Chapter 0001

Layla’s POV

“Shhh!” a familiar voice hissed inside my bedroom, and outside the room my fingers froze over the doorknob, not moving. “Someone’s going to hear us.”

It sounded like my half sister Lu, and a sick pit opened up at the bottom of my stomach as soon as I heard my fiancé Alex reply her

“And what if they do?”

Through the slit in the door I peeked and saw them on my bed with their feet entwined. Alex didn’t have a shirt on, and Lu was just in her bra.

“Our Pack will lose it,” my sister purred, batting her eyelashes at him. Her tone was coy as she ran a nail down Alex’s chest slowly. I felt sick. “Alpha Hector hates a fuss—and besides, Layla won’t be too happy.”

“I’ll protect you from all of them,” Alex said, lowering himself to kiss her forehead. He sounded confident, at ease, and a stranger listening to him would’ve thought that he was one of the greatest fighters we had. “I thought we agreed on not bringing her up when we’re together.”

‘Her’ as in me. Lu moved to shoot back a reply, but whatever she would’ve said was cut short by Alex, who drew her into a steamy kiss that made her giggle, and then moan as my eyes grew hot at the betrayal.

I had seen enough, and in the next moment I flung my door open, pulling my boot off and sending it flying into the back of my fiancé’s head.

The sound of the shoe connecting with his skull barely register over the sensation of my heart breaking into a million tiny pieces, as all of the dreams I’d built up around my union with Alex vanished. Dreams of finally leaving my toxic family behind and being mated to a man I would’ve sacrificed anything for all went down the drain.

Alex was out of the bed now. He took a step forward but I backed off to keep some distance between us.

“I will kill you if you come any closer,” I promised, choking off a sob as he quickly answered.

“This is not what it looks like, Layla.”

“Yeah?” I gritted after some time, letting out a forceful breath. “Alright, Lex. Enlighten me.”

My fiancé’s jaw moved as he prepared to launch into the explanation but he remained silent, and when it became clear to me that he would not say anything I started to tug off my other boot and he held out both of his hands to stop me.

“I came in looking for you, and”—his voice hitched, and he swallowed—“I, um, saw Lu crying on your bed. I was only just comforting her when you walked in.”

“Right, comforting her with your shirt off,” I laughed bitterly. “Let me guess: all that crying made her faint so you had to give her CPR.”

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a movement. Immediately I zeroed in on the other culprit, my half sister Lucretia Fabrini, who everyone called Lu.

The smirk on her face was triumphant as she displayed the hickey that Alex had left on her neck like a trophy in smooth movements. At that moment, I knew she’d done all of this to irritate me and prove that she could take what belonged to me, not because she was interested in Alex.

Her expression shuttered, and like the master manipulator I knew my sister to be she suddenly looked remorseful.

The switch was so smooth I would’ve thought my eyes were playing tricks on me if it wasn’t something I’d witnessed on thousands of other occasions.

“Layla,” she began calmly, the exact opposite of my fiancé. “Alex and I didn’t mean to hurt you. It just… happened.”

I caught myself taking a step towards her and stopped myself as soon as I realized it, sure that I would hurt her if I closed the distance between us because that was probably what she wanted, something to paint her as the proper victim.

Lucretia frowned at my stubborn silence, and for a moment the three of us remained frozen like this until finally the spell broke and Alex let out a long, tired sigh.

“Layla, you know that I love you.”

“—Yes!” Lu interjected, the very voice of reason. She sat at the edge of my bed now, gripping my sheets. “Everytime we slept together we always agreed that it would be the last time. Stop making it look like we wanted to hurt you when we almost died from guilt.”

I clenched my teeth, kneading my chest to ease the growing pain I felt there.

Her confirmation that this wasn’t the first time it was happening was intentional. Lu was like that, and her skill for throwing words so full of double meanings and venom strong enough to kill an adult wolf was second to none.

I saw red as she continued to speak, and when I couldn’t take it anymore I told her to stop, but she proceeded like I hadn’t said anything and something in me snapped.

“For goddesses sake, Lu!” I barked, slamming my fist down on the dresser and destroying it. “Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

“Layla,” Alex gasped with a wounded look in his eyes. “Why are you being so bitchy to Lu?”

Before I could react he strode over to my sister who was already shedding crocodile tears. Pulling her into his arms to soothe her, he threw me a stern look.

“Look at what you’ve done.”

“No, I… I deserved it,” Lu protested weakly, but Alex shushed her with a tender hug and a sharp wedge crept up my throat as I watched how gentle he was being with her.

I wanted to turn away, but something kept me frozen to the spot until Lu’s cries died down. Still comforting her, Alex spoke.

“I love you, Layla.” There was a thoughtful pause. “But I also care very deeply about your sister. You know, we could be happy. The three of us.”

A wave of nausea swept through me as soon as the meaning of his words registered. Him, Lu and I in a… I couldn’t finish the thought.

For years, I had imagined what my happily ever after with Alex would look like: A picket white fence in a secluded area away from the main pack house, surrounded by greenery and a forest our children could run around in and hunt.

I’d wanted to grow old with him, just him alone. And now I wondered how I had ever fallen in love with him, and my lips curled with disgust as I stared at Alex, looking up at me and waiting for my answer.

Not a single moment of doubt flashed through his green eyes because he considered himself the goddess’s gift to the whole female Lycan population. Even now, he could barely conceal his glee at watching my sister and I fight over him like some prize.

Tears of humiliation sat heavy in my eyes, but I held them off and decided at that moment that I was done with him and the engagement.

I wouldn’t marry Alex Rockmountain, even if he was the last male on this planet.

“He’s all yours Lu,” I said slowly, shaking my head. “Keep him, you’ve won.”

For the first time that afternoon, Alex’s expression cracked at my words of rejection. His face went slack as glanced around the room as if searching for answers, until his eyes finally settled on me.

“W-what are you saying, Layla?” When I didn’t answer, he continued. “You can’t mean that. No one else would settle for you. I’m your best shot at a happy ending.”

His words stung because they were right, but I wouldn’t let him have the satisfaction of seeing me fall apart.

“Guess I’ll have to take my chances at a different ending,” I murmured, and at this Alex spluttered in outrage, but I wasn’t going to stick around.

Turning my back to them, I opened the door to my room to head out only to find the shocked faces of my father, Gaius, and stepmother, Reno, standing at the other end of it.

I froze, not knowing how long they’d been there or how much they must have overheard.

From the joint expressions on their faces, I could say that they at least had an idea of what was happening, and for a moment the air in the room crackled with invisible tension until Lu broke into another fresh round of sobs for our parent’s benefit this time.

“It was a mistake,” she howled, and then the rest of her words dissolved into incoherent babbles as she put on the performance of her life—sobbing intensely, with snot running freely down her nose and chin.

Without a word Reno pushed past me, making a beeline straight for her daughter who she embraced, cooing, and I watched my father’s hardened expression slowly crumble.

Feeling raw, I decided I didn’t have time to watch my parents play favourites, and prepared to exit the room. But my father’s arm wrapped around my bicep, stopping me in place.

“Tell me what happened,” he ordered and I nodded.

The room was silent as I told them everything. My father’s face tightened when I got to the part of Alex’s proposal about being with the two of us at the same time.

“She can have him now,” I finished and the words weren’t even fully out of my mouth before Reno let out a snort.

“That’s not an option, Gaius,” she said, directing her words to my father. “You heard our daughter. It was a misunderstanding. Lucretia is too good for Alex, and knowing this he probably tried getting her alone to rape her. He always hangs around her. Layla probably walked in as he was in the middle of assaulting her. I would report him if he wasn’t her betrothed.”

My father considered her words for a long moment before nodding, and I blinked, confused.

“The mating ceremony is off,” I declared. “This is who Alex is, I don’t want to be shackled to him for the rest of my life.”

My ex fiancé made a noise in protest, but a look from my father effectively cut him short and finally, the older man spoke.

“I don’t think that will be possible, Layla. Everyone already knows your engagement, now. There are promises to keep. Our family would be disgraced if you back out now.”

“No,” I said, begging. “No, no, no, please no dad. Don’t make me do this.”

Even as I fell to my knees begging at his insistence that the mating ceremony go through, a part of me wasn’t surprised. At best, my father was usually dismissive of me.

But this was a stretch. Alex had betrayed me with Lu, and my father was a proud man, and anyone who heard what had happened wouldn’t blame him for calling the mating ceremony off.

“Lu wants him,” I continued desperately.

“Goddess, no,” my sister interrupted, cutting me off. “I don’t want him. He tried to force himself on me. He’s a disgusting creep.”

Her nose wrinkled with disgust as she looked at Alex, who blinked, confused.

“Lu,” he started, reaching a hand out to touch her, but my sister recoiled and Reno got up to stand between them.

“Touch my daughter again and you’ll lose a hand!”

If I wasn’t in so much pain I would’ve laughed at the uncertainty that settled over Alex’s features as he frowned, looking at my sister for one long moment before giving a sharp shake of his head.

“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” he admitted after some time. “Lu, you said that—”

“I asked you to leave me alone,” my sister interrupted from her place behind Reno.

She cowered like the simple act of talking to him was terrifying, and I watched Alex come to the realization that he wasn’t the catch he’d thought he was.

The blow to his pride had to have been massive, because Alex shook his head sharply, laughing in disbelief even as his face grew slowly red and a vein bulged in the middle of his forehead. Without warning, he whirled on us.

“This is all one sick joke,” he spat in a tone I had never heard him use before. It chilled me to the bone. “And all of you are going to pay for it!”

A bead of sweat ran down his face.

“I’ll make your lives hell. I’ll crush you all until you are nothing but dust.”

Alex spat his threat and then he started to stride towards me dangerously.