Chapter 2

Lyra's POV

I press myself closer to the wall, my palms sweating against the stone. Through the crack in the door, I can see Jeffrey pacing back and forth like a caged animal while Kai sits behind his desk.

"You really think this is the right time?" Jeffrey continues.

The right time for what? My breathing gets shallow and I have to concentrate on staying quiet. My brain scrambles for explanations that don't terrify me. Maybe it's some pack member I somehow forgot about, though that seems impossible. Maybe it's some diplomatic thing I don't understand, some political arrangement between packs. But then why would Jeffrey look so worried? Why would he mention humiliation?

"I know how it looks," Kai's voice sounds strained, "But I can't keep hiding this anymore."

Hiding. The word drops into my stomach like a stone. Whatever this is, he's been deliberately keeping it from me. And from the way Jeffrey's jaw is clenched, it's not some minor pack business either. This is big.

My mouth goes dry. What could Kai possibly be hiding that would involve someone named Sera?

"Kai, you've been sneaking around for a year. A whole fucking year! And now you want to drop this bomb on Lyra in front of the entire pack?"

A year. The words keep bouncing around in my head, and I'm frantically trying to remember what went down a year ago around this time. Wait, wasn't that when he went to that Red Stone pack thing? Kai came home different that night. Started blocking our mind-link more often, said he needed space to handle Alpha training stress. Started coming home late with vague explanations about pack meetings that I was never invited to.

Jesus Christ. What the fuck actually happened at that gathering?

I move closer to the door even though every instinct screams at me to run. But I need to know. I need to understand what's been happening to my life while I was busy planning flower arrangements and seating charts.

"She's my fated mate, Jeffrey." Kai said. "That kind of feeling... you don't understand. When I met her that night, everything changed. The moment I saw her across that bonfire, my wolf went absolutely insane."

Fated mate.

The words don't compute. Kai has a fated mate. Not me. Someone named Sera.

I stare at the crack in the door, my vision getting blurry around the edges. This isn't real. This can't be real. Kai is mine. I'm his. We've been together for four years. We have matching marks. We have a ceremony planned in five days. We have a whole future mapped out.

But he has a fated mate. Some random woman he met at a party while I was at home, probably working on strategy reports for his dad. While I was being the perfect girlfriend, the perfect future Luna, he was meeting his fated mate and falling in love with someone else.

"You claimed Lyra when she was eighteen," Jeffrey says, and there's something like desperation in his voice. "She's been waiting four years for you to become Alpha so you two could be together properly. She turned down job offers from five different packs because she wanted to stay here with you. How do you think she's gonna react to this?"

Four years of my life. Four years of believing I was building something real with him. Four years of choosing him over everything else, over career opportunities that could have made me rich and famous, over the chance to see the world beyond this pack's borders. I stayed here because I loved him. Because I thought he loved me back the same way.

My chest feels like someone's sitting on it and I can't get enough air. I could have had my own life, my own identity that wasn't tied to being Kai's future mate. But I stayed because I thought we were true mates even without the fated bond.

"I know!" Kai slams his hand on the desk. "You think I don't know how fucked up this is? But I can't reject Sera. My wolf won't let me. Every time I try to stay away from her, it feels like I'm dying."

He can't reject her. But he can lie to me every single day. He can use me while he's with someone else.

"And the pregnancy?" Jeffrey asks quietly.

Everything stops.

Pregnancy? I grip the wall so I don't fall over.

I remember three months ago when I mentioned wanting kids someday. Kai kissed my forehead so sweetly.

"Lyra, we're still young, no rush. I want to give you everything, including our pup, but the pack is growing right now. We might neglect our little pup."

He was already sleeping with her. Already getting her pregnant. Every word was bullshit.

"This sharing arrangement you're proposing," Jeffrey continues, "letting two women share one man? This is gonna cause problems."

Sharing. I want to throw up.

"As an Alpha, I have that right," Kai says coldly. "Lyra is my chosen mate, but Sera is my fated mate. I'm not rejecting either of them."

I'm just a problem he needs to solve. Not even worth his guilt.

"Lyra's been by your side through everything," Jeffrey sounds pissed. "When your mom died, when you were learning Alpha stuff, when we had those territory issues. She came up with the strategies that saved our asses."

"And you want to embarrass her by announcing your fated mate is pregnant at what's supposed to be her Luna ceremony?"

He's going to destroy me publicly. In front of everyone. Every pack leader who's tried to hire me, every pack member who thinks we're some perfect love story.

"It's not just her ceremony," Kai snaps. "I'm becoming Alpha. And Sera deserves recognition too."

Sera deserves recognition. After hiding for a year, now she deserves to be acknowledged. But my four years of loyalty don't matter.

"I can't keep lying to her," Kai says, sounding tired. "She keeps asking why I'm distant. Why I won't let her into the mind-link anymore. I hate seeing her confused and hurt."

He hates seeing me hurt. Just not enough to stop hurting me. Not enough to tell me the truth.

Every memory feels different now. Every time he blocked the mind-link. Every late night "meeting." Every time he said I was imagining his distance. I wasn't imagining shit.

"So your solution is to announce it publicly? During the ceremony?"

"It's the most efficient way. Everyone will be there. I'll introduce Sera as my fated mate, announce the pregnancy, and explain the new arrangement."

"And if Lyra refuses?" Jeffrey asks.

"She won't. She loves me too much to leave. And where would she go? This pack is her home. Her family is buried here. She has nowhere else."

There it is. He knows exactly how trapped I am. Knows I'm an orphan with no family, no other home. He's counting on it.

"I'll never let anything hurt you," he promised when he marked me. "You'll always be safe with me."

What a joke. He's the one hurting me.

I step back, then again. My legs shake but they work. I walk away from his office, away from the truth that just killed everything I thought I knew.

By the time I reach the end of the hallway, my hands aren't shaking anymore.

I bite my lip until I taste blood. I'm gonna investigate every damn thing that's happened this year. I'm done being lied to and played like an idiot.