POV: Ivy

I was halfway through a vanilla latte and three pages into my seminar notes when a stack of glossy photographs slapped onto my table.

Coffee jumped over the rim of my mug and bled across my notebook.

I jerked back. My chair scraped hard against the floor of the campus cafe.

Three girls stood over me.

The blonde in the middle planted both palms on my table. She was beautiful in the polished, expensive way girls from powerful pack families tended to be, but there was nothing polished about the hatred in her eyes.

"You're sleeping with my fiancé."

The cafe seemed to lose sound.

I stared at her. "I'm sorry?"

"Don't." Her mouth twisted. "Don't play stupid."

She shoved one of the photographs toward me.

I looked down.

A man and a woman walking through a park. Another shot of them on a restaurant patio. Another of him kissing her cheek while she laughed up at him.

The woman was standing in front of me.

The man was Dean Carter.

My boyfriend.

My fingers went cold.

Dean and I had been together for six months. He knew my coffee order. He kept spare clothes at my apartment. He had spent nights quizzing me for exams and mornings stealing my shower before his early meetings. On our first date, I had asked him outright if there was anyone else.

He had smiled and said, Not even close.

"There has to be an explanation." My voice sounded far away. I picked up the nearest photo.

A date stamp sat in the corner.

Two weeks ago.

The same weekend Dean had told me he was visiting his sick grandmother.

The blonde let out a humorless laugh. "The explanation is that you thought you could steal someone else's Alpha."

"I didn't know he was engaged."

"Of course you didn't."

"I didn't."

The bell over the cafe door rang.

"Sarah, wait!"

Dean.

Relief hit me before common sense could stop it. I stood so fast my knee struck the table.

He would explain.

He would tell her there had been some mistake.

He would look at me the way he always did and make this nightmare make sense.

"Dean." I stepped toward him. "What is going on? Who is she?"

He walked past me.

Straight to the blonde.

He caught her by the arms. "Babe, please. Let's go outside. We can talk about this."

Babe.

One word. That was all it took.

I stopped breathing.

Sarah shoved him away. "Tell her. Right now. Tell her what she is."

Only then did Dean look at me.

The warmth I knew was gone. In its place was calculation.

He was scared, but not because he had hurt me.

He was scared of losing her.

"Ivy." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You misunderstood what we were."

A whisper ran through the cafe.

I stared at him. "Misunderstood?"

"We studied together. We hung out. You got attached."

For a second, I honestly wondered if I had lost my mind.

Then anger cut through the shock.

"You asked me to be your girlfriend."

Dean's gaze flicked toward Sarah.

"No, I didn't."

"You told me you loved me."

"I never said that."

The lie came too quickly.

Around us, phones appeared.

Of course they did.

The Vale Pack university loved a scandal, and nothing traveled faster than a humiliating video with a pretty victim and an easy villain.

Dean slid an arm around Sarah's shoulders.

"I'm engaged to Sarah," he said. "Ivy took a friendship too seriously. That's all."

I could barely feel my hands.

He was erasing six months while I stood ten feet away.

Every date. Every night at my apartment. Every message he had sent after midnight. Every promise.

Gone, because admitting the truth would cost him more than sacrificing me.

"He's lying," I said.

My voice cracked, and I hated that it did.

Sarah stepped closer. "You expect me to believe you?"

"He told me he was single. I swear."

"Mistress."

A girl behind her muttered it first.

Then someone else said, "Homewrecker."

Heat crawled up my neck.

Sarah's eyes shone with furious tears. I understood why she hated me. That almost made it worse.

She grabbed the iced coffee from her friend's hand and ripped off the lid.

"This is what women like you deserve."

She drew her arm back.

I raised both hands on instinct.

The coffee never hit me.

An arm locked around my waist and pulled me backward.

My spine collided with a solid chest as ice and coffee splashed across the floor where I had been standing.

A scent hit me next.

Pine. Wet earth. The metallic edge of a storm about to break.

Alpha.

Not Dean's polished, expensive cologne layered over a carefully restrained wolf scent. This was deeper. Older somehow. The kind of presence that made every weaker wolf in the room go still before their human brains caught up.

The man behind me looked down.

"You okay?"

His voice was low enough that I felt it against my back.

I turned in his hold.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Black overcoat. Dark hair. A hard jaw and eyes that seemed almost black under the cafe lights.

I had never met him.

At least, I didn't think I had.

He released my waist the second I found my balance, then looked at Dean.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop.

"You're still following my girlfriend?" he asked.

Dean went pale.

His inner wolf reacted before he could hide it. His shoulders lowered. His gaze dropped.

Whoever this stranger was, Dean knew exactly where he stood beneath him.

"I wasn't following anyone," Dean said.

"She turned you down." The stranger's tone stayed calm. That made it worse. "Get over it."

The story changed in real time.

A minute ago, I had been the pathetic Omega chasing an engaged Alpha.

Now every phone in the cafe was pointed at Dean.

Sarah turned on him. "You were following her?"

"No. Sarah, listen to me—"

"Don't touch me."

She jerked away when he reached for her.

Dean shot the stranger one quick, wary look, then hurried after Sarah as she stormed outside.

"Sarah. Wait. Let me explain."

The cafe exhaled.

People lowered their phones. Conversations started again in embarrassed little bursts.

I stood in the middle of spilled coffee, ruined notes, and photographs of a relationship I had never known existed.

The stranger stepped away.

"Thank you," I said.

He studied me for a moment.

There was something unsettlingly familiar about his face.

Not enough to name. Just enough to make the back of my mind itch.

"Pick better next time," he said.

I blinked.

Then he turned and walked out.

No number. No introduction. No attempt to turn rescuing me into something I owed him for.

The bell chimed above the door, and he disappeared into the afternoon crowd.

A barista hurried over with towels. Someone asked if I wanted a fresh drink.

I barely heard them.

I gathered the photographs with numb fingers and shoved them into my bag.

On one of them, Dean had his hand at Sarah's lower back.

It was the same possessive touch he used on me.

That hurt more than I wanted it to.

I sat down because my legs stopped cooperating.

My phone buzzed.

Dean.

Three missed calls. Then a message.

Don't make this worse. Sarah's family is powerful. Just tell people you misunderstood.

I stared at the screen until the words blurred.

He wasn't sorry.

He wanted me to help him bury me.

I took a screenshot.

Then another.

For the first time all afternoon, my hands stopped shaking.

I didn't know what I was going to do with the evidence yet.

But I knew I wasn't deleting it.

And long after the stranger's pine-and-storm scent faded from the cafe, my inner Omega stayed awake beneath my skin, restless and strangely certain that I had smelled it before.

POV: Ivy

By the next night, Chloe and I were drinking tequila together.

She had been my best friend for two years, and the moment I called her from my apartment floor, she had dropped everything and shown up with three bottles of liquor. We spent two hours replaying the humiliating video of Dean and Sarah at the cafe until anger replaced most of my urge to cry.

By Friday, we had reached the stage where revenge sounded healthier than hiding.

"Fuck Dean," Chloe announced, slamming down her shot glass.

The nightclub music swallowed half her words, but I got the important part.

"Agreed."

I lifted my own shot.

She caught my wrist before I could drink it.

"Actually, no. You're done."

She pushed a glass of water toward me.

"Drink. I have a surprise."

That sentence should have scared me more than it did.

Suddenly, Chloe’s phone vibrated violently against the sticky bar.

She glared at the caller ID and let out a vicious groan.

"My mother. If I don't answer, she’ll send pack guards to drag me to a dress fitting for Sarah's stupid engagement party."

She grabbed her purse, leaning in with a conspiratorial grin.

"I booked you a gigolo."

I nearly sprayed water across her dress.

"You did what?"

"One gorgeous man. No feelings. No Dean. Emotional first aid."

"You are insane."

"Probably. But you're newly single, publicly humiliated, and I'm rich enough to make bad ideas happen quickly."

I laughed despite myself.

Chloe tapped her ringing phone.

"Dark crimson shirt. He should be here any minute. I have to take this outside before my mom ruins my night. Don’t leave this spot!"

She turned on her heel and vanished into the patio crowd.

I was still smiling when the club doors opened.

A tall man walked in wearing a dark crimson button-down.

My stomach flipped.

It was him.

The stranger from the cafe.

I slid off my stool.

He spotted me halfway across the room.

Recognition sharpened his face.

I stopped in front of him, pulled a folded fifty from my purse, and pressed it against his chest.

"Your tip. For being on time."

He looked down at the bill, then at me.

"What exactly do you think my job is?"

"You're not supposed to make me explain it."

His mouth twitched.

"How much have you had to drink?"

"Enough to know you're very bad at flirting with a paying customer."

Understanding finally reached his eyes.

He took the fifty, folded my fingers around it, and pushed my hand gently back toward me.

"Wrong guy, sweetheart."

"That's not what my best friend said."

"Where is this friend?"

I pointed vaguely toward the empty bar stool and the distant patio doors.

He looked past me, analyzing the empty space, then looked back at my face.

"You're getting water."

"Bossy for a gigolo."

That earned me a quiet laugh.

He guided me to a booth, but his hand stayed at my elbow rather than my waist.

He ordered water, fries, and coffee.

When I tried to complain, he ignored me.

"Eat."

"I don't take orders well."

"I've noticed."

For the next hour, he kept me in that booth.

We talked.

By the time the fries were gone and I had finished two glasses of water, the room had stopped tilting.

I watched his hand curl around his coffee cup.

"You really aren't the guy my friend hired."

"No."

"And you could have told me your name at any point."

"You didn't ask."

I leaned back.

"That's obnoxious."

"So was tipping me fifty dollars."

I laughed.

His eyes dropped to my mouth.

The air changed.

It was subtle at first.

A pause that lasted too long.

The low pull under my ribs tightened until sitting across from him felt harder than touching him would.

I stood.

He did too.

"Ivy." His voice had changed. "You were drinking earlier. If you're trying to forget your ex, don't use me to do it."

I swallowed.

That should have embarrassed me.

Instead, it steadied me.

"I'm not asking because I don't know what I'm doing."

His jaw tightened.

"Tell me tomorrow won't turn this into something I took from you."

I looked him straight in the eyes.

"Tomorrow I may regret my judgment," I said. "But I won't say you made the choice for me."

His hand came up, stopping just short of my cheek.

"And what are you choosing?"

I closed the last inch myself and kissed him.

He froze.

Then his restraint snapped.

His hand slid into my hair, and his mouth came down on mine with a hunger that made my knees weak.

Morning sunlight found me with my cheek against a warm chest.

Memory returned in bright, humiliating detail.

The stranger was asleep beside me.

My phone buzzed inside my purse.

Chloe.

I slipped into the bathroom before answering.

"Where the hell did you go?" she demanded.

"You know where I went."

"No, I don't! I finally escaped my mother’s phone call, came back inside, and you were gone."

I lowered my voice. "I left with the man you hired."

Silence.

"Ivy. The man I hired wore a blue polo."

My hand tightened around the phone.

"No. You said crimson."

"I said his agency profile had a crimson background! His message said blue polo. I just spent the last hour apologizing to a guy sitting alone at the bar."

I stared at myself in the mirror.

My face went cold.

"Who did you leave with?" Chloe asked.

I looked at the locked bathroom door.

"I have no idea."

I ended the call, dressed as quietly as I could, and escaped before the stranger woke.

I spent the rest of the day hiding in my apartment, trying to convince myself the entire night could stay filed under Terrible Decisions I Will Never Repeat.

But in a powerful pack, scandals don't get time to breathe.

The cafe video had already reached the elders. By noon, Dean and Sarah's families were in full damage-control mode. They treated Dean's infidelity not as a dealbreaker, but as a minor PR crisis. The engagement was moving forward, and tonight's scheduled engagement party would proceed exactly as planned to contain the public fallout.

Chloe’s mother—the Vale Luna—was ruthless about pack politics. She ordered Chloe to attend and execute a flawless performance of a supportive ally to Sarah's family.

Chloe refused to go without me.

She showed up at my apartment with a dress, a pair of heels, and an absolute refusal to take no for an answer.

Which was how, by that evening, Chloe dragged me into the grand foyer of the country club for the engagement party I had every reason to avoid.

She called it my public execution of Dean's reputation—showing up looking flawless instead of hiding like a victim.

"There is one person you still haven't met," she said as we crossed the marble floor. "My stepbrother got back into town this week."

I barely listened.

"He's over there."

I looked up.

A man stood at the foot of the grand staircase with a bourbon in one hand.

Black suit.

Dark hair.

A face I had kissed less than twenty-four hours ago.

Pine and storm rolled across the room.

My lungs forgot how to work.

Chloe smiled.

"Ivy, meet Ace."

POV: Ivy

For several seconds, I forgot there were other people in the country club.

Ace stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking far too composed for a man who had woken up that morning in a hotel bed without the woman he'd slept with.

His gaze settled on me.

Recognition warmed it.

So did amusement.

"It's nice to meet you, Ivy."

The bastard.

"You too," I managed.

Chloe didn't notice the tension. She was busy accepting champagne from a waiter while her mother fielded questions from pack elders about Sarah and Dean's engagement—assuring everyone that the alliance was strong and the scandal was merely a "misunderstanding."

That word had been used at least twelve times tonight.

Misunderstanding.

As if Dean's six-month double life were a simple scheduling conflict.

I caught Ace's eye and tipped my head toward a side corridor.

He raised one brow.

I walked away before he could refuse.

The hallway behind the ballroom was dim and quiet, lined with oil paintings of dead Vale ancestors who looked judgmental enough to belong in the room we had just left.

I paced once.

Twice.

The door opened.

Ace stepped inside and let it close behind him.

He leaned against the wall.

"You ran out before breakfast."

"We need to forget last night."

His expression changed.

Not dramatically. Ace didn't seem like a man who wasted emotion where other people could see it.

But the faint amusement disappeared.

"Why?"

"Because it was a mistake."

He went still.

I pushed on before I lost my nerve.

"I am currently the center of a massive pack scandal. Chloe stuck her neck out to bring me here tonight. If people find out I slept with her stepbrother—the future Alpha of the Vale Pack—they won't just call me a homewrecker. They'll call me a climber, and they'll drag Chloe's family into my mess."

Ace's jaw tightened.

"Dean lied to you. Stop carrying his shame."

"This isn't about Dean."

"No?"

"It's about me not becoming the woman who blows up Chloe's reputation by association."

Ace pushed off the wall.

He came closer, stopping before his body touched mine.

"Sleeping with me didn't betray Chloe."

"You don't know that."

"I know exactly that."

The certainty in his voice irritated me.

"You are her stepbrother."

"We met as adults."

"That is not the point."

"Then tell me the point."

I folded my arms to keep from reaching for him.

His scent was worse in a narrow hallway. Pine, rain, something warm beneath it that made my Omega pace under my skin.

"The point is that last night cannot happen again."

Ace's eyes dropped briefly to my mouth.

"Was it a mistake before you learned my name?"

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

I remembered the booth. The water. The way he made me say what I wanted before he touched me. The way he kept asking until I was sober enough to be certain.

I remembered wanting him without knowing anything except the shape of his mouth and the way my body quieted when he looked at me.

No.

It had not felt like a mistake.

That was exactly why I was terrified.

Ace read the answer on my face.

"That's what I thought."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Act like because I wanted you once, I owe you an encore."

His eyes hardened.

"I never said you owed me anything."

The rebuke was quiet, and I felt it immediately.

He was right.

Whatever else this was, Ace had been more careful with my choices than anyone else in my life that week.

I looked away.

"I still need this to stop."

He watched me for a long moment.

Then he nodded once.

"Fine."

The easy agreement hurt more than I expected.

He opened the door.

"Ace."

He looked back.

I had no idea what I meant to say.

Sorry?

Thank you?

Please don't actually forget?

All three were terrible options.

He waited.

I said nothing.

His mouth flattened, and he walked back into the ballroom.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.

My pulse took far too long to settle.

"There you are."

I jumped.

Chloe rounded the corner holding two glasses of champagne.

For one sick second, I was sure she had seen him leave.

"I thought you got lost looking for the restroom," she said.

"Just needed quiet."

She handed me a glass and leaned against the wall beside me.

I studied her profile.

Her makeup was perfect, but exhaustion sat underneath it. She had spent hours pretending to support a political alliance she despised, while her mother paraded her in front of eligible Alphas to prove the Vale family wasn't tainted by the scandal.

"Can I tell you something awful?" she asked.

My stomach tightened.

"Always."

She stared toward the ballroom doors.

"I'm in love with Ace."

The stem of my champagne flute almost slipped between my fingers.

"What?"

"Ace." Her voice dropped. "I've been in love with him for three years."

My skin went cold.

"Chloe, he's your brother."

"Stepbrother," she corrected. "And before you say it, no, we didn't grow up together. My mom married his dad after I was already in college. We met as adults."

She gave a miserable little laugh.

"I know how it sounds. That's why I never did anything about it. The elders would turn it into a scandal. My mother would lose her mind. His father would act like I had tried to burn down the family name."

I couldn't seem to get enough air.

"Does Ace know?"

"God, no."

That answer should have relieved me.

It didn't.

Chloe stared into her champagne.

"That's why I hate watching Sarah cling to Dean," she whispered. "Our families want us to make perfect alliances. My mother keeps saying I need to learn from Sarah's 'grace' and find my own Alpha to marry. I figured if I just kept my mouth shut and committed to a life that made sense, I'd get over the one thing I couldn't have."

She swallowed.

"But watching Sarah swallow his cheating just to keep the ring... it makes me sick. Everyone has a solution for how she should fix it, except the obvious one."

"Which is?"

"To admit she doesn't actually want him."

The honesty in her voice broke something open in me.

Chloe was being pressured, suffocated, and asked to preserve everyone else's comfort while burying her own feelings.

I knew exactly what that felt like.

She set down her drink and rested her head on my shoulder.

"You're the only person I've told about Ace."

Guilt hit so hard my knees weakened.

"Please don't think I'm disgusting," she whispered.

I wrapped my arms around her.

"I don't."

That part was true.

The lie was everything I didn't say next.

I didn't tell her that the man she had loved in silence for three years had spent the previous night in my bed.

I didn't tell her that I could still feel his mouth on mine.

And when she held me tighter, trusting me with the secret she had never told another person, I understood exactly why Ace had looked angry when I called last night a mistake.

I wasn't trying to protect Chloe from something that had already happened.

I was trying to protect myself from what telling her would cost me.

That realization followed me back into the ballroom.

So did one more.

If I wanted to keep my best friend, Ace could never happen again.