“How frigid is she, really?” Coel’s voice drifted through the gap in the door.
He still hadn’t noticed Isla standing there, frozen in the hallway.
“We’ve been together nearly two years, and she’s still clinging to this ‘wait until marriage’ nonsense like it makes her noble.”
He laughed—a cold, ugly sound Isla had never heard from him before.
“She actually thinks I want to touch her.” His voice dripped with contempt.
“If it weren’t for the mate bond tugging at me, an Omega as weak and reeking as her wouldn’t deserve to breathe the same air as me.”
“Oh, you’re terrible, darling.” The woman’s voice was breathy, teasing.
Familiar.
Hilda.
Isla’s stepsister.
The one who had made her childhood a living nightmare.
“But you’re not wrong.
Isla’s been dense since we were kids.
I’d bet anything she’s just terrified.
She probably knows her body could never satisfy an Alpha like you.
That’s why she keeps her legs shut.”
Hilda paused, her voice dropping to a silky murmur.
“She’ll probably never get wet in her entire life.”
“Unlike yours.” Coel’s tone shifted lower, rougher.
“Your pretty little cunt is always soaked for me, isn’t it?”
“It’s been missing you terribly these past few months.” A soft rustle of fabric.
“Would you like to check for yourself?”
“Get over here.”
Isla heard it then—the wet slide of mouths meeting, the soft moan Hilda didn’t bother to muffle, the creak of the hospital bed shifting under the weight of two bodies.
She stood there for one heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
Then she pushed the door open.
The scene inside was exactly what she’d imagined.
Worse, maybe.
Coel—her Coel, the man she’d spent every day beside, whose cold hand she’d held through endless, sleepless nights—had Hilda straddling his lap.
His hospital gown was pushed up.
Her dress was bunched around her waist.
His cock was already inside her when the door hit the wall with a crack.
Hilda pulled back first, her lips swollen, her eyes widening for just a fraction of a second before she recovered.
Then she smiled.
Actually smiled.
Like she’d been caught stealing a cookie, not fucking another woman’s mate.
“Isla.” Coel didn’t even have the decency to look guilty.
He just sighed, like she was an inconvenience.
“You’re here early.”
Isla’s hands curled into fists.
Anyone could see she was barely containing her rage.
“I heard you were awake.
I came as fast as I could.”
Hilda slid off Coel’s lap with deliberate slowness, smoothing her dress down like she had all the time in the world.
She didn’t bother to look ashamed.
She didn’t bother to look at Isla at all.
“I should go,” Hilda murmured, placing a wet kiss on Coel’s cheek.
“Give you two a moment.”
She brushed past Isla in the doorway—close enough that their shoulders touched.
Close enough to feel intentional.
And then they were alone.
Coel adjusted his gown, wincing slightly as he moved.
Still recovering.
Still fragile.
But apparently recovered enough to fuck her stepsister while Isla had been running through hospital corridors with hope pounding in her chest.
“Close the door,” he said.
She didn’t move.
“It’s not what it looked like,” he tried.
But his voice was flat, bored.
He wasn’t even trying to sell it.
“Then what was it?”
A pause.
Coel’s jaw tightened.
And then—finally—something flickered across his face.
Not guilt.
Annoyance.
Like she was being difficult on purpose.
“You really want to do this now?
I just woke up from a coma, Isla.”
“Answer the question.”
His eyes met hers.
Cold.
Dismissive.
For the first time, she saw him clearly.
Not the man she’d loved.
Not the mate she’d nearly destroyed her body for.
Just a cruel, selfish boy wearing a handsome face.
“Fine,” he said.
“You want the truth?
I was never going to marry you.
You’re an Omega, Isla.
A weak, nobody Omega from a family that couldn’t even want you.
The mate bond made me feel something for you, but I’ve been over it for months.
Hilda fits me better.
At least she knows how to satisfy my cock.”
Isla could no longer contain her fury.
“Then why didn’t you tell me sooner?
You could have just rejected me!
I wouldn’t have had to go through that damn artificial insemination procedure.”
“You actually went through with it?” Coel’s brow furrowed.
“How strange.
You wouldn’t let me touch you, but you let those cold instruments inside you.”
Hearing him insult her sacrifice like that made Isla’s blood boil.
She grabbed a vase and hurled it at him.
“Are you even human?”
Coel dodged it easily.
His gaze swept over her lower abdomen with a trace of disdain.
“Don’t tell me you actually conceived.
To be honest, I doubt a weak Omega like you could give me a qualified heir.”
That was the final straw.
Isla finally realized that everything she’d sacrificed over the past month had been for nothing.
Serena growled inside her, claws itching.
‘Let me teach him a lesson, Isla.
I don’t care if he’s an Alpha.’
But Isla held her wolf back.
As much as she wanted to say yes, in this world, an Omega initiating an attack on an Alpha was unforgivable.
She had to think not just for herself, but for the future of the child in her belly.
In that moment, she realized—she wasn’t entirely indifferent to the life growing inside her after all.
She clenched her fists.
Took a deep breath.
“I, Isla Spencer, daughter of Cassian Spencer, hereby reject you, Alpha Coel Reese.”
The agony of the severed mate bond hit instantly—a pain so sharp Isla nearly doubled over.
But she held firm.
Across from her, the Alpha in the hospital bed went pale.
Sweat beaded on his forehead.
His knuckles went white as he gripped the bed rail.
“How dare you!” he growled.
“Lowering myself to be with you was a blessing.
And an Omega like you dares to reject me?”
“I won’t tolerate this.
Don’t even think about it.”
Isla didn’t respond.
She turned and walked toward the door.
Coel roared behind her.
“Take it back, Isla!
If you walk out that door, I swear I’ll make your life a living hell.”
She didn’t look back.
“Staying with a bastard like you would be the real living hell.”
*
The hallway was too bright.
Too white.
Isla walked until she found a bench near the elevators, sat down heavily, and stared at the wall.
Her phone buzzed.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
She didn’t check it.
Instead, she pulled Logan Vale’s card from her pocket—the one he’d pressed into her palm just hours ago.
Black.
Heavy.
Embossed with a single name and a phone number.
Three days, he’d said.
Think carefully.
She hadn’t even made it three hours.
Serena—her wolf—seemed to have already recovered from the pain of the severed bond.
“Hmph,” Serena said, her voice dripping with satisfaction.
“I told you Coel was a dullard.”
“Not now, Serena.”
“I’m just saying.
He can’t even bother to pretend he’s sorry.”
Isla closed her eyes.
Her life had been backed into a corner.
Unwanted in her own home since childhood.
Her father and stepmother like vampires, sucking every ounce of value from her.
Hilda dedicated to turning her life into hell.
If not for the discovery that she was mated to an Alpha, her family would have sold her off long ago.
And now she was carrying a child that wasn’t Coel’s.
She didn’t need to guess how those greedy leeches would exploit her and this baby if they ever found out.
She couldn’t let them.
Then she remembered Logan’s voice—low and steady—saying: That baby is my heir.
At least he acknowledged this child’s existence.
Isla opened her eyes.
She dialed the number.
It rang once.
“Hello?” His voice was deeper than she remembered.
Or maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention the first time.
She’d been too busy being furious.
“It’s Isla Spencer.”
“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” he said.
“Your offer,” she said.
“The two billion dollars.
And the baby.
I’ll do it.”
She pressed on before she could lose her nerve.
“But I have one condition.
I won’t let my child be born a bastard.
I need you to marry me.
Today.”