Chapter 2

This was it. It was the day of their wedding.

Or rather, what would’ve been their wedding.

Sarah hadn’t slept a wink since Nate had come home. He hadn’t said a word when she demanded that he leave the house, and she had no doubt that he had gone crawling back to Brittany.

‘In the end, I wasn’t enough for him,’ she thought bitterly.

When Sarah had first met Nate, her wolf hadn’t awakened yet. At eighteen, she wasn’t the only member of the pack who had yet to experience their first shift. They were usually called late bloomers, and most would awaken their wolf spirit by the age of twenty anyway. It wasn’t a cause for concern, basically.

Nate, meanwhile, had only recently awakened his own wolf, just as many others did at his age. He was destined to become the future Alpha when he turned twenty, so the pack had been eagerly anticipating the occasion.

As per tradition, they threw a grand celebration for his awakening. From then on, it would be a countdown to the day Nate officially came of age and assumed his position as Alpha. Everyone in the pack was invited, naturally, so she came in her best dress and expected to enjoy the night without incident.

To make a long story short, Nate got drunk and bumped into Sarah on his way home. She had been drinking at the party as well, so things progressed quickly from there.

Apparently, his wolf had sensed something in her and believed that she might be his mate. He took her home that night, and the two of them spent the night together in his sheets. She had always thought of it as a magical, unreal moment, especially since the Alpha himself was the one who took her virginity.

From then on, they officially became a couple. The female pack members had envied her for this, which was probably why she didn’t have many friends. It was hard, having her life turned upside down because of an accidental one night stand with the Alpha, but Sarah believed that as long as Nate was by her side, she could overcome anything.

Three years later, Sarah was supposed to become the Luna of the Ridgewood Pack.

Sarah knew that Nate had a first love that he couldn’t get over. She knew because the other pack members loved to gossip, and they weren’t particularly good at keeping secrets.

Apparently, Nate’s ex-girlfriend, Brittany, had left him for another man, and he hadn’t been the same since. He was always hoping that she would return to him someday, but she never did. Even when Brittany and that man broke up months later, she never asked to get back together with Nate.

Sarah had assumed that, after three years together, Nate had finally grown to love her. So, she had forced herself not to think too much about Brittany.

Maybe she should’ve nipped it in the bud back then.

Maybe then, her big day wouldn’t have been ruined like this.

‘I need to calm down,’ Sarah told herself, forcing herself to take a deep breath. ‘First, I need to talk to the pack elders and call off the wedding, just as Nate wishes.’

That was, of course, assuming that they agreed to cancel it.

Sarah scowled. She knew exactly how much the elders valued the pack’s reputation. If she told them she no longer wanted to marry Nate because he had betrayed her, they might not believe her. Worse, they might still force her to go through with the marriage and become the Luna of the pack.

If she wanted this wedding to be canceled, she would have to bring them cold, hard evidence.

But of course, they shouldn’t be the only ones to see the proof of cheating.

Everyone else in the pack needed to see it, too.

At that moment, Sarah felt a surge of determination inside of her.

Fine, then. Nate had chosen to betray and humiliate her like this? Okay.

It was time for revenge.

***

It was still early in the morning, early enough that most of the pack members were still asleep. The ones already awake, meanwhile, would already be out patrolling or hunting.

So it was the perfect opportunity for Sarah to do some reconnaissance.

She shifted into her wolf form and followed Nate’s scent. It was faint, but after dating him for three years, she could recognize it far more easily than most pack members could.

She moved silently through the shadows, following her Alpha’s trail until it led her to a small cabin in a remote part of the pack’s territory.

Under normal circumstances, she might have missed it entirely since the surrounding trees concealed the cabin almost perfectly.

Using her wolf’s natural camouflage ability, Sarah blended into her surroundings and crept toward the half-open window.

And there she saw it.

It was Nate, and a woman who she assumed was his ex-girlfriend, Brittany.

The two of them were curled up under the sheets, his arm around her shoulders as they slept. They were both clearly naked, and there was this heavy scent of sex in the air that told Sarah everything she needed to know.

‘Sick, my ass,’ Sarah thought as she pulled out her phone from her pocket and started taking photos as evidence.

Even as she took multiple snapshots, the two of them were still fast asleep. Probably exhausted from their strenuous ‘exercise’.

Sarah wanted to vomit.

She wanted to scream and storm inside to confront them both, but she knew that wouldn’t accomplish anything.

‘I won’t let this go,’ she vowed as she turned away from the cabin, her blood boiling.

She had loved Nate. She had given him three years of her life. She had believed he was the man she would spend the rest of her life with.

She had been wrong. And that was exactly what made her so angry.

‘Now that you’ve betrayed me, it’s time for payback,’ she swore.

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