BOUND TO MY EX’S FATHER

CHAPTER 4 BETRAYAL

The footsteps stopped outside my door.

I held my breath, every muscle locked tight. Three hours of staring at darkness had left my eyes dry and burning. Three hours of listening to my bond pulse weaker, fainter, like a heart struggling to beat.

Go away, I thought. Whoever you are. Just go away.

The door didn't open.

Instead, the footsteps continued past my closet. Soft. Deliberate. Heading deeper into the servant's corridor.

Something pulled at my chest.

Not the bond. Something else. Something that felt like curiosity wrapped in dread.

I rose from my blankets before my brain could argue. My bare feet made no sound on the cold stone floor. The corridor stretched before me, torchlight casting long shadows across the walls.

I followed the sound.

Past the storage rooms. Past the laundry. Past the old bathing chambers no one used anymore because the pack had built newer ones closer to the Alpha wing.

The footsteps stopped ahead.

So did I.

A door stood slightly ajar. Light spilled through the crack…not torchlight. Candlelight. Warm and golden and utterly wrong for this hour before dawn.

A scent drifted toward me.

Honeysuckle.

And something else. Something musky. Primal.

Lena.

My stomach turned.

I should have walked away. Every instinct screamed at me to retreat to my closet, pull the blankets over my head, and pretend I hadn't noticed anything.

But my feet kept moving.

I reached the door.

Pressed my eye against the crack.

The world ended.

Lena was naked.

Her golden hair spilled across the stone floor like liquid sunlight. Her body arched against the man above her,a man I knew better than I knew myself. A man whose scent had lived beneath my skin for four years.

Gabriel.

His hands gripped her hips. Hard. Possessive. His mouth moved against her throat, trailing kisses down to the fresh mate mark that pulsed at her collarbone.

"Say it again," he growled.

Lena's laugh was breathless. "You're mine."

"Again."

"Mine, Gabriel. Not hers. Never hers."

He claimed her mouth. The kiss was brutal. Hungry. The kind of kiss I had dreamed about for years.

I watched my fated mate bury himself inside my stepsister.

My vision blurred.

Not from tears. From something else. Something that felt like my wolf clawing at the inside of my chest, desperate to escape, desperate to stop watching.

But I couldn't look away.

Gabriel's muscles flexed with each thrust. His dark hair fell across his forehead. His eyes…those eyes that had looked through me for four years…were locked on Lena's face like she was the only woman in the world.

"Harder," Lena gasped.

He obliged.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders. Her legs wrapped around his waist. The sounds they made echoed off the stone walls,wet and raw and utterly without shame.

I pressed my hand against my mouth. The bond in my chest convulsed. Not with jealousy. Not with heartbreak,with revulsion.

Because this wasn't love. This was conquest. This was Gabriel claiming territory, marking ownership, proving something to himself that had nothing to do with Lena and everything to do with power.

Lena cried out. Her body tightened beneath him. Her nails raked down his back, leaving red trails across his skin.

Gabriel followed seconds later, his growl muffled against her throat.

They lay there, tangled together, breathing hard.

I should have left.

Instead, I stayed frozen behind the door, watching my stepsister trace patterns across Gabriel's chest with her fingertip.

"That was cruel," Lena murmured.

"What was?"

"Sending me to tell her about the rejection ritual." She smiled against his skin. "She looked like a wounded animal. It was almost pathetic."

Gabriel's jaw tightened. "She needed to hear it from someone."

"From me?"

"From someone who wouldn't soften the truth."

Lena propped herself up on her elbow. Her eyes glittered in the candlelight. "You could have told her yourself. Gone to her little cabin. Said the words to her face."

"I went."

My heart stopped.

Gabriel's expression hardened. "She wasn't there. Just her... plans. Maps and sketches of some sanctuary for outcasts."

That was a lie, he had met me there.

They both laughed. "Ughh… she has always been delusional."

"But the maps were detailed. Specific. She's put years into this."

"So?" Lena's voice sharpened. "She's an omega. She'll never build anything except dinner."

Gabriel said nothing.

She sat up, grabbing his chin, forcing him to look at her. "You still feel something for her."

"The bond…”

"The bond is dying. You said so yourself. In three days, the silver dagger will finish what nature started." Her fingers tightened. "You chose me, Gabriel. Not the Moon Goddess. You. Don't forget that."

He pulled away from her touch. "I haven't forgotten."

"Then stop looking at me like I'm your second choice."

"I'm not…”

"You are." Lena's voice cracked. For a moment, the mask slipped. I saw something raw beneath—insecurity, fear, the same desperation I'd felt for four years. "She's nothing. A servant. A kitchen rat. I'm the one standing beside you. I'm the one who will bear your heirs. I'm the one…."

"Enough."

Gabriel stood. His body was magnificent in the candlelight—all muscle and power and arrogance. He pulled on his trousers without looking at her.

"The Blood Moon Hunt is in three days," he said. "The rejection ritual happens before dawn on the second day. I need you focused. Not jealous."

"Jealous?" Lena laughed. "Of her?"

"Of what she represents." Gabriel turned to face her. His expression was cold. Calculated. The face of a future Alpha making political decisions. "The pack elders respect her work ethic. The servants adore her. If she fights the rejection, if she claims I'm breaking the goddess's will…”

"She won't fight."

"You don't know that."

Lena rose from the floor. She moved to him slowly, deliberately, her naked body pressing against his chest.

"I know she's weak," she whispered. "I know she's spent her entire life bowing to wolves like us. I know she'll accept whatever we give her because that's what omegas do."

Gabriel's hands settled on her waist. "And if you're wrong?"

"Then we destroy her."

Simple. Final. Spoken like someone discussing the weather.

Something cold settled in my chest.

Not sadness.

Not anger.

Clarity.

For four years, I had believed Gabriel was my destiny. My future. My reason for surviving the cruelty of Silver Crood.

He was none of those things.

He was a coward hiding behind his mother's schemes. A boy playing Alpha while real wolves bled for his territory.

And Lena...

Lena was worse.

She wasn't just cruel. She was calculated. Every word she'd spoken in the corridor had been designed to hurt. Every smile had been sharpened into a weapon.

I backed away from the door.

Slowly. Quietly.

One step.

Then another.

Then another.

The corridor stretched before me, dark and cold. Somewhere behind me, Gabriel and Lena were dressing. Preparing for the day ahead. Preparing for the Blood Moon Hunt.

Preparing to destroy me.

I reached my closet.

Closed the door.

Pressed my back against the wood and slid down until I sat on the cold stone floor.

The bond pulsed.

Weaker now. Almost gone.

But something else was growing in its place. Something that had been sleeping my entire life.

My wolf.

Not the quiet, cowering thing I'd always known. Something else. Something that had been waiting for me to stop hoping so it could finally wake up.

I closed my eyes.

And for the first time in four years, I didn't dream of Gabriel.

I dreamed of fire.

---

Dawn came like a wound.

I hadn't slept. Hadn't moved from my spot on the floor. The corridor outside my door came alive with footsteps and voices…servants beginning their morning routines, warriors heading to training, wolves who would never know that their future Alpha had spent the night f*****g my stepsister in an abandoned bathing chamber.

A knock on my door.

Not the soft, hesitant knock from before. A sharp rap. Impatient.

"Sophia."

Marla's voice.

"The Alpha's Council is meeting in an hour. The dining hall needs preparation."

I didn't answer.

"Sophia?"

"I heard you."

My voice sounded strange. Hollow. Like someone else was speaking through my mouth.

Marla paused. Then: "Are you sick?"

"No."

"You sound sick."

"I'm fine."

Silence.

Then she said, "The dining hall. One hour."

Her footsteps retreated.

I sat in the darkness of my closet, running my fingers across the cold stone floor. Somewhere above me, the pack was preparing for the Blood Moon Hunt. Decorations were being hung. Ritual grounds were being blessed. Wolves were sharpening their ceremonial blades.

In two days, Gabriel would perform the rejection ritual.

In two days, he would cut my palm with the silver dagger and sever the bond that had defined my existence for four years.

Let him, I thought.

The words surprised me.

Let him cut it. Let him sever it. Let him destroy every trace of the lie I've been living.

Because Lena was right about one thing.

The bond was dying.

And I was done trying to save it.