ARIA'S POV
The dinner is burning.
I smell it before I see the smoke curling from the oven—Rowan's favorite roast, the one I've been preparing for three hours, turning black around the edges. My hands shake as I grab the oven mitts, yanking the pan out just as five-year-old Finn crashes his toy truck into the kitchen table leg for the hundredth time.
"Finn, baby, please play quieter," I say, trying to keep my voice calm even though I want to scream. Six years. Six years of marriage, and I still can't get one dinner right.
"Why?" Finn doesn't look up from his truck. "Daddy's not coming anyway."
The words punch me in the stomach. "Yes, he is. It's our anniversary. He promised—"
"Daddy always promises." Finn smashes the truck into the table again, harder this time. "Then he goes to see Mommy Celeste instead."
My heart stops. "What did you say?"
"Mommy Celeste." Finn says it so casually, like he's talking about the weather. "Daddy's other wife. The pretty one."
I drop the oven mitts. The roast pan clatters onto the counter, forgotten. "Finn, I'm your mother."
"No, you're not." He finally looks at me, and his gray eyes—Rowan's eyes—are cold in a way no five-year-old's should be. "You're the babysitter. Daddy told me. He said you're staying until I'm bigger, then you have to leave so our real family can be together."
The kitchen tilts. I grab the counter to steady myself. "Finn, who told you that?"
"Daddy and Mommy Celeste." He drives his truck across the floor, completely unaware he just destroyed my world. "They said not to get attached to you because you're temporary. What does temporary mean?"
I can't breathe. Six years of cooking Rowan's favorite meals, organizing pack events, raising his son alone while he worked late. Six years of sleeping beside a man who never touched me unless he had to. Six years of telling myself that patient love would eventually melt his ice-cold heart.
And all along, I was just the babysitter.
"It means..." My voice cracks. "It means something that doesn't last forever."
"Oh." Finn shrugs. "Like goldfish. My goldfish was temporary too. It died."
I want to throw up. Instead, I walk to the dining table where I set out our anniversary dinner—candles, flowers, the good plates I saved from my parents before they died. Rowan proposed to me six years ago today. I thought it meant something. I thought the mate bond meant we were forever.
The clock on the wall reads 7:47 PM. Rowan said he'd be home by six.
I blow out the candles before Finn can see me cry.
"Go play in your room, sweetheart," I tell him, forcing a smile. "Mama needs to—"
"You're not my mama," Finn interrupts. He's not trying to be cruel. He genuinely believes it. "Mommy Celeste is my mama. She smells like flowers and gives me candy. You just make rules."
He runs off, leaving me alone in a kitchen that smells like burned meat and broken dreams.
I should be angry. I should storm to Rowan's office and demand the truth. But I'm so tired. Tired of trying. Tired of loving a man who looks through me like I'm invisible. Tired of being the weak Omega everyone whispers about behind closed doors.
The Ashford Pack thought it was hilarious when their powerful Alpha got stuck with a mate who could barely shift. I heard them at our wedding—"Poor Rowan, bound to a defective wolf." Even Rowan's face when the mate bond snapped into place showed nothing but disappointment.
But I tried anyway. I learned to cook his favorite foods. I memorized his schedule. I supported every decision, attended every meeting, smiled through every event where pack members whispered about my inadequacy. When I got pregnant with Finn, I nearly died in childbirth because my weak Omega body couldn't handle it. I bled for hours on that hospital bed, and Rowan visited me twice—both times to check if his son survived, not me.
"You did your duty," he said, and those three words summarized our entire marriage.
Still, I told myself love was patient. That eventually, he'd see me.
But you can't be seen by someone who's looking at someone else.
The front door slams open. My heart leaps—maybe Rowan remembered after all—but it's just Marcus, Rowan's Beta. His face looks uncomfortable when he sees me standing in the kitchen surrounded by cold anniversary dinner.
"Luna Aria," he says carefully. "I was looking for Alpha Rowan. Have you seen him?"
"No." The word tastes like ash. "Have you?"
Marcus's eyes shift away. He's lying. He knows exactly where Rowan is. "I'm sure he's just... held up with pack business."
"Right. Pack business." I laugh, and it sounds hollow even to my own ears. "On our anniversary. How important that must be."
"Aria—" Marcus looks genuinely sorry, which somehow makes it worse. "I should go."
He leaves quickly, like my broken heart might be contagious.
I stand alone in my kitchen, surrounded by the ruins of a dinner no one will eat, and something inside me finally cracks. Not my heart—that broke years ago. Something deeper. Something that's been sleeping since my parents died when I was seven.
My wolf.
She's been quiet for so long, barely a whisper in my mind. The pack healers said I was defective, that my wolf might never fully emerge. But right now, she's screaming.
Find him, she snarls. Find our mate. Know the truth.
"I don't want to know," I whisper to the empty room.
But my wolf doesn't care what I want. She's pushing to the surface, lending me strength I haven't felt in years. My hands stop shaking. My vision sharpens. And suddenly, I can feel the mate bond—that connection I've ignored for years because it only ever brought pain.
Except right now, it's not painful. It's... bright. Hot. Intense.
Rowan isn't working late. Rowan is feeling pleasure.
The kind of raw, primal pleasure that makes the bond glow like fire between us. The kind of pleasure he's never, ever felt with me.
My wolf howls. Go. Now. SEE.
I'm moving before I decide to, running out the back door into the forest. The night air hits my face as I shift—my weak, partial shift that never works right—but my wolf doesn't care. She's tracking our mate's scent through the trees, following the bond that leads like a rope around my heart.
Toward the old hunting cabin on pack borders.
Toward the smell of sex and perfume and betrayal.
Toward the truth I've been too scared to face for six years.
My wolf pushes me faster, and for once, my body obeys. The forest blurs past. My heart pounds. The bond gets brighter, hotter, more intense with every step.
And then I smell it.
Jasmine perfume. Celeste's signature scent.
Mixed with Rowan's sweat.
Mixed with the unmistakable smell of two wolves having sex.
I burst into the clearing where the cabin sits, and my wolf forces me to look through the window at a sight that will haunt me forever.
Rowan has Celeste bent over a table, taking her with a violence and passion I've never seen on his face. He looks alive. His eyes burn. His mouth is open in pleasure. This is what desire looks like on my mate.
This is what he keeps for someone else.
My gasp cuts through their pleasure like a knife.
Rowan's head snaps toward the window. His eyes meet mine.
And instead of guilt, I see annoyance.
"Aria," he growls, not even pulling out of Celeste. "Go home."
Not "I'm sorry." Not "I can explain."
Just "go home," like I'm an inconvenient child interrupting adult time.
Celeste turns her head, and her smile is pure poison. "Oh good, you're here. Now you can finally learn what a real woman does for her Alpha. You've had six years to figure it out, little Omega. Clearly, you failed."
My world is ending, but somehow I'm still standing. Somehow I'm still breathing.
"How long?" My voice sounds strange. Distant. "How long have you been—"
"Does it matter?" Rowan's tone is bored. Actually bored. "You fulfilled your role. You gave me an heir. Celeste fulfills... other needs."
"We're mated," I whisper. "The Moon Goddess—"
"Made a mistake." Rowan finally pulls away from Celeste, tucking himself back into his pants like this is a normal conversation. "You're a defective Omega, Aria. Do you know what it's like being pitied by other Alphas because my mate can barely shift? I did my duty. I gave you status, protection, a home. Don't be greedy."
"I loved you." The words rip out of me. "I almost died giving you Finn—"
"And I'm grateful for my son. But let's not pretend this was ever a love match." He says it so casually, like discussing the weather. "Celeste is my choice. She's strong, capable, worthy of standing beside an Alpha. You've always been temporary, Aria. Surely you knew that."
Temporary. Like Finn's goldfish.
Something inside me dies. Not my heart—that's been dead for years. Something bigger. The hope I've been clinging to like a drowning woman clinging to driftwood.
I turn to walk away, my weak wolf whimpering in my mind.
"Oh, and Aria?" Celeste's voice drips with false sweetness. "Finn calls me Mommy now. Rowan and I thought it would be easier for him. You know, for when you finally leave."
My son. My baby. The child I nearly died birthing.
Calls her Mommy.
I run.
Behind me, I hear Rowan sigh like I'm being dramatic. "Women," he mutters to Celeste. "So emotional."
I run deeper into the forest, my partial shift falling apart, my weak legs stumbling over roots. I run until I can't hear them anymore, until I can't smell jasmine perfume or my mate's pleasure.
But I can't outrun the truth.
I was never his wife. I was never Finn's mother.
I was always just the babysitter.
And my time is up.