I gasped, the air leaving my lungs as if I had been punched. I shook my head, waiting to wake up from this nightmare, but my sister's slow, predatory smirk told me this was very real.
"What are you talking about?" I countered, my voice trembling with rage. "Dante found me! He marked me! How could I lie about a bond he felt himself?"
I searched Dante's face for a glimmer of the man from last night. Instead, I found a stranger. His eyes were full of a dark, twisted mischief, a cruelty I had never seen before.
"Say something, Dante," I pleaded. "Tell them."
Instead of speaking to me, he reached out and took my sister's hand, caressing her knuckles as if she were a fragile jewel.
"So, you thought you could trick me into believing you were my mate?" He mocked, his voice dripping with disdain. "You are nothing but a worthless, lying lone wolf. Did you really think I would accept a stray like you?"
The words felt like physical blows. The mockery of my "lone wolf" status hurt, but the lack of remorse in his eyes was lethal.
"I am pregnant, Clarissa," my sister added, her voice a sickly-sweet whine as she played the victim. "Please, for the sake of my child... let go of my mate."
Pregnant? My mind spun. I looked at John, Dante's Beta but he looked away, his eyes full of pity. I didn't want his pity. I wanted the truth.
I stood up slowly, my legs shaking but my gaze fixed on the man who had broken my heart before the sun had even fully risen. If he wanted me gone, we would do this the ancient way.
"Then reject me!" I screamed, the pain finally breaking through.
Dante stood, his presence towering and cold. There was no hesitation.
"I, Dante Montero, Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack, reject you, Clarissa Barlow, as my mate!"
The faint shuffling of feet pulled my gaze upward. I watched, paralyzed, as a line of maids began hauling my belongings out of the Alpha's suite. It was a physical manifestation of my life ending. Every trunk and silk dress carried away was a piece of the future I thought I had.
I looked at Dante, desperate to find even a flicker of regret or a shadow of the man who had held me hours ago. He didn't spare me a single glance. He remained focused on my sister, his smile radiant and genuine in a way that made my blood run cold. When did this start? Had they been meeting in secret before my parents died, or had the betrayal begun the moment they were gone?
A thousand questions swirled in my mind, but Dante's stony silence was the only answer I was going to get.
A sharp, jagged pain pierced my chest, the physical toll of the broken bond but the tears wouldn't come. I was too hollow for them. I wished the floor would simply open up and swallow me, hiding me from the suffocating humiliation of this room.
"I want everything of hers gone! Now!" Dante's voice boomed, directed at the staff.
I looked at the mountain of my things. Unless the Omega quarters had changed drastically, there was no way my life would fit into a servant's cramped cell. Grief and panic warred within me. I had leaned on Dante entirely after the accident. I had let him become my world. If I had known my "mate" was a predator in disguise, I would have found a job, a home, a life, anything but this gilded cage.
Now, as a demoted Omega with no pack standing and no coin to my name, I was little more than a slave.
"Dante, please! Don't do this!" I cried out as he stood to leave the table. I threw myself at him, my fingers locking around his ankle in a desperate, pathetic plea.
He didn't even look down. With a sharp, forceful jerk, he kicked his leg free, nearly sending me sprawling across the floor.
"You promised," I choked out, the words raw and bleeding. "You said I was yours forever. Were they all lies? Every word?"
He paused, a dark, low chuckle vibrating in his chest. He turned his back to me, his silhouette cold and imposing.
"Well," he murmured over his shoulder, "in this world, lies are inevitable."
With that, he swept out of the room, his Beta trailing behind him like a shadow. The elders and my sister followed suit, leaving me alone on the cold dining room floor, surrounded by the ruins of a life I never truly had.
"Lu…Cla-ris-sa," one of the maids drawled. She cut herself off from saying Luna, her voice dripping with a newfound, biting familiarity.
I shook my head slowly, marvelling at how quickly the masks fell. Only yesterday, these same women had practically worshipped the ground I walked on. Now, I was just another name on a chore list.
"Yes," I answered, my voice a hollow rasp. I didn't have the strength to fight for a title that had been stripped away in front of the entire pack.
"I am here to take you where you actually belong," she said, a cruel smirk tugging at her lips. I didn't give her the satisfaction of a reaction. I didn't blame her, I blamed Dante for leaving my carcass out for them to pick at.
"Lead the way," I replied.
She didn't bother checking to see if I was keeping up. She simply turned on her heel and marched toward the back of the estate, down into the damp, shadowed corridors of the Omega quarters. I followed like a ghost. In truth, I wasn't a member of this pack, they couldn't legally keep me prisoner but Dante knew I had nowhere else to go. My parents were gone, my sister was a traitor, and my pockets were empty.
I just need to endure, I told myself. Work, save every coin, and disappear. That was the plan. Until then, I would survive.
"Here," the maid said, stopping abruptly in front of a narrow, warped wooden door.
I stared at the "room." It was little more than a storage cubicle, a jagged scar in the wall. My breath hitched. "Are you... are you certain this is it?"
She scoffed, raking her eyes over my disheveled clothes with pure disdain before brushing past me. I caught the tail end of her muttered insults as she disappeared down the hall, her laughter echoing off the stone walls.
I stood before the entrance, my body aching with exhaustion that went deeper than my bones. Growing up, I had never known anything but comfort, even after my parents died, Dante had swaddled me in luxury. I prayed that, at the very least, the space was clean.
Steeling my nerves, I pushed the door open.
The stench hit me first, damp rot and stagnant air. Then came the sound: a dry, frantic fluttering. A swarm of roaches, disturbed by the light, erupted from the shadows. One flew so close to my face I could feel the prickle of its legs against my ear.
A raw, jagged scream tore from my throat. The room spun, the floor rushed up to meet me, and the world finally went black.