His voice came sharp and urgent through the phone. "Elena, you're not playing games with me, are you? After three years of silence, you're finally calling?"

I stayed quiet, gripping the phone tighter.

"I've been waiting for you to realize what that bastard really is. You chose duty over happiness once—now you're suddenly ready to choose yourself? What finally broke you?"

Alpha Damon. The mate the Moon Goddess had originally chosen for me before pack politics interfered. The man I'd rejected to fulfill my parents' arrangement with Kai.

He'd waited three years for this call. Three years of sending letters I never answered, flowers I never acknowledged, protection from shadows I never saw.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I wasn't thinking clearly. Forget I….."

"Don't." His voice turned deadly serious. "Don't you dare take it back, Elena. You chose to call me this time. Don't think about running back to him again."

"I'm giving you thirty days," he warned. "Handle that worthless mate of yours. After that, I'm coming to take what should have been mine from the beginning."

Damon didn't give me a chance to refuse. With a click, the line went dead after that promise.

I ended the call and stepped backward, only to feel something sharp pierce through my bare foot.

"Ah!" I gasped, looking down to see blood pooling around a jagged piece of glass.

It was our wedding photograph—the one that used to sit on the mantle. Shattered completely, with my face split down the middle by a crack that made me look broken in half.

"Oops... sorry Elena. I didn't mean to knock that over."

I turned around to find Sophia standing in the doorway, wide-eyed and innocent. She was wearing my silk nightgown—the one Kai had bought me for our first anniversary.

"I was looking for you to show you something, and I accidentally bumped the table. You're not hurt, are you?"

Blood was seeping between my toes, staining the white marble floor, but I just shook my head. "It's fine. Just a scratch."

Kai's heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs, and he rushed past me without a glance, going straight to Sophia.

"I heard glass breaking. Are you okay?" His hands immediately began checking her arms, her face, searching for any injury with the kind of desperate care he had never shown me.

"I'm perfectly fine," Sophia assured him, then looked at me with fake concern. "But Elena stepped on the glass. Look, she's bleeding."

Only then did Kai's eyes flick down to my foot, and even then, his expression held more annoyance than worry. "Be more careful. We can't have you tracking blood through the house."

He didn't offer to help clean the wound. He didn't ask if I needed medical attention. He just looked inconvenienced by my pain.

"Actually," Sophia said, clasping her hands together with false hesitation, "there's something I wanted to talk to both of you about. But seeing Elena hurt... maybe this isn't the right time?"

"What is it?" Kai asked immediately, his full attention on her.

Sophia bit her lip in that way that made her look vulnerable and beautiful. "Well, I wanted to show Elena what I made with the fabric I found in the storage room. I thought it might make her happy, but now I'm worried she'll be upset..."

My blood turned to ice. "What fabric?"

She disappeared for a moment and returned carrying something white and flowing. My breath caught in my throat.

It was my wedding dress.

She had cut it into pieces and sewn it into a flowing summer dress that would look stunning on her tall, graceful frame.

"I found this gorgeous material just sitting in storage, collecting dust," she said with bright enthusiasm. "It seemed like such a waste! So I made myself something pretty for the pack gathering next week. You don't mind, do you Elena? You never wear it anyway."

The dress I had saved for years to buy. The dress I had worn when I promised to love Kai forever. The dress I had planned to be buried in someday, because it was the only day he had ever looked at me with something that might have been tenderness.

Cut up. Destroyed. Remade for my sister.

"It's... it's fine," I whispered, because what else could I say? That I sometimes went to the closet just to touch the fabric and remember the one perfect day of my life?

Kai was looking at Sophia with pure adoration. "You're so creative. It looks beautiful on you."

The knife in my chest twisted deeper.

"Oh good!" Sophia clapped her hands together. "I was so worried. You're always so understanding, Elena. Which brings me to my other request..."

She turned to Kai with pleading eyes. "My apartment is being fumigated for the next month. The chemicals are too strong for me to stay there, and hotels make me nervous. I was hoping... could I stay here? Just temporarily?"

"Of course," Kai said immediately, without even glancing at me. "Stay as long as you need."

"You're so generous," Sophia beamed. "But Elena's room gets the most morning sunlight, and you know how the cold affects my joints. Would it be too much to ask... could I use her room? Just until the fumigation is done?"

My room. The one place in this house that was supposed to be mine.

Kai finally looked at me, but his expression was expectant, not apologetic. "That works out perfectly. Sophia, You'll have to move to the basement."

I stood frozen in the hallway for what felt like hours. The words echoed in my mind, not even a question. Not even a moment's hesitation. Just an immediate decision to displace me for her comfort.

I packed my belongings in silence, each item a reminder of how little I had ever truly belonged in this house. Three years of trying to belong, reduced to so little.

The basement room was cold and damp, with stone walls that seemed to mock my new status in this house. I stared at the bare walls, wondering how I had fallen so far from the woman who once had a real room upstairs.

But there was one thing that still belonged to me - the picture frames lining the walls of our... Kai's house. Three years of memories captured in silver frames, moments when I had foolishly believed we were building something real together.

I climbed the stairs to find Sophia sitting at our kitchen table, my kitchen table, wearing one of Kai's oversized shirts. She looked perfectly at home, her long legs curled underneath her as she sipped coffee from my favorite mug.

"Hi, Elena," she said brightly, as if we were old friends having a pleasant chat. "I hope you are well. I know the basement can be a bit... rustic."

Kai emerged from the kitchen carrying a plate of perfectly scrambled eggs and fresh fruit. He set it down in front of Sophia with such gentle care that my heart clenched.

I couldn't bear to look at them anymore.

I walked slowly, my injured foot still throbbing from the glass incident. The main hallway was lined with our wedding photos, vacation pictures, and formal pack portraits. All of them showed me trying so hard to look like I belonged beside Kai, while he looked like he was enduring some unpleasant duty.

I started with the largest frame - our official mating ceremony portrait. As I lifted it from the wall, my hands shook with more than just the weight. The heavy frame slipped from my trembling fingers.

"Careful!" I gasped, trying to catch it, but my weak wolf reflexes failed me. The frame crashed to the marble floor, glass exploding in all directions.

I lunged forward, trying to save the photograph itself, but my foot landed wrong on the scattered glass. Sharp pain shot through my leg as I tumbled forward, my knee slamming hard against the broken frame. More glass embedded itself in my palms as I tried to break my fall.

Blood began pooling beneath me, mixing with the shattered glass and the torn photograph of what used to be my wedding day.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kai's voice boomed from the stairway.

I looked up at him through tears, my hands and knees bleeding, surrounded by the destroyed remnants of our fake happiness. "I was just... removing the pictures. I thought Sophia wouldn't want to see them."

Kai's face darkened with annoyance. "This is exactly why I need you to focus. Stop being clumsy and useless. We have the Alpha Council meeting tonight, and I need you to be prepared."

"Prepared for what?" I whispered, still sitting in the glass.

"You're my secretary for the evening. The other Alphas will expect to see some level of competence from my staff." He looked down at me with disgust. "Clean this mess up and get yourself together. The meeting starts in two hours."

I nodded, carefully pulling glass shards from my palms. "What should I wear?"

"Doesn't matter. Just look professional." He turned to leave, then paused. "Actually, Sophia will need your formal Luna dress. The one with the silver embroidery. She's attending as my plus-one."

My heart stopped. "My Luna dress?"

"It's the only one appropriate for a formal pack gathering. She can't attend in casual clothes." His tone suggested I was being unreasonable for even questioning it.

That dress had taken me six months to save for. It was the most beautiful thing I owned, custom-made with silver thread that caught the light like moonbeams. I had worn it to exactly three events, and each time I felt like I finally looked worthy of standing beside an Alpha.

"Of course," I managed to say. "I'll have it ready for her."

Kai nodded and walked away, leaving me bleeding alone in the hallway.

An hour later, I stood outside Sophia's door - my former room - holding the dress bag. She opened the door looking radiant, her hair already styled in elegant waves.

"Oh, Elena! You look..." She paused, taking in my bandaged hands and the simple black dress I'd chosen. "Well, you look like you tried. Is that my dress?"

My dress, I wanted to scream. Instead, I handed over the bag. "It should fit you perfectly."

She held it up against herself in the mirror. The silver embroidery caught the light, making her skin glow. On her tall, graceful frame, it looked like it had been made for her.

"It's gorgeous! I'll take such good care of it." She smiled at me with false sweetness. "You don't mind, do you? I know how much you love pretty things."

I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

Two hours later, we arrived at the Alpha Council meeting. The grand hall was filled with the most powerful wolves in the region. Five Alphas sat at the head table, their Lunas beside them in elegant gowns and glittering jewelry.

Kai strode in confidently, Sophia on his arm in my silver dress. She looked every inch the Luna she was pretending to be.

I followed behind them, invisible in my simple black dress.

"Alpha Kai," the Council Leader announced. "Please, take your seat at the head table."

Kai guided Sophia to the Luna's chair without hesitation. She settled into it gracefully, smiling at the other Lunas as if she belonged there.

I stood awkwardly near the back, unsure where I was supposed to sit.

"And your secretary can sit at the staff table," the Council Leader added, pointing to a small table in the corner where the other Alphas' assistants sat.

The staff table. Not even close to the main gathering.

As I walked toward my designated spot, I heard one of the Lunas whisper to Sophia, "What a lovely dress. The silver embroidery is exquisite."

"Thank you," Sophia replied smoothly. "It's a family heirloom."

Kai and Sophia took their seats while I stayed behind them, standing like a forgotten shadow.

The meeting began with formal introductions, but I could barely focus. A strange metallic taste was filling my mouth, and my hands had started trembling uncontrollably. The bandages on my palms were seeping through, dark red stains spreading across the white gauze.

I tried to ignore it, pulling out my notepad to record the meeting minutes. But when I lifted my pen, my vision blurred so severely that I couldn't make out the words on the page.

Then the scent hit me—something sharp and medicinal that made my wolf recoil in terror deep inside my chest.

My blood turned to ice.

Wolfsbane.