Ava POV
On New Year’s Eve, I found out my dear husband and supposed best friend were having an affair.
The evening started well enough, though looking back I’m not sure how I was so blind. I remember walking down the gray-on-blue hallway to Ethan’s hotel room while looking forward to surprising my mate on his business trip and making some happy memories, the kind that had been scarce with us lately.
I was really hoping Ethan would be glad to see me. I thought we might resume our discussion of having children. At thirty-five, I was still in my prime for such things, but time was getting on. Ethan was only two years from forty himself.
I put on my brightest smile and knocked on the double doors of Room 1893. The door swung open to reveal Ethan wearing nothing but a white, hotel bathrobe and an expression of anxious surprise. Keeping my smile, I looked down to his exposed neck and collar bones, ready to make a joke about his answering the door naked, when I heard a woman’s voice call out.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
Olivia, I thought, and my stomach went cold while my face flamed red hot.
“What in the world?” I demanded, shoving past my husband and a cloak of Olivia’s perfume she was wearing. Inside the decidedly luxurious suite, I saw an opened bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes, clothing scattered about the room, and, yes, a pair of Olivia’s signature, red-soled Louboutin pumps on the floor near the blue velvet sofa.
Olivia walked out of the bedroom wearing nothing but a white sheet wrapped around her sari-style, and all I could do was stare at her. She had always been so much prettier than I was, and now so many years my junior at twenty-eight with flawless skin and thick blond hair.
I had always thought of her as my adorable little sister. So, what was she doing here with my husband?
“Ava,” she said, her voice and expression sneering. I felt my heart start to pound.
I turned to Ethan, who looked a little frightened. But then his perfectly dimpled chin went up. He steadied those broad shoulders I’d long admired, and his wedding ring disappeared into his dark hair along with the fingers of his left hand.
“I realize how this looks, and I’m sorry,” he said. “I assure you this began with an attraction we both tried to fight. Neither of us is to blame for—”
“That’s not true,” Olivia said. “You’ve taken everything from me, and now I’m taking it back.”
“What do you mean?” I shook my head, feeling dizzy. “We are friends. I would never take anything from you.”
“I am the daughter of the late Alpha Adam,” she snapped, her eyes glittering with a hate so thick I could feel it pressing against me like some unclean beast. “But you! Acting as the Beta’s wife like you were my mother, making everyone think you’re some saint while they ignored me, and marrying the man who should have been mine from the beginning.”
I was so confused. I never realized Olivia was interested in Ethan, who was ten years older than she was. I also thought Olivia didn’t care about anything that wasn’t shopping or going out with friends. The few times I had tried to talk with her about pack affairs, Olivia looked positively bored.
I tried to explain what I could. “Ethan and I only took on the pack’s administrative duties because Chris left. You had no desire to rule our pack. You told me it was too much trouble.”
“I said that as a child!” she growled. “Now I want to be Luna.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, working hard not to cry, not yet. “Your brother is coming back soon. He holds the Moonstone and will take over as Alpha. You can’t marry your brother. You can’t be Luna.”
“You are so stupid,” Olivia said with a laugh. “Chris left years ago and has no intention of keeping the Moonstone. Now Ethan and I will be the Alpha and Luna.”
Helpless, I looked to my husband.
His face was now oddly blank, and he shrugged. “Olivia has convinced Chris not to inherit a title he’s never wanted. As Olivia’s mate, I will rule the pack with her.”
“Never wanted?” I looked back at Olivia. “Just because he’s been studying abroad—”
“Chris was never going to be Alpha,” Olivia snapped. “Chris has found all the success he wants in the Human World, while the rest of us bring Moonstone Pack to its full dominance.”
I tried to process everything. Ethan said, “Tomorrow, Chris will give me the Moonstone. We’ll set him up with whatever financial means and apolitical title he prefers, and with my new mate, I will become the Alpha of Moonstone Pack, and Olivia will be Luna.”
“But why?” I could only ask, my voice very small. “If you loved Olivia more than you loved me, why would you marry me in the first place?”
His expression momentarily softened. “I am sorry, Ava. We had something meaningful together, but I could never be Alpha while married to you. Surely, you can see what I have done for the pack. I deserve this.”
My mouth fell open. I wanted to ask, “What about me?” I thought of the years we’d been waiting for Chris to return and claim his place without a real position in the pack, and without any real love, I was starting to realize, not if he could act like this.
In that moment, I resented not only Ethan and Olivia for being like this, but also Chris, the boy I had helped raise along with his sister. I envisioned the young and skinny fifteen-year-old who had left the island with his favorite tutors over a decade ago. Why hadn’t he stayed and taken up our Moonstone Pack like he was supposed to?
My mental image of Chris was replaced by the bright, callous sight of Olivia, standing there with triumph in her bright green eyes. Was this truly the girl who had been my friend? Years of helping to raise her, of looking out for her, of taking care of her, and now this?
Olivia turned on Ethan. “Now, do what you agreed to do. Break your bond with Ava and prepare yourself to bond with me.” She looked back at me. “I want to see you do it.”
“Surely, tomorrow would be better,” Ethan objected faintly. “The pain involved—”
“Break it now!”
Again, I saw a glimmer of fear in Ethan’s eyes, but it was quickly gone. Then he steadied himself, looking at me coldly.
He brought up his hands, closing his eyes to pull the power to the forefront of his mind, and then opened now-blazing eyes to intone, “You are no longer mine. I am no longer yours. We are nothing to each other. The bond is broken.”
Pain like I’d never felt before flooded my mind, and the world went dark.
At that moment, I felt I had been abandoned by the world.
Until the most unexpected people came to my rescue.
