Chapter 5
The next afternoon, I had an unexpected visitor.
It was Anna.
Gone was the arrogance she wore like armor during her battles with Freya. She stood at my door, a shadow of her former self—hair disheveled, makeup smudged, pride stripped clean. She looked like someone who had been dragged through hell and barely crawled back.
She had been cast out.
“Freya humiliated you,” Anna said, her voice hollow and raw. “Don’t you want revenge?”
I said nothing.
“I know you can’t shift. I know what it cost you just to sign that damn contract and stay by Alpha Lucas’s side. But once Freya becomes Luna? She’ll crush you, Elaine. She’ll make sure you disappear.”
She leaned in closer, eyes gleaming with desperate conviction. “I have proof. Someone recorded what she did to you by the Sacred Lake that night. The real her. All you have to do is speak up—one word, and she’s done for. The ‘pure, kind Luna candidate’ will be exposed for what she really is. A jealous, vicious little snake.”
Her laugh was brittle, unhinged. “Everyone worships her like she’s some kind of moonstone. But underneath that polished surface, she’s just a bitter, two-faced witch.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not like you, Anna.”
But I underestimated how far gone she was.
That night, the video was posted online. And not just the video.
She uploaded a photo, too.
The Omega in the picture had a delicate frame, her short hair neatly tucked behind her ears. One of her eyes was amber, the other a pale, haunting gray-blue—like day and night trapped in the same soul. She was looking up, a soft, grateful smile lighting her face as she gazed at the tall figure beside her.
That was me.
The photo was from two years ago, not long after my mother died. I’d been drowning in grief, lost in the silence of everything I’d ever known.
That night, Lucas had ordered someone to brew me a herbal tea, the kind that smelled faintly of moss—just like the one my mother used to make. We sat by the hot spring, steam rising in gentle tendrils.
I’d turned to him, heart heavy, voice quiet. “Thank you, Alpha Lucas.”
He gave me the smallest smile. “When it’s just us, Elaine, you can call me Lucas.”
Lucas.
I never got used to calling him that. It felt too intimate. Too dangerous.
Later, I learned Freya was the only one allowed to call him that.
“Elaine!”
His voice cracked through the air like a whip. I turned.
Alpha Lucas stood at the villa entrance, his aura freezing, his rage thick and suffocating. His eyes—those cold, inhuman vertical pupils—glowed blood-red in the shadows.
He marched toward me; every step was a warning. Then, without hesitation, he raised his hand and struck me.
The slap landed hard.
Pain exploded across my cheek as I stumbled backward, my head snapping to the side. My back hit the rough stone wall with a sickening thud.
Dozens of photographs rained down on me—pictures of me and Anna, scattered like accusations across the marble floor.
His voice was low and venomous, trembling with fury and Alpha power. “What more do you want from me?”
“If it weren’t for that damn face of yours—” he sneered, eyes narrowing, “—a pathetic imitation of Freya’s—I never would’ve let you sign that Moonlight Flower contract. You wouldn’t even be here.”
He took a step closer, towering over me.
“And now you and that bitch Anna conspire to humiliate Freya?” he spat. “You’re just an Omega, Elaine. And not even a whole one. You’re defective. A broken little thing trying to play in a world that doesn’t want you.”
My face throbbed, but I managed to whisper, “Anna did come to me. I said no.”
He didn’t believe me. His eyes flicked over my face like knives, like he was searching for something to destroy.
And then he sneered—a sound so bitter, so full of loathing, it twisted in my chest.
“Pathetic.”
He grabbed my collar, lifting me off the ground like I weighed nothing. My feet dangled. I was gasping, choking, my fingers clawing at his wrist. A strangled cry escaped me as my back scraped against the wall.
Then he let go.
I dropped like a broken doll, crumpling to the cold stone floor.
He didn’t even look back.
The front door slammed open, letting in a gust of icy wind and falling snow. It swirled around me, stinging my skin, as the warmth in the villa vanished with him.
And just like that, I was alone again.
