I Married My Cheating Fiancé’s Exiled Brother

Chapter 3

Emma’s pov

I left the suite with my cheek still burning and Daniel’s warning ringing in my ears, and went straight to my father’s study. The moment I threw the doors open, his eyes met mine, and the easy smile on his face vanished.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, adjusting his cuffs.

“I can’t go ahead with this alliance.” My voice trembled despite my best efforts to keep it steady.

His eyes widened in brief shock before flattening into annoyance. “What do you mean?”

“Daniel cheated on me.”

“He did what?” His tone turned harsh, but it wasn’t aimed at the man who had disgraced me.

“I’m calling it off.”

“No.” He shook his head dismissively, as though I’d asked to move the seating chart. “You’re going to walk down that aisle.”

I stared at him. “Good morning to you too, Father.”

Before I could turn away, his fingers clamped around my arm, hard enough to bruise. “Don’t play games with me, Emma. Do you have any idea who is sitting downstairs?”

“Unfortunately.”

“The Cross Alpha. Three allied packs. Half the High Council. And every one of them watched you swear the betrothal oath at the Blessing in front of the Moon Altar. You were named the future Luna of the Cross pack in front of the entire council. Do you understand what happens when a Hart breaks a sworn oath?”

“Maybe Daniel should have thought about that before putting his hands on my maid of honor!”

“Enough!” His voice slammed against the stone walls and echoed into the corridor.

I went quiet. Not out of fear, but because in twenty-eight years my father had never raised his voice to me.

He released my arm with a muttered curse and dragged a heavy hand down his face. For one terrifying moment, he looked exhausted. Then he looked up, and whatever softness I thought I knew in him was gone.

“The northern border has been unstable for months,” he said, deadly low. “Rogues have crossed into our territory twice this season. The Cross pack agreed to station their elite warriors along our border only in exchange for this marriage. Under council law, if we break the oath, the treaty is void, and every wolf we lose after that is on the House of Hart.”

“So I’m a treaty with a pulse.”

“You are my daughter!”

“Then start acting like a father!”

His jaw hardened. “Your marriage is bigger than your feelings, Emma.”

A bitter laugh bubbled up my throat. My feelings. The only thing in this family that could be sacrificed without a second thought.

“He cheated on me with Chloe for eight months, Dad. Under your roof.”

“And he will answer for that privately.”

“Privately?” My voice rose. “You want me to bind myself to a wolf who couldn’t stay faithful through our engagement?”

“I want you to think about the women and children who will suffer if our border falls.” He stepped closer, towering over me. “Your mother understands what’s at stake. I expect you to do the same.”

“What if I refuse?” I whispered.

His eyes turned cold. “Then every drop of blood spilled on this pack’s land will be on you.”

I stared at the man I had spent my whole life idolizing. For years, I’d believed my father would protect me from the world. Now I understood.

He would protect the pack from anything. Even from me.

“Come with me.”

He grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of the room. I yanked against his grip, but his Alpha strength held, and he didn’t let go until he shoved me back into the suite.

My mother looked up from the makeup table. She didn’t meet my eyes. She met my cheek, then looked away and picked up a sponge.

“Sit,” she said.

I sat. She dabbed concealer over the handprint without a word, the way you’d cover a stain on a tablecloth. When I flinched, her hand stopped for half a second.

“I was twenty when they gave me to your father,” she said quietly, so only I could hear. “Do you think I loved him? I learned. That’s what we do.”

“That’s not a lesson, Mom. It’s a sentence.”

Her mouth tightened, and the sponge moved again. “Keep still.”

“Make sure she gets down that aisle,” my father said from the door, then left, and the slam rattled the vanity mirror.

I sat there while the stylists pinned and tugged and laced me into the dress. Numbness settled deep in my chest. No one was coming to save me. My own blood had surrendered me to the wolves.

A distant swell of orchestral music drifted up through the floorboards. The ceremony was starting.

My father came back in and stepped behind me, his hands unexpectedly gentle as he arranged the sheer lace over my face.

“Smile, Emma,” he murmured.

I caught his gaze in the vanity mirror. “Why?”

“Because everyone is watching.”

I wanted to rip the veil from my hair. I wanted to march down to the ballroom, tear down the floral arches, and scream Daniel’s infidelity for every elder to hear.

Instead, I looked my father in the eye, and I smiled.

Not because I forgave him, but because he’d just given me the best advice of my life.

Everyone was watching.

And at 2:30, a technician who took files from only one person would dim the lights.

When the grand double doors swung open, every head turned. I felt the weight of their curiosity and their high expectations. I was supposed to be the glowing bride.

I started down the aisle, and for one small, stupid moment I let myself remember. I’d pictured this walk for years, back when I was sure that at the end of it Daniel’s eyes would fill with tears. And there he stood, in a tailored black suit, with his dark hair perfectly styled and the effortless smile of a man who knew he was untouchable.

When his eyes met mine, his smile widened.

Deep inside my chest, my wolf snarled and recoiled. I kept walking.

My father placed my trembling hand in Daniel’s. “Take care of my daughter,” he said, his voice steady.

Daniel’s fingers closed around mine. “I will.”

The lie was so smooth that I almost admired it.

My father took his seat beside my mother, leaving me at the altar. The officiating elder stepped forward in his ceremonial robes.

“Today, two great bloodlines stand together to seal a sacred bond,” he said, his voice carrying through the silent hall. It was a Council bond, sworn by oath, not by fate. The Moon Goddess had never marked Daniel and me, and neither of us had ever pretended otherwise. “Through this union, the Hart and Cross packs shall—”

The double doors at the back slammed open and bounced off the marble walls.

The elder’s voice died in his throat.

Silence swept through the room, starting from the back row and spreading across the tables like ice. Wolves who had been smiling seconds ago went rigid.

I felt him before I saw him.

The air shifted. It wasn’t like Daniel’s Alpha aura, which pushed and shoved against you until you obeyed. This was colder and older, and it didn’t demand anything. It simply waited, the way a shadow waits.

A man stood in the archway. He wore a dark suit stripped of any pack crest, his collar open at the throat, and a thin scar split his left eyebrow. He seemed entirely unbothered by the dozens of lethal wolves staring at him.

Beside me, Daniel went stiff. His grip on my hand tightened until it hurt, and for the first time all day, the confidence drained from his face.

The stranger’s dark eyes locked on Daniel and burned gold.

“Brother.”