My Fiance Cheated So I Claimed His Lycan Bosses

SCALDING

Claire’s POV

I watched Connor stride out of my office, broad shoulders rigid under that crisp white coat. He didn’t glance back. The door clicked shut behind him with a soft finality that somehow still managed to feel loud as hell.

I stared at the closed door longer than I meant to.

Connor had always unsettled me in ways I preferred not to examine too closely. He wasn’t just my best friend. He was the one constant I’d had since those chaotic years at Saint Mary’s. Two broken kids pretending the world hadn’t already chewed us up and spat us out. He used to steal extra chocolate pudding cups from the cafeteria and leave them beside my bed after another foster family decided I was “too much work,” never saying a word about it. Just the little plastic cup and a plastic spoon waiting like a quiet promise that someone still saw me.

When I was finally adopted and my new father brought me into the Stormbane pack at twelve, Connor disappeared into whatever strange life had claimed him after his own adoption. Years of silence. Then three years ago—right around the time Tyler and I started dating—he walked back into Woodhills Medical Center like no time had passed at all.

“Miss me?” he’d asked with that crooked grin.

I’d thrown a pen at his head. Still one of my finer moments.

Now the entire city whispered about Dr. Connor Hayes. The Golden Hands Surgeon. No patient had died under his scalpel in three years. Nurses called it a miracle. Older attendings muttered about unnatural talent behind closed doors. Connor just called them dramatic and kept dodging cameras like they personally offended him.

The man was a legend wrapped in sarcasm, and somehow he was still the same boy who once punched another kid for mocking my stutter in the group-home hallway.

Whatever emergency had dragged him out that fast, I’d call him later. Right now I had my own life waiting—one that finally felt warm and solidly mine.

I grabbed my tote, shrugged into my coat, and headed for the parking garage. After years of orphanage bunk beds and the rotating doors of foster homes, being ordinary still felt special sometimes. The kind of special that made me smile at stupid things, like the fact that my car actually started on the first try and smelled faintly of the lavender air freshener I’d bought last week because the old one had started smelling like regret and old fries.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, my fingers brushed the small velvet box tucked inside my bag. A soft smile pulled at my mouth.

Tyler’s surprise ring.

I’d spotted it weeks ago in a little shop near the waterfront and bought it on impulse because the simple band somehow reminded me of him—steady, a little old-fashioned, quietly expensive. Tomorrow was our engagement party, the official merging of Woodhills and Stormbane under one united front. But tonight could just be ours.

“He’s going to lose it,” I murmured, resting my forehead against the steering wheel for a second. Rain tapped lightly on the roof like it was trying to be supportive.

Tyler cried at everything. Military reunion videos. Those over-the-top emotional movie scenes. One time he watched wedding vows on YouTube and had to pretend he had sudden allergies afterward. God, I loved that about him. The way his tough Alpha image cracked over the little things that actually mattered. It made him feel human instead of the perfect pack leader everyone else saw.

Traffic was its usual Seattle special when I pulled out—slow, wet, and mildly chaotic. A girl in the next lane screamed Taylor Swift lyrics at the top of her lungs while trying to fix her lip gloss in the rearview mirror. Someone behind me honked at absolutely nothing. Classic. I let my hand drift back to the velvet box and felt that familiar flutter of nerves and hope.

I’d even been trying harder in the bedroom lately.

The thought alone sent a wave of embarrassment crawling up my neck. Hours of awkward “research” porn videos at two in the morning, trying to learn new positions like I was studying for boards. Lingerie that made me feel ridiculous the second I put it on. A pack elder’s wife had once leaned in after too much wine and said quietly, “Men stray when the bed gets boring, honey.”

Tyler had cheated before.

Physical mistakes, he’d called them. Weak moments.

And God help me, I forgave him because part of me understood—and a quieter, uglier part still wondered if it was my fault. I’d been inexperienced. Too shy. Too awkward. Not enough.

So I tried harder.

Relationships required work, right? That was what every article and every well-meaning auntie said. I was not about to be the woman who lost her Alpha because she couldn’t figure out how to make things interesting in bed.

The compound gates opened smoothly as I approached. Guards nodded with the usual respectful distance while I drove through the sprawling wooded grounds that stretched toward the foothills. Woodhills was one of the strongest packs in the region. Stormbane, my father’s pack, bordered it to the north. Our relationship had practically merged both territories into one future. One family.

I parked and hurried up the front steps, excitement bubbling again despite the rain starting to pick up. My heels clicked against the stone like they were as ready for this as I was.

“Babe? I’m home!” My voice echoed through the massive entryway. “I got a surprise for you.”

Silence.

The house felt off immediately.

No TV noise. No music. No sound of Tyler in the kitchen dramatically complaining that he was going to starve to death because I’d stayed late at the hospital again. The man could turn a missed snack into an Olympic event.

A strange unease crawled up my spine as I climbed the stairs, heels sinking softly into the runner. The air smelled faintly of his cologne… and something else I couldn’t place yet. Something warmer. Wrong.

“Tyler?”

Halfway up I heard it. Low sounds. Intimate ones.

My stomach tightened instantly.

No. Not again.

The last time had started exactly like this.

I reached the top floor slowly. Our bedroom door stood slightly open. The unmistakable sound of skin against skin drifted out, followed by a deep, familiar groan.

Then—

“Oh f**k, Marcus…”

Everything inside me went cold.