Chapter 0003

MIA

The moment Derek and Joe entered the hall, Cassandra staggered forward with a whimper, clutching at the torn fabric of her dress. "She pushed me," she gasped, her voice a perfect mixture of vulnerability and quiet accusation. "She ripped my dress."

The room fell into stunned silence before erupting into hushed murmurs. Every eye turned to me—some filled with judgment, others with barely concealed disdain. My heart pounded.

“That’s not what happened,” I started, my voice steady despite the anger bubbling beneath the surface.

In the corner of the room, Derek’s mother shifted on her feet, her gaze sweeping between Cassandra and myself, the look on her face one of puzzled suspicion. For a moment, I thought she might step forward to defend me, but Derek moved first.

The warmth we had shared turned suddenly cold. His gaze was dark, body taut with barely restrained fury. He strode forward without hesitation, his presence filling the room.

Before I could react, he shoved me aside. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, but he was sending me a message: he was choosing her. He whipped off his jacket and settled it gently across Cassandra’s shoulders.

I was frozen to the spot, unable to make sense of what had just happened. She’d threatened me, and when I refused to submit, she immediately played the victim. It was an acting job worthy of an Academy Award.

I would have been impressed, but she’d just seemingly altered the course of my life.

“This is the problem with rogues,” Derek said, almost to himself. His voice was like ice. “No self-control.”

I thought I was doing a pretty admirable job controlling myself, all things considered. But that’s when Cassandra whimpered. Curing into herself as though she were made of porcelain.

“It hurts,” she murmured, her voice trembling. She was clutching her arm.

Derek’s entire demeanor shifted in an instant. The rage in his eyes shifted into something like panic. He reached forward and pulled the lapels of his jacket more tightly around Cassandra, shielding her from view as though my presence alone was what was causing her pain.

“We should get her to the pack doctor,” Joe murmured to his Alpha, shooting me a look.

Derek nodded and swung Cassandra up and into his arms as though she weighed nothing at all.

I clenched my fists, stepping in front of him.

“What about our guests?” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Are you really going to sweep out of here with another woman in your arms on our wedding day?”

He hesitated.

The flicker of uncertainty in his expression lasted a heartbeat. Then Cassandra let out another soft whimper, and it was gone. He pulled her closer to himself, tenderly.

“Her arm has been hurt before,” he said, by way of explanation. “We can’t wait. I’m sorry if this causes you embarrassment, Mia, but this is direct consequence of your actions.”

Without another glance at me, he turned and strode out of the hall, carrying her away.

The whispers around me turned into outright murmurs. A woman nearby put her hand to her chest and sighed dreamily, watching their retreating forms.

“They’re still so in love,” she said, her voice a mix of sadness and wistful longing.

My face burned with humiliation, but I lifted my chin. If I showed weakness, if I let them see how deep a wound had just been cut, they would smell the blood. They would never stop carving into me.

I turned toward Derek’s mother, my last hope for support, but she only looked at me with something that wasn’t quite pity. But it wasn’t approval, either. It was like she was watching a tragedy unfold, powerless to stop it.

She said nothing. And that silence, more than anything, hurt the most.

Derek had asked me to stay behind at the ceremony venue to attend to the guests, but something inside me—maybe it was Nox—told me to follow them. I had to know what Derek was really thinking.

He had already proved that he wasn’t willing to be straightforward with me. That he wasn’t willing to tell me the truth. And so I followed them, hovering just outside the waiting room, eavesdropping and watching them like some kind of ridiculous international spy.

The pack doctor’s office smelled of antiseptic and herbs, the sterile scent clashing with the warm breeze outside. I stood, silent and still, watching Cassandra nestled into Derek’s embrace, her delicate fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. She looked like she belonged there in his arms.

Nearby, Joe and Caroline milled about impotently, waiting to leap to the command of their Alpha. Joe had undone his bowtie, which hung limply from his collar. Then the exam room door opened and the doctor stepped through, looking at Derek expectantly.

“Sir?” he said.

Derek rose, reaching up to gently remove Cassandra’s fingers from his shirt. He smiled down at her gently.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and walked over to where the doctor was waiting, the two of them discussing something in quiet tones.

Joe and Caroline didn’t hesitate, moving to Cassandra’s side. Caroline knelt beside her, taking her hands gently in her own.

“I don’t want you to worry,” Caroline said.

Cassandra pouted slightly. “What about Mia?”

I stood rooted to the spot I was standing, more alone than I had been the day Derek found me.

“You know there’s no comparison,” Caroline told the other woman. “In Derek’s heart,” she went on to explain. “There’s only you.” Her voice was laced with sympathy—but not for me.

Derek had finished speaking with the doctor and came back over to Cassandra, lowering himself into the chair on her other side.

“Right, Derek?” Caroline said, her tone pleading.

Derek sighed, but he didn’t deny it.

“Don’t overthink it,” he told Cassandra.

My hands began to tremble. I curled them into fists, nails biting into my palms to keep the emotion at bay.

Cassandra sat upright. I noticed that she pushed herself up with the arm that was supposedly ‘injured.’

“You’re still going to go through with it,” she said, her voice laced with a disbelieving bitterness. “You’re still going to marry Mia.”

Derek sighed, rubbing his temples. “She’s my fated mate,” he said, resigned. “I can’t just abandon her. It’s my responsibility.”

The words stung, though I know I should have felt relief. He hadn’t said I want to marry her. He hadn’t said She’s the woman I choose.

I was his responsibility. A duty to be carried out. A burden.

Cassandra’s lashes lowered demurely, her lips pursing as if she were thinking something through. Then, in a voice so soft it almost didn’t reach me, she said, “You’d really trust a rogue’s child to be the future Alpha of your pack?”

I inhaled sharply, hoping they didn’t hear me.

Derek stiffened beside her. Just the mention of possible children, and I could feel heat radiating through the fated bond between us. Just for a moment. We weren’t yet marked, but the connection was still there.

The feeling drowned out that hated word ‘rogue.’ And left me with perhaps a whisper of hope. Cassandra’s next words quickly dashed it.

“We could have our own children,” she continued, her voice a delicate whisper, wholly unaware of the pulse of feeling that had just raced between Derek and I. She leaned in closer toward him, her fingers brushing against his chest. Laying the perfect trap.

“You could still see her whenever you want.”

Her meaning was clear.

I carefully watched the chiseled features of Derek’s face, his nostrils flaring with a surge of something that was hard to name. Maybe anger. Maybe desire.

Desire for who, I couldn’t tell. He turned to Cassandra, angling his body towards her.

“She could live nearby, maybe,” she went on, reaching up to run her fingers along the skin of his jaw. I could hear the rasp of his five o’clock shadow. “But you and I could…”

I watched from the doorway, my heart thudding in my ears. From this angle, Cassandra’s face was tilted toward Derek’s, their proximity intimate. Anyone looking in would think they were about to kiss.

Maybe they already had. Maybe I had been a fool this entire time, trying to play the part of a Luna when I was nothing more than an unwanted rogue.

The doctor came to the waiting area and beckoned them all into the exam room. I watched them go, my head swimming.

I remembered those first days after Derek found me. The pull we both felt, the magic of the Moon Goddess; fated mates.

We’d spent nights together, our inner wolves howling for each other, full of passion and heat. I had fallen in love with him, then. Fallen in love with the life I thought we’d lead together.

Derek as Alpha. Me as his Luna.

I’d been a girl with no real memory, only knowledge of the few months I’d spent living with a pack of rogue she-wolves before he found me. I had thought, during those heady nights, with him docked in the cradle of my hips, that if I worked hard enough, I could elevate my status, I could become his equal.

I had fought for this. I had endured every humiliation, every dismissive glance, every cruel word, all for what I thought was love. I endured it all to prove I belonged at his side.

All those nights together, all that work, and when it came down to it, I was nothing more to Derek than an obligation. A duty. A mistake.

What a fool I had been, I thought, wiping at tears that stung my eyes and streamed down my face.

I took a deep breath and shoved open the exam room door without knocking.