His Fated Mate Came Back While He Was Still Pressing Me Beneath Him

Chapter 3 What About Aria?

"Aria?" My mother's voice trembled.

"Mom, once I finish things here, I'll leave with you."

On the other end, she drew in a breath. "Okay, okay, okay. Your ears…" Her voice dropped. "How did Silver Spring Treatment go? You refused to tell me last time..."

"It came back, Mom. Ninety-eight percent. And my wolf awakened."

She broke down crying. I heard my father, Robert Ashford, ask what had happened, and I heard her try to answer through tears. "She's all right. Everything is all right now."

I had planned to announce it at Ethan's birthday banquet. I would play the cello myself and let him hear me perform for the first time in five years.

It would have been the best gift I could have given him.

But now there was no need.

"Mom, I have to go. I'll call again when I get there."

I ended the call, feeling as if everything had been drained out of me.

I stood in the middle of the Pack House living room and looked around.

Our framed photos still hung on the walls. Our framed photos hung on the walls. In the shoe cabinet by the entryway, my flats were neatly lined up beside his leather shoes. My usual mug sat on the drying rack by the kitchen sink.

Five years... Every day had left a trace.

I walked into the bedroom, opened the closet, and got to pack up.

One piece at a time, coats, sweaters, dresses, scarves. I reached up to the top shelf, pulled down the suitcase, folded the clothes, and packed them inside.

From the hidden compartment in the nightstand, I took the Silver Spring reports, old photos, the charm my mother had sent me, and the moonstone ornament I had brought from my birthplace, Tidehaven. I wrapped them all and put them into the last box.

Then I went back into the living room and took down the framed photo of Ethan and me from the wall. I turned it face down and placed it at the bottom of the box.

After that, I picked up the pair of ceramic kissing fish from the bedside table.

The day we moved in together, I had set them side by side and turned to Ethan with a laugh. "They'll guard our home for us."

I stared at the warm yellow lampshade for three seconds. Then I wrapped the fish in bubble wrap, put them into the box, and sealed it with tape.

When I was done, I booked movers through an app.

Two movers arrived. I directed them to carry the boxes downstairs.

When they carried out the last one, I heard the sound of an engine outside.

It was Ethan's car.

The front door opened a moment later. His footsteps drew closer, and then he came up behind me and slipped both arms around my waist. He rested his chin against my hair and asked, "What are you doing?"

I did not speak. Habit. For five years, he had never suspected that I could still hear. I did not ask where he had been today.

Then he let go and glanced toward the movers by the door.

One of them handed over the shipping slip. The destination line read Tidehaven.

Ethan took it and glanced down, a slight line forming between his brows.

Before I could take it back, his hand closed over the slip. "Tidehaven? What are you sending there?"

I lifted my hands and signed slowly.

"There's too much old stuff. I'm clearing some of it out."

Then I pulled out my phone and typed so he could read it.

"They're just some old clothes. I'm sending them to my parents' place."

He handed the slip back, then opened the notes app on his phone and typed a reply.

"You don't need to make room for me in the closet. I'm taking you to an auction for your birthday. Keep the day open."

I took the slip from him and signed where the mover pointed.

Then Ethan went into the bedroom.

I stayed in the living room, and after a few seconds, I heard his footsteps stop.

Then came the sound of the closet's sliding door opening. It was quiet for a few seconds. The door slid shut. He walked to the bedside. A few more seconds of silence followed.

When he appeared in the bedroom doorway, something in his face had changed.

His gaze swept over the empty space on the living room wall.

"The picture's gone! So is your moonstone."

He turned to look at me. His amber eyes darkened as gold flickered faintly beneath them, a warning that his wolf was stirring.

"Where are the ceramic kissing fish, Aria?"

His voice dropped half a note, and his Alpha aura vibrated faintly in the air.

Then he asked, "Will you still wait for me to come home?"

My lips parted.

Before I could say anything, his phone rang.

I tipped my chin toward his pocket, telling him without words to answer it.

He frowned when he saw the caller ID. It was Connor again. He let it ring out. Two seconds later, it started again.

I lifted my hand and signed. "Answer it."

He looked at me for a moment before taking the call.

Connor's voice came clearly through the speaker, and I heard every word.

"Alpha Ethan, Luna moved the ceremony up. Scarlett has already arrived in Stormhaven, and she wants the marking ceremony held tonight at eight at the Crescent Shrine."

Ethan was silent for a while. Then he asked quietly, "Where is she now?"

"She's in the west guest suite at the Pack House. She said... She said this should have happened five years ago, and she's tired of waiting."

Another stretch of silence followed.

Then Connor spoke again, his voice even lower, "There's one more thing. The Morraths already made the announcement public. It should be online by now."

Ethan's mouth tightened. I saw the muscle in his jaw twitch once.

"Got it."

He ended the call, grabbed his car keys from the entryway table, and looked back at me.

"I have something to take care of. Go to sleep. Do not wait up."

I stood by the window and watched his taillights vanish into the dark.

Then I picked up my phone and opened the pack's official social media page.

The top post was already pinned, an official announcement from the Morrath family of Crescent Moon Pack.

Official Announcement: [Alpha Ethan and Scarlett will enter into a Luna bond. The marking ceremony will be held tonight at eight at the Crescent Shrine.]

There was a photo attached.

Scarlett stood at Ethan's side with their fingers laced together in front of the Pack House. She wore a silver-white dress, and at her throat was the moonstone necklace. Around her neck was the moonstone necklace I had once seen Ethan design himself at a freshman-year ball. He had said then that it was a token for his future Luna.

I stared at the photo for a long time.

Five years ago, he had blocked a rogue's silver blade for Scarlett and injured the tendon in his right shoulder. From then on, he could no longer play the piano.

Five years later, she came back. His piano. Her dance company. They were the ones meant for each other.

And then there was me. I was the placeholder he used until she came back. I was the woman who took a blade meant for his brother and was kept at Ethan's side for five long years because he felt guilty.

My gaze moved over the house I had once been so reluctant to leave.

I had really believed, at one point, that Ethan and I were building a home together.

Now I knew better. Now I knew it was time to leave.

*****

At exactly eight, I slumped on the sofa, my thumb scrolling mechanically.

The pack's official feed was already flooded with ceremony photos. In the first one, Ethan and Scarlett stood before the altar at the Crescent Shrine while silver moonlight poured through the dome overhead. He held the Luna crown in both hands as he lowered it onto her head. In the second, he bent to her neck and sank his teeth into the skin beneath her ear. A thin line of blood slid down the pale curve of her throat. The mark sealed their bond.

I kept scrolling.

There was a video from the ceremony too. In it, Ethan stood with Scarlett's hand in his and addressed the entire pack in a voice that was low, steady, and impossible to misunderstand. "From this day forward, Scarlett is the only Luna of Crescent Moon Pack. Her will shall be my own. Her honor, my honor."

The comments were moving faster than I could read them. One had already been pushed to the top by likes.

A: [The marking ceremony! Alpha Ethan and Luna Scarlett are endgame! Protect them forever!]

Under that were hundreds of replies. Someone had started a poll asking who had been the side piece all along. Choice A was the deaf assistant who forgot her place. Choice B was the first love who had always been his Luna.

I stared at the words the deaf assistant until my nails cut into my palm.

Then a new comment appeared. Someone had attached a screenshot of my staff ID photo from when I started the job three months ago. In the picture, I wore a plain white blouse, my hair pulled neatly back, my smile small and self-contained, as if I did not quite belong to the world around me. The most-liked reply under it said.

B: [An Omega who can't even shift thinks she deserves a fated mate? She needs to step aside.]

They wanted me to step aside.

I turned the phone facedown on the coffee table and closed my eyes. In the dark, the ceremony only grew sharper. I could see the altar candles. I could see the moonlight pouring down through the dome. I could see the line of Ethan's throat and shoulders as he bit Scarlett's neck. Scarlett stood there beneath the pack's gaze, accepting their loyalty and submission as if she had been born for that altar.

The worst part was that I could not even tell myself it was untrue. Scarlett was the one Ethan had never gotten over. He had not let her go when she left five years ago, and he had not let her go now. I had only been keeping her place warm until she came back to claim it.

My nails bit deeper into my palm. Inside me, my wolf, Lyric, let out a low, wounded sound. I threw the phone onto the sofa, walked into the bathroom, turned on the hot water, and let it beat against my face.

When I came back into the bedroom, my phone screen was glowing.

There was a text from an unknown number with an image attached. It was a digital invitation to the banquet celebrating Scarlett's Luna Ceremony. My seat number was listed in bold, Section B, Row 3, Seat 7. The message beneath it read.

Scarlett: Aria, thank you for taking care of Ethan all these years. I saved you a seat at tomorrow night's banquet. I hope you'll come so I can thank you properly.

She knew. She knew exactly who I was. She knew everything that had happened between Ethan and me. And still, she had sent me an invitation as if she were the lady of the house tossing a servant a piece of cake.

All at once, I felt like a fool. Five years... I had given Ethan five years, and in the end, I was nothing more than a transitional chapter in their reunion story. When Scarlett left, I was moved into her place. Now that she was back, I was being moved out of it.

I thought of a winter night three years ago, when Ethan came home from work after two in the morning. I had warmed a mug of milk for him, and when he took it from my hands, he signed.

"Where you are is home."

I had believed him.

But he had not spent a night in our home in four days. He'd found his home in another place entirely.

I closed the invitation, opened the bottom drawer of the nightstand, and took out the deed to the apartment Ethan had bought in my name three years earlier. At the time, he had told me it was for my security. He had called it a way out. Now I understood that even his generosity had been another form of control.

I took a photo of the deed, opened a real estate app, and typed a message to an agent.

Aria: List it at twenty percent below market value. Sell it as soon as possible.

Before I left, I would wipe every last trace of him from my life for good.

Then my phone buzzed again.

Scarlett had sent a voice recording.

I pressed play.

Ethan's voice filled the room. It was low, gentle, and so intimate that for one disorienting second, he sounded like a stranger.

"Scarlett, as Alpha of Crescent Moon Pack, I swear I will never fail you in this life."

Scarlett laughed softly. Then she asked, "What about Aria? What are you going to do with her?"

Ethan paused. When he answered, his voice went flat. "She's just an employee. I've already had her moved out."

He had called me an employee.

I sat there without moving. Five years of sleeping in the same bed, of f*****g each other until we were breathless.

Every time he kissed me and took me in that wild, desperate way, on the bed, on the sofa, in the bathroom, anywhere he wanted, I thought it meant he loved me. I thought it meant he could not stay away from me. I thought he was addicted to my body. Five years ago, I had taken silver shrapnel for him and lost my hearing.

And now he had erased all of it with one sentence.

At last, I understood why he had never mentioned me in public. It was not because the timing was wrong. It was not because he was protecting my privacy. It was because he had never intended to let anyone know.

In his world, from beginning to end, I had been nothing but an outlet for his desire. Whenever he wanted me, he could strip me down and use my body to satisfy himself. When he was thrusting into me, was he closing his eyes and picturing Scarlett?

By then, the pain had gone numb.

The recording was still playing. Scarlett murmured. "Thank you." There was the rustle of fabric after that, and then the recording ended.

I turned it off. I did not need to hear the rest to know what would have followed. They were probably already tangled together in bed, kissing and f*****g.

Tears splashed onto the phone screen, blurring Scarlett's profile picture until it was nothing but a smear of color.

My wolf, Lyric, let out a long howl. The bond in my chest trembled violently, sharp and piercing.

I wiped my face, opened Scarlett's message thread, and typed two words.

Aria: You win.

She never answered. My phone lay beside my pillow all night, the screen lighting up again and again with notifications from the pack feed. I did not open a single one.

At some point, exhaustion dragged me under.

The violent buzz of my phone woke me the next morning.

I fumbled for it with half-numb fingers and answered, my throat raw from sleep and tears.

"Ms. Ashford? Good morning, this is the Moonlight Hotel concierge desk. A lady left a gift for you, and it has just been delivered to your front door. Could you please sign for it?"