Danae’s POV
Morning was offensively bright.
Sunlight stabbed at my eyes as I made my unsteady way along the sidewalk.
The hangover beat behind my forehead, and every sore step brought last night back into focus.
What I’d done.
Who I’d done it with.
What he’d thought it was worth.
I should at least have asked Caspian for taxi fare.
The thought only made the humiliation worse.
Pride again.
Always pride.
Perhaps it was the same thing that had kept me clinging to my beautiful picture of Galen for five years, unable to see what was right in front of me.
Around me, the city had somewhere to be.
Coffee cups, briefcases, people walking briskly into ordinary mornings.
Yesterday morning, I’d been preparing for a wedding.
Today, I was limping back from a stranger’s bed, trying not to remember him offering to pay me.
My cheeks burned.
On my phone: eight missed calls from Galen.
Twenty-three messages.
I couldn’t read them.
The notifications alone tightened my stomach.
Five years of deception, and now he wanted to sound concerned?
I hated that one thing he’d said about Caspian still seemed accurate: a self-righteous, arrogant bastard.
The way Caspian had looked at me over that offer made me feel like an item he could settle and remove from his day.
At least I hadn’t given him my name.
“Insufferable egomaniac,” I muttered, climbing the stairs to Eirwen’s apartment.
My body protested every step.
“Please let that be the last time I see him.”
But saying it couldn’t erase the memory of his hands.
Or that strange pull between us.
I didn’t understand it, and this morning I had neither the strength nor the desire to try.
By Eirwen’s door, I was barely upright.
How was I supposed to face her?
Could she see, just by looking, how much of me had come apart?
The door flew open before I knocked.
“Dana!”
Her eyes were wide, dark circles beneath them.
“Where have you been?
I’ve been frantic.
Galen keeps calling and messaging.
I—”
“Did you answer him?”
I passed her and headed for the kitchen.
My throat felt scraped dry.
Water.
I needed water before I could manage anything else.
That’s all.”
Her bracelets jingled as she followed me.
“I’ve been awake worrying all night.”
I filled a glass with ice water and drank greedily, wincing as the cold reached my raw throat.
“I’m sorry.
I should’ve called.”
She looked me over—tangled hair, creased clothes—and stopped at my neck.
Her gasp made me look up.
“You slept with someone.
Dana, was it Galen?
Those marks…”
My fingers went to the tender places Caspian’s mouth had left behind.
“No.
It wasn’t him.”
“Not Galen?” Her eyes widened.
“What happened?
Your wedding is this afternoon.”
The wedding.
I put the glass down before my shaking hands could drop it.
Somehow those ordinary words made the whole disaster real again.
There should have been a dress, an aisle, a future.
Instead, I could barely keep my legs beneath me.
“I’m not marrying him.”
The words were quiet.
They still seemed to take everything I had.
I leaned against the bathroom doorway, then slid to the floor as my strength gave out.
Eirwen crouched beside me, concern filling her face.
“Tell me what’s happened.”
“I hate him.”
A sob broke through before I could contain it.
“He’s been sleeping with Drusilla for years.
My bridesmaid, Eirwen.
They have a son.
Elric.
He’s six.”
Saying it hurt almost physically.
All those dreams I’d had about our future children, while his son was already growing up in a life I knew nothing about.
Six years old.
A child, a family, an entire truth concealed beneath mine.
Eirwen stared, mouth open.
“How did you find—”
“I went back for my engagement ring.
His laptop had messages on it.
Then I found photos.
Documents.”
I pulled my knees against my chest.
“He was going to mark me today because it would help his position in the Pack.
Then reject me officially after I gave him a child.”
“Manipulative son of a bitch,” she whispered.
She sat beside me on the floor.
“And after that, you found someone else?”
I nodded.
Shame left me feeling strangely empty.
“I went drinking.
Met a man.
I wasn’t thinking.”
That for brief moments in Caspian’s arms, Galen had actually stopped existing in my head?
That had been the point, and admitting it now felt impossible.
“Who?”
“Just someone.”
The lie was easier than saying Caspian Jorah.
Easier than watching her realize I’d gone from the future Delta to the future Alpha of the same pack.
That would only complicate a disaster already beyond my ability to manage.
Besides, I wouldn’t see him again.
Eirwen took my hand.
“You don’t owe me every detail.
I just need to know if you’re okay.”
I shook my head, and this time the tears came without resistance.
“I’m not.
Everything’s gone.
Five years, and none of it was what I thought.
The wedding.
Being accepted by the Pack.
Every single thing I was working toward.”
Memory offered no comfort now.
Every declaration of love carried a question behind it; every promise had turned suspect.
Had any of it belonged to us, or had I simply been trusting enough to mistake calculation for devotion?
Eirwen wrapped her arms around me.
I buried my face against her shoulder and cried harder than I had in years.
She stroked my hair until I could finally draw a full breath.
“We’ll work it out,” she said.
“Together.
But first, you need a shower.
Then we need the pharmacy and a morning-after pill.
A stranger’s baby is the last thing you need right now.”
The possibility hadn’t even entered my head.
“Oh God.”
“Shower.
I’ll get what you need and come straight back.
One thing at a time.”
I nodded, grateful for the practical shape she could give to chaos.
Eirwen could turn a crisis into separate things a person might actually survive doing.
Under the hot water, some of the ache in my body eased.
My thoughts stayed tangled.
I washed away the remnants of the night and tried to imagine the next day, the next week.
Where could I go?
Galen’s apartment was no longer an option.
I had savings, but not enough to replace a life all at once.
I was drying myself when the front door slammed.
Eirwen was back already.
Sooner than I’d expected.
Then a man’s roar hit the air, loud enough to seem to shake the walls.
“Danae!
Open this door!”