The Medina Pack house was a sea of red, every corner adorned with the trappings of an impending **Mark Ceremony**. Louise Bennett, the Alpha's chosen Luna, was to be celebrated, and the entire pack buzzed with excitement. **Omegas** hurried in and out, carrying crimson robes, silk ribbons, and the finest decorations. I overheard whispers from the **deltas** as they passed:

"The Alpha has spared no expense for our future Luna. He ordered the most exquisite gown from the renowned designer, Celeste Barnes. He said Louise shouldn’t lift a finger for her own **marking**."

I paused, a pang of bitterness tightening in my chest. Memories of my own **marking ceremony** flooded back, unbidden. When Taylor Medina had claimed me as his mate, it had been rushed, almost an afterthought. I had spent weeks sewing my own gown, my fingers calloused and bleeding from the needlework. Meredith, his mother, had deliberately dimmed the lights in my room, forcing me to strain my eyes in the flickering candlelight. By the end, I could barely see.

Taylor had been remorseful when he saw the toll it had taken on me. "I was careless," he had said, his voice heavy with regret. "This was my fault, and I’ll make it up to you."

But he never did. Instead, he poured his attention into Louise, the woman who was now to be his Luna. He spared her every inconvenience, every hardship. He had never treated me with such care. Perhaps, I thought, leaving had been the right choice. There was no need to linger on what could have been.

Louise, with her **Alpha's aura**, wasted no time asserting her dominance. She ordered me around mercilessly in the days leading up to the ceremony—kneeling for hours, copying ancient texts, massaging her shoulders, serving her tea. I complied without protest, my head bowed in submission.

"Just endure it," I told myself. "A few more days, and Lawson will come to take me away."

But I hadn’t anticipated how far Louise would go. Her cruelty knew no bounds, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could bear it.

The past few days had been sunny, and I decided to take out my mother’s paintings to air them. I laid them carefully on the grass, the vibrant colors of her artwork shimmering under the sunlight. But I should’ve known better than to leave them unattended.

Louise Bennett, with her usual malice, deliberately threw the paintings into the lake.

By the time I noticed, the delicate paper was already soaked and ruined. The once-stunning *Autumn Maple Forest* bled out its red pigments, staining the water like a pool of blood. It reminded me of my mother’s final moments—her tears of pain, her cries of regret, her silent plea for forgiveness. She had left these paintings for me, saying they were her way of loving me even after she was gone.

“Look at them when you miss me,” she had whispered.

Now, my mother was gone, and even this last connection to her was destroyed. My chest tightened, and my hands trembled with rage. I lunged at Louise, grabbing her by the collar, my voice shaking with fury.

“Why would you do this?!”

I had tolerated her, ignored her provocations, and let her have her way time and time again. But this—this was too much. She had crossed a line I didn’t know I had.

Louise smirked, her almond-shaped eyes gleaming with mockery. “Eden Mendez, you and your mother were nothing but a mistake. My father promised my mother that they would be mates for life. You and your mother ruined that. You deserve this.”

Her words cut deeper than I expected. My mother wasn’t the one at fault. Neither was Louise’s mother. It was Garrett Bennett, their father, who had betrayed them both. But why should my mother and I pay the price for his sins?

I stared at the ruined paintings, the once-beautiful images now distorted and unrecognizable. It felt like a dull knife was slowly carving into my heart, each stroke more agonizing than the last. I could barely breathe, the pain overwhelming me.

I didn’t notice the figure approaching from behind until it was too late.

In an instant, Louise leaped into the lake, her graceful dive almost mocking. The water rippled around her, and I stood frozen, my hands still clutching the empty air where her collar had been.

The sound of splashing water snapped me out of my daze. I turned to see Taylor Medina striding toward me, his dark eyes blazing with fury. His Alpha aura was overwhelming, and I instinctively took a step back, my wolf whimpering softly in the back of my mind.

“What happened here?” he demanded, his voice sharp and commanding.

Before I could answer, Louise surfaced, gasping for air. She looked up at Taylor, her eyes wide and pleading. “Alpha, she pushed me! She was so angry about the paintings—I didn’t mean to ruin them, but she—she attacked me!”

My jaw clenched. Of course, she would twist the story.

Taylor’s gaze shifted to me, his expression unreadable. “Is this true, Eden?”

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but the words caught in my throat. What was the point? Taylor had always been quick to believe the worst of me.

“It doesn’t matter,” I muttered, my voice barely audible.

Taylor’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped closer, his towering frame casting a shadow over me. “It matters to me. Did you push her?”

I glared up at him, my hands still trembling with residual anger. “What if I did? She destroyed the only thing I had left of my mother. What would you have done, Alpha?”

His jaw tightened, and for a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of guilt in his eyes. But it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

“You don’t get to decide justice, Eden,” he said coldly.

I laughed bitterly, the sound hollow and empty. “Justice? Since when has there ever been justice for me?”

Taylor’s eyes hardened, and he turned away, striding toward the lake’s edge to help Louise out of the water. She clung to him, her eyes glistening with fake tears.

I stood there, watching them, the weight of their betrayal pressing down on my chest. My mother’s paintings were ruined, my memories of her tainted by Louise’s cruelty.

And once again, I was left with nothing.

When I regained my composure, Taylor Medina’s grip was already around my wrist, his claws digging into my skin like a vice. His eyes burned with fury, the kind that could only come from an Alpha who believed he had been wronged.

“Eden Mendez,” he growled, his Alpha tone low and commanding, “you pushed Louise into the water just because I’ve chosen her as my mate? I never thought you could be so cruel.”

Tears welled up in my eyes before I could stop them. For a moment, Taylor’s grip loosened, as if he was momentarily stunned by my reaction. But then Louise coughed weakly, her scent—vanilla with a hint of rosemary—wrapping around him like a plea.

“Taylor,” she whispered, her voice dripping with false sincerity, “don’t blame Eden… she must not have meant it.”

Taylor immediately released my wrist and turned to Louise, his hands gentle as he helped her sit up. “Louise, you’re too kind. Someone like Eden deserves to be punished for what she’s done.”

My legs threatened to give out beneath me, but I forced myself to stand tall. I pointed to the painting lying on the ground, my voice steady despite the ache in my chest. “Taylor, what if I told you she was the one who threw my mother’s painting into the lake?”

Louise’s face flickered with panic for a split second before she quickly recovered. She tugged at Taylor’s sleeve, her scent thickening with desperation. “Taylor, it was one of the omegas in my household. They didn’t mean to, and I’ve already punished them…”

I stared at the two of them, my heart breaking all over again. In my past life, Taylor had been so good to me, so kind. It was that memory that made the pain unbearable now. Even though I knew he had marked Louise, even though I wanted nothing to do with him anymore, I couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

“Taylor,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “even if you don’t love me, even if you’ve chosen her, can’t you just… help me this once?”

The words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of everything unsaid. Taylor’s expression softened for a moment, but then Louise let out another delicate cough, and his attention was immediately drawn back to her, her scent pulling him in like a magnet.

“Eden,” he said, his Alpha tone cold and final, “don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

I clenched my fists, the mate bond between us screaming in protest, but I said nothing. There was no point. Taylor had made his choice, and it wasn’t me.