steady, and each word was a shard of glass. "I, Elara Vance, reject you. I will stand in the crowd and watch you and your Luna complete your union. And I will offer you my most sincere congratulations."

It wasn't the formal, ritual Rejection, but the intent behind the words was just as powerful. It felt like a physical tearing of the bond between us, a soul-deep agony that made us both gasp.

The gold in Ryker's eyes vanished, replaced by his human grey, now filled with shock and unbearable pain. He clutched his chest, stumbling back a step as if I had physically struck him.