Chapter 2: Lost Then Found
1086 Words
ISLA
The applause was deafening.
I couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear anything except the sound of my world ending.
A woman materialized beside him. She was sleek, polished, perfect, with a smile that could cut glass and a diamond on her finger that could probably buy a small country.
Evelyn Harrington. Of course. Old money. Old blood. The kind of Luna who would make Jaxon’s power absolute.
Everything he ever wanted.
Everything except me.
“No,” I whispered, but the word dissolved in the chaos of congratulations and celebration swirling around me.
This wasn’t real. This was a nightmare. I’d wake up in my apartment with my phone buzzing with his good morning text, and everything would be–
Jaxon’s hand settled on Evelyn’s waist. Possessive. Proud.
And he smiled.
My legs moved on their own, carrying me through the crowd like a ghost. Wolves parted around me without seeing me, but then again, they never really had, had they?
I was a nobody. Nothing. Just the Beta’s daughter who’d been stupid enough to believe in fairytales.
“Jaxon.”
I don’t know how I reached the edge of the stage. Don’t remember pushing through the wall of well-wishers and sycophants. But suddenly I was there, staring up at him, and his eyes finally met mine.
For one fragile, desperate second, I searched his face for the boy who’d kissed me in the ashes. The boy who’d promised me forever.
All I found was the Alpha who’d just destroyed me.
“Jaxon,” I said again, and my voice cracked like broken glass. “You promised me.”
Something flickered across his expression. Regret? Pain? But it was gone so fast I might have imagined it, replaced by cold, impenetrable steel.
“Not here, Isla.” His words were quiet. Clipped. Like I was an embarrassment he needed to manage.
My chest caved in. “You said, no, you swore, when you became part of the Seven–”
“This is how it has to be.” He didn’t even have the decency to look away. Just stood there, Evelyn’s hand in his, and spoke to me like I was a child who didn’t understand politics.
“You’re lying.” The words ripped out of me. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me.”
For a heartbeat, the ballroom went quiet. Or maybe I just stopped hearing. Stopped feeling anything except the way Jaxon’s jaw tightened, the way his grip on Evelyn’s hand turned white-knuckled.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. Softly. And somehow that was worse than if he’d shouted. “But I need you to leave.”
The room tilted.
“Alpha Ashford!” Someone called his name, already pulling him away, back into the glittering machinery of power and politics. Evelyn followed, her hand still locked in his, her smile never wavering.
He didn’t look back.
I ran.
Stumbled through the crowd on legs that didn’t feel like mine, past pitying stares and whispered gossip, through gilded hallways that reeked of champagne and ambition. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn't care. Just needed to get out, to breathe, to–
I slammed through a door and into the night.
Cool air hit my face like a slap. I was on some kind of terrace, marble and moonlight, overlooking the glittering skyline. Empty.
Thank the Goddess, empty.
My knees buckled.
I collapsed against the stone railing, and finally let myself break.
Sobs tore out of me in ugly, gasping waves. Eight years. Eight years of waiting, of hiding, of believing that love was enough.
That I was enough.
I wasn’t.
I’d never been.
“Pathetic,” I choked out, scrubbing furiously at my face. “You’re so pathetic, Isla.”
“I disagree.”
The voice came from the shadows, low, dark, edged with something that made every instinct I had scream danger.
I spun around, my heart in my throat.
A man stood in the doorway. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in black that seemed to drink the moonlight, with eyes so pale they almost glowed silver in the darkness.
And I knew – instantly, viscerally – exactly who he was.
Gideon Crossbane.
The Apex.
The wolf every other wolf feared.
“I–” My voice died. I should apologize. Curtsy. Run. “I didn’t know anyone was out here.”
“I know.” He stepped forward, and the way he moved was predatory. Controlled. Like every muscle was a weapon waiting to be unleashed.
“You should go back inside.”
It wasn’t a suggestion.
But something in me, some reckless, shattered part, refused to cower.
“Why?” I heard myself say. “So I can watch him celebrate? Watch him pretend I never existed?”
Gideon went very, very still. “Jaxon Ashford.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.
The Apex’s eyes narrowed, his gaze dragging over me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. Assessing. Calculating. “You were his.”
“I was nobody’s,” I whispered. “I was just… stupid.”
Silence stretched between us, heavy and strange.
Then Gideon moved closer. Close enough that I could see the razor-sharp line of his jaw, the faint scar cutting through his left eyebrow, the way his chest rose and fell with each controlled breath.
“Look at me,” he said quietly.
I shouldn’t. Every instinct screamed that looking into the eyes of the most dangerous Alpha in existence was a death wish.
I looked anyway.
And the world stopped.
His pupils blew wide, silver bleeding into black, and I felt it.
A pull so fierce it stole the air from my lungs. Recognition. Hunger. Something ancient and inevitable and terrifying.
“No,” Gideon breathed, and for the first time, the unshakable Apex sounded… shaken.
My wolf surged to the surface, and I knew.
MATE.
“Oh, Goddess…” I whispered.
Gideon’s hand shot out, gripping the railing so hard the stone cracked beneath his fingers.
“Run,” he growled, his voice barely human. “Run, Isla. Now. Before I do something we both regret.”
But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do anything except stare at the man who was supposed to be untouchable, unreachable…
The man who was apparently mine.
And somewhere in the ballroom behind us, Jaxon was celebrating his new life.
While mine had just been turned completely and irrevocably upside down.
- Writer
