Chapter5
Alpha Thomas’s POV
“What did you say?”
The words crashed into me like a freight train, leaving me stunned. I stared at my secretary, my face going pale as the blood drained away.
“Alpha, I… I’m so sorry.” Her voice trembled, barely a whisper. She repeated herself haltingly, as though saying it again could ease the impact. “Luna… Luna Camille… she–she killed herself.”
My chest constricted, each syllable clawing its way into me. I couldn’t breathe. The room tilted wildly, spinning as her words sank deeper, dragging me under.
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“Where?” My voice was sharp, cutting through the suffocating air with more force than I intended.
“By the old pier,” she murmured nervously.
- “The police are there now.”
“Ah-“I felt the bond between Camille and me snap like a brittle thread, and the pain in my chest was enough to bring me to my knees. I couldn’t feel her anymore… I couldn’t feel anything from her at all.
No, no, no!
I bolted out of the shopping mall without hesitation. Audrey’s voice called after me, but it faded into insignificance. None of that mattered now. My only thought, my singular focus, was the pier.
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Shed killed herself? No. That couldn’t bereaeal.
Carnille wouldn’t… she wouldn’t do thatat.
The speene at the pier resembled somethingng out of faantightmare. Red and blue lights ts strobed across the dark waters, their eerie ie
- glow casting dong, distorted shadows overer the damp woooden dock. Police officers worked the scene, their movements brisksk and proceditmaall Isshoved through the
growing crowd, heeart hammering against myny ribs.
“Where is she?” I baakked at the first officer who crossed my patth.
He pointed toward the stipeline. “They’re retrieving the body nows”
The word body made my stounaachochurn violently.
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As I approached the shoreline, the air changed–salt, damp wood, and the faint, nauseating metallic tang of death. The waves licked at the edges of the dock, a sound that should have been comforting. Instead, it felt taunting, an echo from a life I no longer understood.
And then it hit me. This place.
I stopped cold, realization sweeping over me like the incoming tide. This was our place -our secret escape by the water. The spot where Camille and I had spent countless evenings, dreaming of forever.
Why here? Why would she choose here?
“Alpha Thomas.”
Denton’s voice came from behind me. I
turned to see him standing a few feet away,
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his face grim, heavy with the weight of unspoken truths. “They’re pulling her body out now.”
“She’s not…” My voice cracked, fractured like glass under too much pressure. “This can’t ⚫ be real.”
Denton shook his head, pity and anger etched into every line of his face. “I told you this would happen. I warned you, Alpha Thomas. There was no way you could keep the truth from her forever.”
“Don’t,” I snapped, though the words lacked strength. “Don’t put this on me.”
“Who else should I blame?” His voice sharpened like a knife. “You lied to her. You used her. And now she’s dead because of it.”
I wanted to yell, to deny it, to tell him he was
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wrong. But I couldn’t find the words. All the fight in me faded as my eyes locked on the officers carefully pulling Camille’s lifeless body from the water.
I froze. Completely. Breath hitching as I stood like a statue, watching them lay her small, fragile form on the dock. Her hair clung to her pale, lifeless face, and her lips were tinged with an unnatural blue.
“Alpha Thomas,” a detective addressed me. He stepped closer, holding a plastic evidence bag in his gloved hands. “We need you to confirm if this is your wife.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound escaped. My body felt like it might collapse under its own weight.
The detective continued, his tone shifting to something softer. “We also found this by the
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scene.” He gestured to the bag in his hand, which contained a crumpled piece of paper. A suicide note.
My hands trembled as I accepted it. I unfolded the note, staring at the uneven ⚫ handwriting as the words pierced what little
of me was left intact.
I can’t do this anymore. The man I loved betrayed me. The life I thought we had was a lie.I don’t want to live in this pain any longer.
The paper slipped from my shaking fingers, fluttering to the ground as I stumbled backward. Her words were like a vice around my chest, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t function.
“She knew, Denton said, his voice cutting sharply through the fog in my head. “She knew everything. And now she’s gone.”
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“I don’t care.” The words came out automatically, hollow, like an instinctive defense. “She didn’t mean anything to me.”
The lie felt acrid on my tongue, but I latched ⚫ onto it, clung to it like a lifeline, because admitting the truth would destroy me.
Denton scoffed bitterly. “Keep lying to yourself, Thomas. See where it gets you.”
The officers worked silently as they placed Camille’s body onto a stretcher. I told myself to look away, to walk away, but my feet wouldn’t move. Something inside me cracked, splintered beyond repair.
Her face invaded my mind. Her smile, her laughter, the way she’d once looked at me with absolute trust, like I was her whole world. Every one of those memories cut
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deeper than the last.
I had thought I could keep her at arm’s length, manipulate her like everyone else in my world. I thought I could lie my way through it all and remain untouched.
But there I stood, staring the truth in the face, drowning in the wreckage of what I’d done.
“Alpha Thomas,” the detective’s voice broke my spell, drawing me back. “Can you confirm if this is your mate?”
I swallowed hard, my throat dry and raw. “No…” The word was a whisper of desperation. “This isn’t her.”
The detective frowned. “But the evidence-”
“I said it’s NOT HER!” I shouted, raw emotion
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bubbling over. My voice cracked under the weight of my denial.
The officers exchanged uneasy glances but didn’t press further. I turned on my heel and walked away, ignoring the pain radiating in
- every direction.
Because to confirm it, to speak the truth, would make it real. And I wasn’t ready for that.
Camille’s POV
The scissors met my hair with sharp, decisive snips. Locks tumbled down onto the vanity, littering the surface like fragments of an old life left behind.
I stared at my reflection, unrecognizable
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now. My long waves were gone, replaced by jagged, uneven strands. Every cut severed a piece of Camille Peters–the naive, broken woman who had let herself love the wrong man. I smeared makeup over my face, transforming myself further. Shadows here, ⚫ sharp contours there, a jagged scar tracing
down my cheekbone.
By the time I was done,the woman staring back at me wasn’t Camille Peters. She was a stranger. Fitting.
Behind me, the television droned on, the news anchor’s voice clinical and detached. “…The tragic suicide of Camille Peters, Luna of prominent Alpha Thomas Cole..”
I glanced toward the screen, where they played footage of the scene at the pier. The yellow tape. The reporters swarming like vultures. And then him.
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Alpha Thomas. Kneeling on the shoreline, face buried in his hands. He looked shattered, tears streaking his face as he clung to a body they thought was mine.
⚫ I felt bile rise in my throat. He doesn’t
care about me. He cares about how this looks. Always the showman, playing the devastated husband for the cameras, for the headlines.
I couldn’t suppress a bitter smile as I turned off the screen. The silence felt like victory.
But my revenge wasn’t over. Not yet.
I opened my laptop and logged into my virtual account.
The private investigator had already sent me the gathered information.
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In the photos, there were not only pictures of them kissing, but also ones of them nearly naked, lying together in bed.
I hit “Post” and watched as the picture went ⚫ live, accompanied by a cutting caption:
‘Shocked. Alpha Thomas and Alpha Gilbert’s wife, Audrey, had an affair.
Within minutes, the post exploded. Likes, comments, shares–it spread like wildfire.
I scrolled through the reactions, each one stoking the fire inside me.
“Audrey Hopkins’s modeling career is over.”
“So this is the kind of asshole Thomas Cole is? fucking Alpha Gilbert’s mate.”
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“Disisgusting. Both of them.”
Satisisfied, blogged out and shut my laptopp.
Slipping into my new outfit–simple jeans, a, a hoodiejeandisneakers–I reached into my bagag
- pulling out my new passport and ID. I studiede the unfaimidian name and face printed on n them.n.
Elena Bellll.
Camille Peters wass dead.
Before heading to theeport, irmade one last stop.
The riverbank was stilliswaarming with police and reporters. Yellow tapeetstretched across the scene, the air thick with luggency and speculation.
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I stayed hidden, watching from a distance as Alpha Thomas stood at the edge, speaking with Audrey.
Her hand rested on his arm, her voice carrying over the chaos.
“It’s better this way. Now we can finally be together.”
My fists clenched, nails biting into my palms.
Audrey tilted her head, a coy smile playing on her lips.
“I deeply regret rejecting you out of spite and choosing Alpha Gilbert instead. You’ve always been the one, Alpha Thomas. Now that Luna Camille is no longer here, nothing can stand in our way.”
Then, she kissed him.
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I turned away, my chest tightening with rage.
Even now, after everything, they stood there like nothing had happened–like my life, my pain, my death meant nothing.
I refused to let their betrayal consume me.
The port was quiet, the salty air cool against my skin.
My rented yacht waited at the far end of the dock. I boarded swiftly, my bag slung over my shoulder.
Inside, the cabin was just as pristine as expected–modern, spacious, and utterly private. This would be my home for the next few days until I reached my destination.
I stepped inside, ready to drop my bag and
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breathe.
Then I saw him.
A man stood by the window, his back to me. He was completely naked, his toned body illuminated by the warm light streaming through the glass.
I froze, my heart slamming against my ribs.
Then I smell a strong, minty, citrus and cedar mix.
My wolf growled in my head. ‘Mate.’
“What the hell?!”
“A second mate?“!”
My voice was sharp, cutting through the
silence.
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He turned, and my breath caught.
That face–sharp jawline, piercing eyes, and an effortless confidence that made my pulse
stutter.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
He smirked, utterly unfazed–by me or his own lack of clothing.
“That’s a hell of a way to say hello, Right? Luna Camille?”
“I’m Alpha King Xavien Barnett. Nice to meet you. My mate”
He leaned casually against the wall, a gleam in his eyes.
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