Chapter 2

I stumbled out into the chaos, coughing as smoke burned my lungs. My chest felt tight, but I kept moving until I found an old phone booth by the roadside. With shaking hands, I dialed the number I had kept for years.

“Evander,” I whispered when he answered. “Do you still remember your promise? You said I could return to the northern pack anytime within five years.”

There was a pause before his familiar voice came through, deep and warm. “Of course, my beloved Arianne. The entire pack has been waiting for you. Everyone keeps asking when their favorite she-wolf is coming home.”

I held the receiver tighter. “My identity papers will take three days to process, and I can’t leave New York without Damon noticing. You know he won’t let me go.”

Evander’s tone softened. “How are you planning to disappear without him finding out? You know Damon. He’s territorial, and he’ll realize the moment you leave the glass house.”

I swallowed. “Then I’ll make sure he only gets my corpse.”

The words sounded awful, but I meant them. If Damon could let Bianca live as me, then I could disappear from his life completely.

Before I could say more, strong arms wrapped around my waist.

“Wife.”

Damon’s voice trembled as he pulled me against him and buried his face in my shoulder.

“Thank God you’re alive. If anything had happened to you, I wouldn’t have known how to keep living. I thought I’d lost you.”

I went rigid in his arms, fighting the urge to shove him away.

“Luna, are you hurt?” Maddox called through the smoke. “Alpha went inside after you. That chandelier nearly fell on him. If it had—”

“Enough, Maddox.” Damon’s voice turned into a warning growl. “She’s safe. That’s all that matters. I don’t care about the chandelier or anything else.”

His clothes were torn and scorched, ash covering his skin, and his eyes were red from the smoke. He had risked himself to find me.

I hated him for it.

How could he be willing to die for me while allowing another woman to live in my place?

Then Bianca emerged from the smoke.

She looked untouched, dressed in white and pulling a suitcase behind her.

“Alpha Callahan,” she said quietly.

Damon stiffened. He reluctantly released me, straightened himself, and walked toward her.

“Darling, why did you come alone? I told you I’d spend tonight with you and the pups. I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

He took her hands and began signing.

Bianca answered, her movements careful. “I missed you. I came because I wanted to make amends for what happened to Arianne. I know I hurt her, and I want to help make things right.”

Damon shook his head.

“You don’t have to take the blame. I’m the one who wronged both of you. I let you take a place that was never meant to be yours, and I made you carry a life born from a lie. I hid the truth from Arianne because I was too afraid to face what would happen when she learned it.”

He pressed his forehead to hers.

“I told myself I was protecting everyone, but I was only protecting myself. I couldn’t lose Arianne, yet I couldn’t let you go either.”

Bianca signed again. “I only want to protect the baby and help her. You’ve carried this guilt long enough.”

Damon kissed her, tenderly and with a familiarity that made my stomach twist.

Then he signed, “I’ve already chosen the names. If it’s a boy, Damonn. If it’s a girl, Chanelle.”

My chest seemed to cave in.

My Alpha. My mate. The man who once promised that I was his entire world was now planning a future with another woman.

A year earlier, when I discovered I was pregnant, I thought perhaps Damon and I would finally have something that belonged only to us. He had been ecstatic and booked an entire hot spring resort so we could celebrate alone.

I remembered him kissing my belly before his phone rang.

A woman was crying on the other end.

Something in his expression changed.

“Wife, there’s an emergency at the pack,” he told me. “Wait here for me. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

I believed him.

I waited all day and through the night, certain he would return.

Instead, an avalanche came down the mountain.

Our child was buried beneath the snow.

I miscarried.

When I saw Damon afterward, he was touching Bianca’s belly with the same tenderness he had once shown mine. His hand moved gently over her stomach, and his expression held the same warmth he had once reserved for me.

I smiled bitterly.

Apparently, I was the only one that winter had left behind.

Then I heard him speaking to her.

“I’ve been busy with pack affairs, so I hired a nutritionist to look after you. I want to know you and the baby are taken care of while I’m away.”

His hand covered hers, his gaze soft and attentive.

“Hello, Miss Whitmore,” Bianca said shyly.

My heart lurched.

Miss Whitmore.

Not Mrs. Callahan.

Not my name.

Damon frowned briefly, but he let it pass without correcting her.

I dug my nails into my palms, fighting the urge to scream.

Then he draped a wool coat over my shoulders.

“It’s cold. Come on, honey. Let’s go home.”

I froze.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Bianca smile. Damon leaned down and kissed her, slow and lingering, as though he had been waiting all day for the chance.

That evening, I watched him in the kitchen.

He still treated me with the familiar care I had known for years. He served my soup exactly as I liked it, attentive to every little detail.

Then he turned to Bianca.

When he noticed a smear of sauce near her lips, he wiped it away with his thumb and laughed softly.

He signed with an affectionate smile, “How can you be this adorable?”

I lowered my head over my soup. My eyes burned, but I couldn’t cry.

I knew Damon too well.

I knew the softness in his eyes when he cared for someone, the tenderness in his hands, and the little gestures he made without thinking.

I had believed those things belonged to me.

Now I was watching him give them to Bianca.

For a moment, I wondered whether I had misunderstood everything. Perhaps there was still some explanation I had not heard, some piece of the story that would make his choices less cruel. But the way he looked at Bianca told me more than any confession could.

I remembered how he used to look at me when I was carrying our child. He would kneel beside me, place his palm over my stomach, and speak to the baby as though our little one could already understand him. He had promised that nothing would ever happen to us while he was alive.

Then the avalanche took our child, and Damon never even came back when he said he would.

I had spent months grieving while telling myself he had been forced to choose the pack over me. Now I wondered whether Bianca had been the reason he never returned.

The worst part was that I could no longer pretend his affection for her was an act. His concern, his patience, the way he touched her without hesitation—it was the same love I had once been certain belonged to me alone.

I finally understood why his lies had lasted so long.

He had not been protecting me.

He had been protecting the life he wanted with her.

And finally, I understood the truth I had spent so long refusing to see.

Damon hadn’t merely allowed her to take my place.

He had fallen in love with her.

And while I was still his mate, still carrying every memory of the life we had shared, I had already become nothing to him.