Chapter 3

SERAPHINA'S POV:

As the gala ended and guests began to leave, Orion, the little monster, ran up to me. He smiled a sickeningly sweet smile and then, deliberately, sank his sharp little cub teeth into my arm.

Pain, white-hot and sharp, shot up to my shoulder. I cried out, instinctively shoving him away. He stumbled backward and fell to the floor, his face immediately crumpling into a mask of theatrical tears.

"She pushed me!" he wailed.

Lila rushed to his side, scooping him up. "My poor baby!" she cried, glaring at me. "How could you? Just because you're jealous, you take it out on an innocent child!"

Damien strode over, his face dark as a thundercloud. He didn't even look at the bite mark on my arm. He looked at the crying boy in Lila's arms.

"That is enough, Seraphina," he said, and the air crackled with the power of his Alpha's Command. I felt my muscles lock, my jaw clench. "You will establish a mother-cub link with Orion. Now. You will accept him."

He turned his back on me, comforting Lila and his son, and walked away, leaving me standing there, shaking with rage and humiliation.

Later that night, the manor was quiet. Damien was gone. I knew where. He was at the other manor, the secret one. I didn't need to see him to know. I could feel it through the mate bond, a constant, sickening thrum of his pleasure with her. The heart-rate monitor in the cuff I'd given him years ago, a gift of love, now served as a tool of my torture, confirming his every betrayal.

I was alone in this vast, empty house with the boy.

Orion was a demon. He screamed and cried, refusing to sleep. He ran into my room, my sanctuary, and began destroying it. He tore my books, smashed my perfumes, and smeared mud on my white bedsheets.

"My mommy is the Alpha's real woman!" he shrieked, his face twisted with a malice that was terrifying in a child so young. "You're just a sad old wolf he doesn't want! You're why my brother Zayn is dead!"

His words were poison. I sank to the floor, my energy gone, my spirit crushed.

The next morning, the door to my room was thrown open. Damien's mother, the former Luna, stormed in. Her face was a mask of cold fury.

"Get up," she spat, grabbing my arm and hauling me roughly to my feet. "The boy has a fever. It's your fault."

She dragged me down the hall to Orion's room. He was in bed, whimpering, his face flushed. Lila was there, dabbing his forehead with a cool cloth, looking every bit the worried mother.

The moment Orion saw me, he recoiled in pretend terror. "Don't let her touch me!" he screamed. "She's the one who made me sick! She made me take a bath in ice water last night!"

"What?" Damien's mother gasped.

Lila's eyes filled with tears as she pulled back the boy's blanket. His legs were covered in angry red welts and blisters. "He told me she held him under the cold water," she sobbed. "Punishing him for being born."

I knew it was a lie. The welts were from a specific herb, one known to cause skin reactions that mimic burns or frostbite. It was a performance, and they were all playing their parts perfectly.

Damien, who must have returned at dawn, stood in the doorway. He looked from the "evidence" on Orion's legs to my face. His eyes were filled with a chilling, absolute disappointment.

He didn't ask. He didn't question. He just believed them.

"You have become a monster, Seraphina," he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Guards."

Two pack warriors appeared at his side.

"Take her to the reservoir," he commanded. "To the old pump house. Lock her in. Maybe some time with the water will remind her of the consequences of her cruelty."

My heart stopped. The reservoir. The place where Zayn had drowned. My deepest, darkest place of trauma. He was sending me to my own personal hell.