He Never Marked Me

Chapter 3: Separate Rooms Tonight

(Isolde's POV)

My whole body was burning up.

Standing there in that red dress, I could barely keep myself upright. The ache had been building all evening, deep and relentless, the kind that came from a bond that hadn't been fed in too long.

I hated that it had gotten this bad.

But I had no choice. I had to ask.

"Garrett." My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "Please. I'm not doing well tonight. I need you to... I just need you to help me."

I could hear how desperate I sounded. I hated it.

He stared at me.

His eyes moved over the red dress, the low neckline, my flushed face. And what I saw in his expression wasn't desire.

It was disgust.

"Figure it out yourself," he said flatly.

I didn't say anything.

"And don't ever come out dressed like that again." He looked away from me like the sight of me offended him. "It's embarrassing."

Something inside my chest clenched so hard it hurt.

"Okay," I said quietly.

That was all I said.

He turned back toward the bed. I thought that was the end of it.

It wasn't.

"Starting tonight," he said, his voice still cold and even, "you don't sleep in this room anymore."

I looked up.

"I'm moving to the guest room." He was already pulling back the covers, not even looking at me. "You don't come in there without my permission. Not for any reason."

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

He got up from the bed, walked past me without a word, and left.

The bedroom door clicked shut behind him.

It was such a quiet sound. So ordinary. Like nothing had happened at all.

I stood there and didn't move.

The heat behind my eyes built slowly. I felt the tears collecting, sitting heavy at the edge of my lashes. But they didn't fall.

I just stood there in the middle of the empty room, in that stupid red dress, and stared at the door.

One year.

We had been mates for one full year.

In that entire year, he had never once reached for me. Never closed the distance between us. Never looked at me the way a mate was supposed to look. He treated me like furniture he'd been forced to keep in the house.

And Chloe - my wolf - had been suffering for it the whole time.

She couldn't thrive without the bond being fed. The bond needed contact, warmth, closeness. Without it, she'd been slowly going quiet inside me, curling smaller and smaller, like something starving in the dark.

My body had been sending up distress signals for months. That was why I'd gone to the clinic today in the first place.

And now Garrett had decided tonight was the right time to move into a separate room.

I wrapped my arms around myself.

The air in the bedroom felt thick and stale. But the heat inside my body hadn't gone down at all. If anything, it was worse. His disgusted expression kept flashing through my mind, and somehow that only made the burning worse.

And then, without meaning to, I thought of someone else.

The clinic. The examination room. A calm, low voice telling me to lie back. Ice-blue eyes that didn't flinch.

The doctor.

I caught myself and froze.

No.

I pressed my hand against my sternum.

I had a mate. I wasn't allowed to think about another man. That wasn't right. That wasn't something I was going to do.

But my body didn't care what was right.

The pain crested again, sharp and insistent, and Chloe let out a sound deep in my mind - small and miserable, like a whimper from something too weak to howl.

I couldn't fight it anymore.

I pulled open the nightstand drawer with shaking hands.

This was what the past year had looked like. Every time the bond went unmet. Every time Garrett turned away. I would end up here, alone, getting through it the only way I could.

I always used to picture Garrett.

Tonight, I couldn't make myself do it.

The face that kept coming was the doctor's.

I didn't fight it this time.

When it was over, I slumped back against the headboard, completely hollowed out. My chest rose and fell in slow, uneven pulls. I stared at the ceiling and felt nothing but exhausted.

This couldn't keep going.

I knew that. I'd known it for a while.

I reached into my bag and found the small glass bottle from the clinic. The moonpetal tincture. I unscrewed the cap, tilted it under my tongue, and let three drops fall.

The taste was faintly bitter, like dried flowers left too long in the sun.

Then a coolness spread from the back of my throat downward, slow and quiet, like a hand pressing gently against something raw. Chloe's shaking eased, just a little.

I sat there until my breathing steadied.

Then I pulled on a cardigan that was hanging over the chair and walked out into the hallway.

I wasn't going anywhere in particular. I just needed to move. Needed air.

The hallway was dark.

I passed the guest room on my way toward the stairs.

I should have kept walking.

I didn't.

There was a thin strip of light coming through the gap under the door. The door wasn't fully shut - it had been left slightly open, just a c***k.

I stopped walking.

From inside the room, I heard a sound.

Low. Muffled. A man's voice, rough and pressed down like he was trying to keep it quiet.

I knew what that sound meant. I wasn't naive.

My hand came up and rested against the wall beside the door.

I should have walked away.

Instead, I looked through the c***k.

The lamp on the nightstand was on, casting a dim yellow glow across the room. Garrett was sitting on the edge of the bed. His head was bent forward. He was holding something in his hand - a photograph.

His voice was barely above a whisper, but in the silence of the hallway, I heard every word.

"Victoria... my Victoria... I only want you. I only love you."

The name landed like something physical.

Victoria.

My half-sister.

The legitimate daughter of the Silvercrest Pack Alpha. The girl who had grown up with everything - the right name, the right mother, the right place in the pack. The girl who had spent our entire lives making sure I knew exactly where I stood, which was always beneath her.

Everything snapped into place at once.

Garrett had never touched me. Not because of some personal principle. Not because of anything I had done or hadn't done.

It was because I was never the one he wanted.

He had married me because I carried Silvercrest blood. Because I was a way in - a stepping stone toward her.

I was a substitute. A stand-in. The illegitimate daughter he'd settled for while keeping his real feelings hidden behind a closed door.

I thought about every night I'd spent wondering what was wrong with me. Every time I'd tried harder, dressed differently, made myself smaller or softer or more agreeable. Every time I'd told myself it would get better.

All of it. Every single moment.

A joke.

The whole pack loved Victoria. My father adored her. Luna Margaret treated her like a prize. And now her name was the one being whispered in the dark by the man who was supposed to be my mate.

I had always been the extra one. The one nobody needed.