Chapter 1

I had been sitting beside my husband when Megan Ashford called him.

It was nearly midnight.

The packhouse had gone quiet hours ago, and the city beyond our windows had settled into silence. The hum of the refrigerator. The distant traffic. The faint ticking of the clock above the fireplace.

Even without trying, my wolf could hear Alpha Ethan’s phone vibrating on the coffee table.

He reached for it, and the moment Megan’s name appeared on the screen, something in his expression changed, subtle enough that anyone else might have missed it, but I always noticed.

After five years with Alpha Ethan Blackwood, I had learned every expression in his face, every change in his voice, every pause before he answered a difficult question.

He was my husband, our Alpha, and I was his Luna, but the cruelest truth was that we were not mates.

We had chosen each other, built a life together, and stood beside one another before the pack. I had believed that choice meant something.

Maybe I had been wrong.

Without thinking, Alpha Ethan answered the call.

“Megan?”

Her voice was loud enough that even my enhanced hearing caught pieces of it.

“Where are you, Alpha? Come out. We’re all at the lounge.”

Ethan leaned back against the sofa.

“Now?”

He glanced at the clock.

“Yes, now. Why? Did your Luna have you on a leash?” Megan laughed.

“It's too late tonight, Megan. Let's do it another time.” Ethan said as he quickly glanced towards my direction.

“Oh come on. Don’t be boring, Alpha. You know you want to.” Megan said.

I lowered my eyes.

I didn't need a wolf's hearing to understand the invitation in her voice. She wanted him to come, and she expected him to say yes.

There was a brief silence.

Ethan glanced at me instinctively. I met his eyes through the sheet mask, my expression carefully blank. For a couple of seconds, he remained silent, caught between Megan’s invitation and the wife sitting beside him.

I wasn't going to ask him to stay.

I wasn't going to beg my husband to choose me over another woman.

Then Ethan looked away.

“Fine. I'll come over.”

The words hit me harder than they should have.

He ended the call, stood from the sofa, and reached for his jacket.

“You're leaving?” I asked quietly.

“Just for a while. Megan needs me.”

He didn't even look guilty.

That somehow hurt more.

I watched him walk toward the door without another word. I could have stopped him, reminded him it was nearly midnight, that I was his wife, and that Megan had no right to summon our Alpha whenever she pleased.

But I said nothing as the door closed behind Ethan and his footsteps faded through the quiet packhouse. I remained on the sofa, staring at the empty space beside me.

For five years, I had tried to accept that Megan was simply part of Ethan’s life.

She had known him before I became his Luna, grown up beside him, belonged to the same pack, and shared a history I could never change.

I never asked Ethan to abandon his oldest friend. I only wanted him to understand that boundaries mattered.

Yet whenever Megan crossed one, I was the one questioning myself.

There was always another call, invitation, or reason she needed Ethan. She appeared at pack gatherings, inserted herself into our plans, and acted as though she could reach for our Alpha whenever she wanted.

And Ethan always had the same explanation.

“She’s a tomboy.”

For five years, I had accepted that answer, swallowing my jealousy, silencing my wolf’s unease, and convincing myself that loving Ethan meant trusting him despite every instinct telling me otherwise.

Maybe that was why it took me so long to admit how much Megan had changed our marriage.

I walked into the bathroom and closed the door, then stared at my reflection. My face still glowed with serum from the sheet mask, so I peeled it off, crumpled it into the trash, and wondered if I looked beautiful or simply ridiculous.

I stared at myself a little longer, letting my tired eyes pull me back to the day I became Ethan’s Luna.

To Megan.

To the first time she looked me in the eyes and made me realize she never intended to stay quietly in the background.

It wasn't the first time Megan had made me feel like a stranger in my own marriage or tested my boundaries, yet for years, I convinced myself I was imagining things and that she was nothing more than Ethan's childhood friend.

Megan was a tomboy who didn't mean anything by sitting too close, stealing food from his plate, throwing her arms around him, or calling at midnight. She was simply comfortable with him, like a sister.

But sisters didn't look at married men the way Megan sometimes looked at Ethan.

I had noticed it long before I admitted it to myself. And I remembered the first time I had confronted her.

It had been around our wedding.

Megan had been standing beside Ethan, laughing at something he said while one hand rested casually against his arm.

She looked nothing like the careless tomboy she claimed to be, arriving at her childhood friend's wedding in a revealing, figure-hugging dress that showed far more skin than any innocent friend would, her short hair styled perfectly, her sweet smile hiding something colder in her eyes.

I waited until we were alone before confronting her.

“Megan.”

She turned toward me.

“Yes, Luna?” The title sounded respectful, but the smile wasn't.

“I need you to stop behaving like Ethan belongs to you.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” She laughed under her breath.

“I think you're being a little sensitive.”

“I think you know exactly what you're doing.”

For the first time, her smile disappeared. She stepped closer.

“If I wanted him,” she said quietly, “I would've made my move years ago.”

My jaw tightened. She continued, her voice dripping with confidence.

“You never would've stood a chance.”

The words struck harder than I wanted them to.

I stared at her.

“You're saying that to me on my wedding day?”

She shrugged. “I'm saying you don't need to be threatened by me.”

“Then stop acting like you're competing with me.”

Before she could answer, two of her friends approached.

One of them frowned at me.

“Claire, seriously?”

The other shook her head.

“Megan has known Alpha Ethan forever. You're being paranoid.”

“I am his wife.”

“And she's his friend,” one of them replied.

Megan folded her arms.

“I told you. She's just insecure.”

I looked at her as she smiled, not with innocence but with quiet triumph, just as Ethan appeared.

“What happened?”

I turned toward him. “Megan and I were talking.”

“She thinks I'm crossing boundaries,” Megan said immediately.

Her voice changed.

Suddenly, she sounded hurt, and when Ethan looked at me, he tried to hide the annoyance in his expression, but I noticed it anyway.

“Claire.” I waited.

“She’s always been like this,” he said.

There it was. The same excuse.

“She’s a tomboy. Why do you have to make everything so complicated? You’re being dramatic again.”

I wanted to laugh, but swallowed the hurt because I loved Ethan, so I let it go, or at least told myself I did.

Years passed, and Megan kept finding her way into our lives, appearing at pack gatherings, inviting Ethan places, and inserting herself into conversations until my objections made me the problem while Ethan defended her.

She never had to openly claim our Alpha. She only had to remind everyone that she had known him longer and could still call him whenever she wanted.

Ethan always said Megan was a tomboy, but the way she treated my husband told me something was wrong.

I wasn't naive enough to dismiss the possibility that her tomboy persona was simply a disguise around Ethan, making herself seem harmless while becoming someone else whenever she wanted something from him.

I forced myself to stop dwelling on it, dried my face with a towel, and stepped out of the bathroom.

My eyes immediately landed on our wedding picture. Looking at Ethan beside me, I wondered how many times I'd ignored my instincts because I trusted him.

I'd always mistaken everything for jealousy, but maybe my wolf had recognized the truth first.

I spent years trying to make our marriage work while another woman kept testing its boundaries, and somehow, I was the one made to feel guilty for noticing.

I walked closer and touched the frame.

The whole thing suddenly felt like a cruel joke. Maybe Megan never wanted to steal my husband. She only wanted to know she could still call an Alpha at midnight, make him listen, remain his first choice outside his marriage, and feel special. Ethan had given her that power for years.

I smiled bitterly at the photograph. This wasn't the first time Ethan had left in the middle of the night because Megan asked, but the pain was still there, growing deeper each year.

I finally stopped wondering if I was imagining things because I knew I wasn't.

Something was wrong, and I was ready to find out what.