A Luna's Revenge After Betrayed

The Pack House felt colder than the night outside.

I pushed the heavy oak door shut behind me and leaned against it for a moment, my heels throbbing inside silver pumps I'd worn for nine straight hours. The Harvest Gala had run long. Three speeches. Two toasts. A dance with the visiting Alpha from Crescent Ridge who'd held my waist a beat too long while his mate watched from across the room.

I just wanted Jasper.

I wanted him to unzip the back of this stupid green silk gown and tell me I'd done well. I wanted him to pour me a glass of the bourbon he kept in the study and let me put my bare feet on his lap.

That was the small, stupid prayer in my head as I climbed the curved staircase.

I was halfway to the second landing when I heard it.

A woman's voice. Breathy. Catching.

"Jasper—oh god, Jasper—"

My foot froze on the step.

For a second I thought it was the wind, or a TV left on, or one of the staff watching something they shouldn't. The Pack House had thirty-two rooms. Sound traveled. I told myself that.

Then I heard him.

His low groan. The one I knew. The one I'd only ever heard in our bed.

"That's it, baby. Just like that."

The bourbon I hadn't even drunk yet rose into my throat.

My hand locked onto the banister. The wood was cold. My fingers were colder. I couldn't feel them. I looked down at my own hand and it didn't seem to belong to me — pale knuckles, my grandmother's wedding ring catching the chandelier light, trembling against the polished oak.

The bedroom door — *our* bedroom door — was at the top of the stairs. I could see the strip of warm yellow light bleeding out from the bottom of it.

I didn't move.

The mattress was creaking. A rhythm. Their rhythm.

I clamped my hand over my mouth so hard I tasted copper where my teeth split the inside of my lip. A sound was trying to come out of me and I couldn't let it. I couldn't. If I made a sound he'd know I was here, and somehow — somehow in this moment — that felt worse than what was happening.

The ceiling tilted. Or I did.

I don't know how long I stood there. It might have been ten seconds. It might have been five minutes. The chandelier above the foyer made small tinkling sounds every time the heating vent kicked on, and I counted them. One. Two. Three. Four. Like a child counting sheep, except I was counting the seconds my marriage took to end.

I turned. I went back down the stairs.

I was crying without sound. The tears were running into my mouth and I could taste salt and the iron of my split lip and the cheap champagne from the gala all at once. My pumps slid on the marble.