Omega to Luna: Rejecting My Betrayed Mate

The grocery bags slipped from my hands, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull thud that echoed through our bedroom like a gunshot.

Caelen was on top of her—Seraphina from the council's administrative office—her auburn hair splayed across our pillows like spilled wine.

The scent hit me before my eyes could fully process what I was seeing: his familiar rosemary mixing with her cloying gardenia perfume, creating a nauseating cocktail that made my inner wolf, Aria, recoil in physical agony.

"Lyra!" Caelen's voice cracked as he scrambled off the bed, his Beta aura flaring in what I'd once mistaken for protective instinct but now recognized as pure irritation.

Not shame. Not remorse.

Irritation.

Seraphina clutched the sheet to her chest, her green eyes wide with panic as she gathered her scattered clothes. "I—I should go," she stammered, practically falling over herself to escape.

"Yes, you should," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the roaring in my ears.

The bedroom door slammed behind her, leaving me alone with the man I'd called my mate for four years. The man whose child I'd carried. The man I'd trusted with every vulnerable piece of my heart.

"It's not what it looks like," Caelen said, reaching for his discarded shirt. Even now, even caught red-handed, he had the audacity to lie.

I stared at him—really looked at him—and wondered how I'd been so blind. His dark hair was mussed, his lips swollen, and that damned gardenia scent clung to his skin like evidence of his betrayal. "On our daughter's birthday," I said, the words scraping my throat raw. "On Sylvi's fourth birthday, Caelen."

He had the grace to flinch at that, but only for a moment. "Lyra, listen to me—"

"Mommy?" Sylvi's small voice cut through his excuse like a blade. "I heard something break."

My heart stopped. Our daughter stood in the doorway, clutching her stuffed wolf, Shadow, to her chest. Her dark eyes—so much like mine—took in the scene with the unsettling perceptiveness that had always made her seem older than her years.

I dropped to my knees, trying to block her view of Caelen as he hastily pulled on his clothes. "It's okay, sweetheart. Mommy just dropped the groceries."

But Sylvi's nose wrinkled, and she tilted her head in that way that meant she was processing something that didn't make sense. "Daddy," she said, her voice carrying that innocent clarity that children wielded like weapons, "why does that lady's flower smell stick to your shirt?"

The question hung in the air like a death sentence. Caelen's face went white, then red, his composure cracking like ice under pressure. I watched him struggle for an answer that wouldn't damn him further, but there was nothing he could say. Nothing that would explain away the scent evidence that even our four-year-old daughter could detect.

"Sylvi, go to your room," he said finally, his voice tight with barely controlled panic.

"But it's my birthday," she protested, looking between us with growing confusion. "Mommy