Vanessa.
"Aidan! What’s going on here?" The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them, sharp, stunned, and far louder than I intended.
I had barely crossed the threshold when the scene hit like a punch to the stomach.
Aidan stood far too close to Maria, his body angled over hers and her cheeks flushed crimson, their breath—still uneven. And his eyes...moon Goddess....those eyes held nothing else but hunger, need, undeniable desire. It was written across his face so clearly that it sent a sharp sting to my chest.
For a mont, the whole world narrowed into a single point, just the three of us frozen in that suffocating room. My heart lurched, pounding so hard I could taste the tallic edge of betrayal on my tongue.
Were they...?
Were they actually...No.
No, no, no.
I shook my head violently, as if I could physically fling away the thought clawing into my skull.
There had to be another explanation.
There had to be.
"Maria," I whispered under my breath, nearly choking on the na. She was a rogue. A servant. Nobody. She couldn’t be....she wouldn’t dare.
It could only an...She initiated it....She had to.
Aidan would never, he couldn’t. Not with soone beneath him. Not with soone beneath us.
"What’s going on, Aidan?" I demanded again, louder, harder, my voice cracking at the end.
This ti, I needed an answer. I needed him to deny it. To laugh, to explain, to call it a misunderstanding. To pick , even if we weren’t lovers or mates or anything of the sort.
But he didn’t move, didn’t blink, nor did he speak.
He just stood there, chest rising and falling, gaze flickering between and her, like he was torn between two entirely different worlds.
And that silence...that infuriating, deafening silence...Was the answer I never wanted.
Rage struck faster than thought.
"You bitch!" I scread, the word shredding out of before reason could intervene.
I lunged toward her, closing the small distance between us in a burst of blind fury. My palm connected with her cheek so sharply that the sound cracked through the room like snapping wood.
The sting vibrated up my arm, satisfying and horrifying all at once.
She gasped, her head jerking to the side, hair flying across her face. A red mark blood across her cheek imdiately, but I didn’t feel guilt, not even a flicker, just betrayal twisting deeper into my gut.
"How dare you seduce your Alpha!" I spat, voice shaking with more than just anger.
This wasn’t only fury, it was humiliation, panic, fear I refused to acknowledge.
She just stared at , wide-eyed, stunned, lips trembling but saying nothing. Not even defending herself.
And that silence only stoked the fire roaring through my veins.
"You have no sha," I continued, my voice dripping with venom I didn’t know I had in . "Crawling your way up his bed like a desperate parasite."
I turned to Aidan then, searching, pleading silently, for sothing on his face that could make this make sense.
An apology.
A denial.
A hint that he was angry too.
But he looked...struck.
Like soone who had been caught doing sothing he shouldn’t. Soone who couldn’t deny what his body had already confessed.
So I faced her again, the words ripping out of like claws:
"Is that the only thing you rogues are good at?"
Her face shifted then,not in guilt, not even in fear, but sothing else. Sothing wounded, sothing fierce, more like I had stepped on her prude.
But I didn’t care.
Couldn’t care.
If I allowed myself even a second to feel anything besides fury, I would break.
Without another word, without looking at either of them again, without letting myself see Aidan’s expression one more damnable ti, I spun around and stord out.
My footsteps were loud, echoing through the hall, almost deafening against the racing thud of my heart.
"Vanessa, wait!" Aidan’s voice chased after , strained and urgent.
But I didn’t turn back. Not when my eyes burned, not when my throat tightened, not when my wolf howled confusion and betrayal inside .
I couldn’t look at him.
So I kept walking,one foot after the other, until the door slamd behind , sealing the scene away.
And I pretended my chest wasn’t splitting open from the inside.
"Vanessa!" His voice ricocheted through the hallway, desperate and strained, just seconds before his hand closed firmly around my arm.
I barely had a chance to turn before he spun toward him with more force than necessary. My breath hitched as I t his eyes, still dark with sothing wild and heated, but now mixed with panic.
"It’s not what you think," Aidan rushed out, the words tumbling from his lips as though they were chasing my retreating shadow.
His chest rose and fell in hard, uneven pulls, he had definitely sprinted after , and the realization did sothing traitorous inside my chest. Heat blood there, soft and unwelco, like a spark catching in a pile of dry leaves.
His hand found my arm, fingers curling just tight enough to anchor . Not painful,not even close, but firm, steady, a silent vow that he wasn’t letting go until he forced the truth into the open.
The contact sent a confusing tremor up my spine, sothing between relief and fury, comfort and the urge to shove him away.
He dragged in another breath, slow, deliberate, heavy, like he needed to swallow every emotion, reorder every word, wrestle his thoughts back into sothing that made sense before speaking again.
"I don’t love her," he said, each word thick and heavy with urgency. "I actually love..."
He paused.
A heartbeat stretched, thick, trembling.
I waited.
My pulse staggered, hope caught sowhere between my ribs and my throat, aching, stubborn.
But nothing ca next.
He opened his mouth again, only to close it. His throat bobbed. His eyes flickered away.
Silence, not a denial, not a confession.
Just silence that bruised more than any blow could.
I swallowed hard, the tiny spark of foolish hope inside guttering like a candle exposed to wind.
"Look," he continued quickly, as though his unfinished sentence didn’t hang between us like a blade, "I just need you to believe ."
His hand shot upward, fingers pointing toward the night sky visible through the open hallway windows.
"It’s the full moon," he said, frustration slipping into his voice. "You know what that ans. It’s the Alpha’s heat period." His gaze darted back to intensely, almost pleading. "She definitely knows that. So she ca to my room on purpose, looking all... nice and seductive."
The bitterness in his voice when he said "seductive" was almost convincing.
Almost.
I exhaled slowly, the air leaving my lungs like defeat rather than relief. My eyes dropped to the floor for a heartbeat, then flicked back up to his.
I wanted to believe him, Moon Goddess knew I did. I wanted to cling to every word he fed , wrap myself in them like armor.
But the truth, the one lodged deep in my chest like a thorn, refused to be ignored.
She could have walked in naked.
She could have kissed him first.
She could have moaned his na like she already belonged to him.
None of that mattered.
He could have resisted.
He could have thrown her out.
He could have walked away.
But he hadn’t.
Because he was drawn to her.
And worse, he didn’t even know.
A pain I wasn’t prepared for seared through , raw and humiliating.
"Aidan..." I whispered, forcing my voice to stay steady though it trembled like a leaf in the wind.
My heart slamd against my ribs so loudly I wondered if he could hear it.
And then the dam inside cracked.
"I am in love with you."
The words slipped out, bare, unarmored, unforgivingly vulnerable. A truth that had been clawing at for months. A truth I swore I would take to my grave. A truth I never intended to say out loud, not like this.
I dropped my gaze to the polished stone floor beneath us, unable and unwilling to et his eyes.
I didn’t want to see confusion. Or surprise.
Or—Moon forbid—pity.
My hands shook, so I clasped them tightly in front of .
Aidan remained frozen, silent again.His grip on my arm loosened ever so slightly. His breath slowed. His wolf stirred behind his eyes, sothing flickering through them I couldn’t read.
But he still didn’t move closer. He didn’t pull into his arms. He didn’t say my na like he promised. He didn’t whisper back the words I so desperately wanted to hear.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a heartbeat, steadying myself.
Because what ca next, Whether he stayed silent or spoke, whether he broke or saved ... Would change everything.
And all I could do now was wait in that suspended breath between what I hoped for... and what would crush .
Then he called out, breaking through the silence, "Vanessa, I... I.." he hesitated for a heartbeat like he wasn’t so sure of his words. "I love you too."
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