Chapter 2

Andrea:

The next day, I went to southerngate mercy hospital to clear out my locker and say goodbye to my old friends. These people have stuck with me through worse, they gave me a shoulder to lean on, wine to drink whenever a surgery was successful, the least I owed them was a last goodbye.

The moment I stepped through the hospital doors, my wolf stirred uneasily under my skin but I kept her locked down tight. Being the Alpha's daughter meant that my wolf was one of a kind. Five years of hiding my true identity has taught me how to suppress my royal bloodline.

No one here needed to know that the quiet Dr. Williams carried alpha blood and was an heir to one of the most prominent werewolf families. No one in this hospital knew, not even Kane. The hospital hall smelt the same like always, antiseptic, coffee and the metallic tang of blood.

As I started to clear out my locker room, Diane had already spotted me. She called my name and waved at me and I smiled back. She's been an ER nurse there longer than I've been a surgeon, and somewhere in that first brutal month of residency she just decided we were friends, whether I liked it or not. I liked it.

I finished clearing up my stuff before following her to the locker room. I opened my mouth to say something but she could already see the swirling look of sadness in my eyes.

She pulled me into a hug that smelled like burnt coffee and hand sanitizer, and shoved a bottle of my favorite bourbon into my arms like she'd been saving it for this exact moment. She pulled me into an embrace, and she still smelled like the perfume she had on five years ago when she hugged me.

"You're too good for him." She whispered and it's definitely not the first time, she has always been against Kane, not knowing what everyone else saw in him. "Go somewhere far, get a way better job and rub it in their faces from a distance. Do you promise to do that?"

I felt teary, and my wolf started to stir restlessly, but I nodded my head. "I promise."

She shoved a bottle of my favorite bourbon into my arms like she'd been saving it for this exact moment. "I am going to miss you so much, you better keep that promise."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this exact moment, it was easier said than done. There was a version of me that used to stand at my father's side while he ordered the whole pack. There was a version of me that grew up knowing exactly where I belonged: werewolf heiress, and that I'll inherit the Alpha position.

That version wanted badly to believe Diane. I hadn't let anyone at that hospital see that version of me. Not once, in five years. As far as Southgate Mercy was concerned, I was Dr. Andrea Williams, nothing more complicated than a surgeon who worked too many hours. Just an ordinary werewolf living an ordinary life.

Some of the other doctors in the break room glanced at us as they walked out of the room, some of them stopping by to say how much they were going to miss me, or how much of a positive influence I had been throughout my whole stay here as a surgeon. I gave them all polite smiles and told them that I was going to miss them too.

I stacked the old textbooks in my arms, coupled with my old scrubs top, ready to leave this place forever when the door opened and Kane walked in, and on his arms, Olivia Smith. The two people who turned my whole world upside down.

Kane was wearing a suit, which was surprising because he was always on his scrubs. I remembered begging him one time to wear a suit to work because it was my birthday and even though he agreed, he showed up to work wearing his usual suit.

I had been such an idiot to not have seen the whole signs. Olivia is wearing a yellow dress that hugs her curves, and unfortunately, everyone can't keep their eyes away from her. Even Diane. Seriously?

My wolf rose so hard and fast that for a second I tasted copper. I forced her back down and refused to look away. I would not be the one who ran.

Olivia 's engagement ring shined so bright, that everyone was ogling it from a distance. She placed her bag on the call table and flashed a warm smile at me.

"I heard you're leaving, Dr. Williams? Oh, what a pity. Well not everyone can handle the surgery department at Mercy. You should really just accept your fate and stop relying on men to get ahead."

Rage built fast and hot within me. Was she being serious right now? I had worked so hard, harder than anyone here, to get into Southerngate Mercy hospital, I had handled most cases just so I could be respected, and not be regarded as 'Kane 's girlfriend' but I guessed that was what everyone would see me as.

Meanwhile, Olivia 's father, the director of the hospital and Alpha to the Smith family had simply handed her an administrative position so she could 'keep an eye on things.'

I opened my mouth to say something when she slid an envelope towards me. When I picked it up, it was heavy and thick and that's when it dawned on me that it was an invitation.

"Well, Dr. Williams, we would really love it if you could come to our engagement party next week Saturday, it's also our mating ceremony. Trust me, there's going to be a lot of food and drinks, and perhaps there might be a few Omegas, who knows, you might find your own mate there."

I inspected the envelope, feeling equal part rage and equal part bitterness. I glanced at Kane to say something, anything at all, but he remained stoic by her side, not even blinking. He had never had my back not even once.

I tore the invitation in front of both of them, and let the pieces drop back onto the table.

Olivia’s smile cracked and I felt a little bit of victory. "Miss Smith," I said, and I kept my voice even, kept it low enough that everyone still had to lean in to hear it, "I'm not coming to your engagement party. If you want an audience, find one somewhere else. I don't want your ring. I don't want your name. I definitely don't want your supposed mate, he's all yours. You can keep him."

Everyone stared at me, probably wondering where I got all that audacity, "I shall take my leave now, please excuse me."

I grabbed my things and walked out before either of them could recover enough to respond. Behind me, Olivia started calling me every name she could think of. I didn't turn around. I just kept on walking. I was almost at the exit when a hand closed around my wrist.

"I love you." Kane's voice cracked right down the middle of those three words, like he actually believed they could undo two years of lying to my face. I turned around to look at him, and for the first time since I'd met him, I didn't feel anything. Not anger. Not grief. Just quiet.

"You don't love me." I said, my voice evenly. "If you loved me, you would have never let me go. You wouldn't have stood by while she humiliated me. I'm sorry, but we are over, besides don't you have a fiancée to attend to?"

I didn't wait to watch his face fall apart. I walked straight out to the parking lot, got in my car, and didn't let myself cry until I'd already pulled out onto the road, once there was nobody left to see me lose it.

I cried for the five years I'd spent making myself smaller than I actually was, hiding an entire inheritance behind a stethoscope because some part of me thought love meant being easy to keep around.

I cried for the girl I used to be the night I met him: the girl that was young, naive and stupid enough to think she'd finally found someone outside her own pack who wanted her for herself and not for what she'd eventually inherit.

He had no idea that the woman he'd just let get humiliated in a break room was heir to a wealthy pack.

By the time I got back to my apartment, I felt lighter. I finished packing in silence, folded up five years of my life right alongside the last of my scrub tops and made myself one promise: wherever I ended up, whatever waited for me back home, I was never again going to shrink myself down small enough to fit inside somebody else's lie.

Boston had already taken more from me than it deserved. I wasn't giving it anything else. It was time I finally chose myself.