Chapter 62
The bitch smirks like she’s already won.
I want to claw that smile straight off her face and shove it down her surgically enhanced throat
2029
My pulse thrums in my earshot, thick, deafening drowning out the clinking of champagne glasses and the low murot of gossip and the press swirling around the area. The air reeks of expensive perfume and wealth–artificial, offering
It makes me want to gag
I should turn around. 1 should walk away. This isn’t why I came here. I came here for a fitting—not to self–destruct in front of half the werewolf aristocracy like some pathetic little Omega who never learned how to keep her damn heart locked oy where it belongs—I already did that.
But then she speaks.
“Oh? Not a fan, then?”
Her voice is silk wrapped around barbed wire–soft, sweet, and designed to cut deep. The way she’s looking at me–head tilted, lips curved into that razor–sharp smirk–it’s fucking deliberate. She knows exactly what she’s doing,
Baiting me.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood,
Don’t react.
Don’t give her the satisfaction.
“You looked like you recognized him,” she purrs, circling me like a snake. “Maybe you’ve seen him in your dreams?”
The crowd shifts, eyes flicking toward us–sensing the tension thickening in the air.
I can feel Zoe’s panicked stare burning into the back of my head from somewhere behind me. I hear her faint, horrified whisper.
“Taryn–just ignore her. Walk away.”
I should.
I fucking should.
But I don’t.
My mouth is already moving before I can stop it. I saved Enoch, it was me he falls onto when he lost his memories. I’m the woman he likes.
“I don’t need to dream about him.” I bite back low, steady–coiled tight like a goddamn wire about to snap. “He already belongs to me.”
Her smirk flickers. Just for a second. Barely noticeable.
But I fucking see it.
A ripple goes through the crowd–soft gasps, hushed whispers. Someone chuckles under their breath.
Shit.
1/8
3 95%#
+45)
Chapter 62
The bitch’s smile stretches wider.
“Oh, darling…” she purrs, brushing a platinum blonde curl off her shoulder. “That’s adorable.”
I want to rip her throat out with my teeth.
Instead, I lift my chin higher, swallowing the jagged lump rising in my throat.
He’s watching.
I can feel him.
Even if I can’t see him, I know he’s there. I’ve always known when he’s near–like some sick, twisted magnetic pull buried deep under my skin.
I glance past her–just for a second–my gaze locking onto the tall, brooding figure standing across the room.
Enoch.
He’s still exactly how I remember him–towering and lethal in a tailored black suit, broad shoulders cutting through the crowd like a goddamn storm. His face is carved from granite–sharp jaw, high cheekbones, forest green eyes flicking over the room like he’s already memorized every single threat in it.
Those eyes…
The same ones that used to pin me to the mattress in the dark and make me forget how fucking broken I was.
The same ones that used to look at me like I was his.
Now they skim right over me–like I’m just some random nobody taking up space in his perfect new life.
Like I never even fucking happened.
Something inside me cracks wide open–hot, violent, ugly.
I feel it bubble up to the surface–twisting through my ribs, clawing at the back of my throat. That stupid, reckless hope still clinging on by its bloody fingernails.
Say something, Enoch.
Do something.
But he doesn’t move.
Doesn’t blink.
Doesn’t even fucking see me.
I don’t realize I’ve taken a step forward until Lady Botox Barbie shifts into my path–blocking me like she knows exactly where I was going.
“You actually believe that, don’t you?” she coos.
Her smile sharpens, voice dropping low enough that only I can hear.
“Poor little Omega… still clinging to fairytales.”
My stomach twists.
2/8
Tue, 25 Mar
Chapter 62
Violent. Vicious.
I fucking hate her.
I don’t even know who she is, but I hate every perfect inch of her. The silk dress. The diamonds around her neck. The way she leans into him like she has every right to.
I hate that he lets her.
I hate that I can’t stop looking.
I hate that I’m still standing here like a dumb little punching bag, swallowing down shards of my own pride.
But most of all-
I hate that she’s fucking right.
I’m pathetic.
I’m still clinging.
Still waiting for him to see me.
And he’s not going to.
Not now.
Not ever.
“You’re right.” My voice is cold, brittle–cracking around the edges. “I’m pathetic.”
Her perfectly arched brow lifts–like she wasn’t expecting me to admit it out loud.
I step closer–until we’re practically nose to nose.
“But if you think I’m going to stand here and let some trophy wife with too much filler and a fucking trust fund talk down to me… you really don’t know who the fuck you’re dealing with.”
Her smile flickers.
There it is.
A crack in the perfect, polished armor.
I fucking see you, bitch.
The cameras start clicking faster–like sharks circling for blood.
Celeste’s eyes narrow.
“Careful,” she murmurs. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Then hit me,” I hiss back. “Let’s give them a show.”
Her nostrils flare, but she doesn’t move.
1 lean in, voice dropping lower.
“I dare you
3/8
10:26 Tue, 25 Mar
Chapter 62
For a second, I think she’s going to walk away.
For a second, I think I’ve won.
Then-
SLAP
It cracks through the room like a fucking gunshot–sharp, hot pain blooming across my cheek.
I stumble back a step, heart hammering against my ribs.
Gasps echo through the crowd. Flashes explode from every angle.
I taste blood on my tongue–metallic and bitter.
But I don’t move.
I don’t flinch.
I just smile.
Because if this bitch thinks she can break me with one little slap-
She clearly hasn’t been paying attention.
I drag my gaze past her–straight to him.
Enoch is still watching.
Our eyes lock across the room–forest green colliding with whiskey brown.
For one brutal second, I swear I see something flicker behind that cold, blank mask.
Recognition.
Regret.
Mine.
But then it’s gone.
He looks away.
He turns his fucking back on me. That’s the final nail in the coffin.
Celeste steps closer, her perfume choking the air between us.
“Let this be a lesson,” she whispers, voice silky and cruel. “Know your place.”
My heart is shattering inside my chest–splintering into jagged little pieces.
But I won’t let her see.
I won’t let any of them see.
I swallow down the lump in my throat, forcing my chin higher.
“Funny,” I croak, blood pooling in the corner of my mouth. “I was just about to say the same thing to you.”
4/8
Tue, 25 Mar
Chapter 62
Her eyes flicker.
Yeah.
That’s what I fucking thought.
The cameras click faster, the crowd pressing in closer–feeding off the tension like vultures circling fresh meat.
Zoe’s voice hisses somewhere behind me.
“Taryn, stop-”
But I can’t stop.
Not now.
Not when he’s watching.
Not when every single piece of me is burning alive under his indifference.
I want him to fucking hurt.
I want him to bleed like I am right now.
So I smile wider–blood staining my teeth-
And throw the first punch.
“Ah!”
Everything goes crazy
***
95%曲
I become the joke of the fucking year overnight.
Not the good kind, either–the humiliating, plastered–all–over–the–fucking–internet kind.
By the time I drag my sorry ass to work the next day, my name is already headlining gossip columns as though I’m some kind of deranged psycho ex.
JEALOUS OMEGA ATTACKS LADY CELESTE IN A FIT OF DELUSION!
A CRAZED NOBODY CLAIMS THE ALPHA KING BELONGS TO HER!
MENTALLY UNSTABLE JOURNALIST EMBARRASSES HERSELF IN PUBLIC MELTDOWN!
I don’t know who the fuck is running the werewolf media machine, but they deserve a Pulitzer for making me sound like a full–fledged, bunny–boiling lunatic with nothing better to do than hallucinate royal dick.
But the worst part is that the only thing I care about–the truth–is buried so deep beneath the clickbait headlines that nobody gives a shit.
The elevator ride up to the office feels as if walking straight into a guillotine. Every time the doors open on another floor! feel the stares–colleagues pretending not to look, phones half–hidden behind their coffee cups as they scroll through: scandal I single–handedly detonated on the entire city.
By the time I make it to my desk, I’m already suffocating under it.
5/8
Chapter 62
Liam doesn’t wait.
His office door slams open the second I sit down, and I barely have time to flinch before his voice cuts through the newsroom like a knife.
“Taryn. My office. Now.”
Well.
That can’t be good.
The entire floor goes dead silent. Even Zoe, who’s been avoiding me though I have the fucking plague, pauses mid–typing with her eyes glued to the screen like she’s hoping the ground will swallow both of us whole.
I stand on legs that barely work, walking the slowest death march of my entire life as the clicks of my heels echo against the marble floor. Liam’s office door slams shut behind me.
The second we’re alone, he rounds on me.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
His voice is low. The kind of voice that makes weaker people piss themselves.
Too bad I’m way past giving a fuck.
“Yeah,” I snap. “I told the truth.”
Liam laughs–one of those sharp, humorless sounds that makes my stomach knot.
“The truth?” He leans over his desk, knuckles pressing into the glass surface. “All I see is a woman making a public spectacle of herself over a man who doesn’t even look her way.”
The words hit harder than they should.
I feel the crack somewhere deep–like something splintering behind my ribs–but I patch it up with anger before it has the chance to bleed out.
“Fuck you,” I breathe.
Liam’s brows shoot up, like I just grew a second head.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” My voice is shaking, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. Not now. Not when everything inside me feels like it’s clawing to get out. “I’m not crazy. I’m not some pathetic, lovesick little girl who imagined it all. He was there. He saw me. He knew me.”
But the second the words leave my mouth, I already know how they sound.
Desperate. Delusional.
Exactly what every single headline is painting me out to be.
Liam’s face goes blank. That dangerous, impenetrable mask he wears like second skin when he’s deciding whether or not to ruin someone completely.
“You need to let this go,” he says quietly. “Before you burn your entire fucking life to the ground.”
I almost laugh.
6/8
10:26 Tue, 25 Mar
Chapter 62
Too late.
I’m already ash.
95%
Zoe tries.
Bless her heart, she fucking tries.
She finds me in the bathroom an hour later, hovering awkwardly by the sinks while I splash cold water on my face as if it’s going to wash off the whole goddamn mess I’ve made of my life.
“Taryn…” She calls, soft and cautious.
I see the pity in her eyes before she even opens her mouth.
“Don’t,” I cut her off, gripping the edges of the sink so hard my fingers ache. “I’m fine.”
She’s not buying it. Of course she’s not. She cares about me.
“Maybe you should just lay low for a while,” she offers gently. “Let things blow over-”
“I don’t need your fucking advice, Zoe.”
The second it snaps out of me, I regret it.
Her face crumples. Just a flicker–barely a second–but I see it.
“Right,” she mumbles, backing away like I’ve slapped her. “Got it.”
My chest caves in, but I don’t call her back.
I let her walk out.
I don’t know why the fuck I’m so hellbent on pushing everyone away when I’m already drowning, but I can’t seem to stop.
The spiral hits hard and fast after that.
I don’t go to work the next day. Or the day after.
I spend forty–eight hours straight in bed with a half–empty bottle of whiskey and the curtains drawn so tight the whole world could have ended outside and I wouldn’t have noticed.
I don’t answer Zoe’s texts.
I don’t answer Gamma Abel’s calls which we do every week. Did they read the newspapers?
The only thing I do is pick at the scabs of every fucking wound Enoch left behind, bleeding myself dry over a man who probably hasn’t thought about me once since he walked away.
By the third day, something inside me snaps.
I need to feel something–anything–other than the suffocating, hollow ache he’s carved out of me.
So I throw on the tightest black dress I own, paint my lips blood–red, and go out looking for trouble.
7/8
25 Mar
95%
+45
Chapter 62
The club is loud. Hot. Bodies packed in wall–to–wall.
It’s exactly what I need.
Mindless. Chaotic. Forgettable.
I drown myself in vodka shots until the room blurs at the edges, then I let some random guy with too much cologne and wandering hands pull me onto the dance floor.
I don’t even know what the fuck song is playing just the bass, deep and filthy, rattling through my bones.
I let him touch inc.
Let him spin me around.
Let his breath ghost against my neck.
I don’t feel a goddamn thing.
Except-
Goosebumps rise along my spine.
That itch beneath my skin.
As though someone’s watching me.
I glance over my shoulder, heart hammering–but there’s nothing. Just shadows. Smoke. Strobe lights slicing through the crowd.
I’m drunk.
I’m paranoid.
That’s what I tell myself.
But the feeling won’t fucking go away.
It coils around my throat–hot and suffocating–until I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t fucking move. I stumble off the dance floor, trying to shake it off, but the second I reach the edge of the crowd-
A hand clamps around my wrist.
My breath snags.
It’s not the guy from the dance floor.
This grip is stronger. Colder.
I wl
8/8
B
AD
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