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I should have known something was wrong the moment I stepped inside and smelled her perfume in our room. But I didn’t. I was too tired from the council meeting, too touched on the stack of reports I still needed to review. I pushed open the door. But the moment I stepped inside, the report slipped from my hands, scattering across the floor. I stood frozen in the doorway, my wolf howling inside me, clawing to get out. My husband, my mate is tangled in our bed with another woman. Not just another woman, with Isla? My best friend. “Rylan?” My voice came out broken, barely a whisper, taking a step closer. I expected him to feel remorseful, at least try to be apologetic, or even push Isla away but he didn’t even flinch. He didn’t pull away. His eyes met mine, cold and empty, like I was nothing. Like I meant nothing. Isla turned her head toward me, her hair spilling across my pillow. Our eyes locked and I waited for shame, for guilt, for something but I saw nothing, Instead, she smiled, a mocking smile that struck a chord in my nerves. “Close the door, Lyra,” she said, her voice smooth as honey. “You wouldn’t understand what’s happening here.” “Wouldn’t understand?” The words tasted like ash. “You’re in my bed. With my husband. What’s there to understand?” I looked at Rylan with nothing but desperation. Five years, five damn years I’d given him. Five years of trying to be enough, to make him see me, to earn a fraction of his love, but this is all I got? “Tell me this isn’t real,” I whispered. “Deny it. Please, Rylan.” Rylan sat up slowly, pulling the sheet across his lap. That cold smirk, the one I’d seen a thousand times before, menacingly curved his lips. “Why would I deny the truth?” His voice was as sharp as ice. “Isla gives me what you never could. She knows how to please an Alpha. You?” He laughed, the sound was sharp and cruel. “You’re nothing but a title I was forced to accept.” The floor tilted beneath me. My legs trembled, threatening to give out,
