“I see.” The words came out mechanical. “I must have missed the invitation. I’ll be sure to let Mr. Ravencrest know about your RSVP.”
He passed me a quick smile. His gaze flicked to his wristwatch before he downed the last of his wine and stood. Slipping a hand into his pocket, he drew out a small card.
“I hope this isn’t the last time we see each other, Isabella,” he said, handing it to me. “If you ever need anything—a job, a reference, anything at all—call me. Anytime.”
I stared at the card, not really seeing the numbers of the letter. But I stifled a smile his way and said, “Thank you, Mr. Crane.”
The flightback to Virginia was torture.
Every minute stretched into eternity. Every mile felt like a lifetime.
He’d promised. Sworn on his honor that he would protect me.
So why was the engagement still happening?
Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe the invitation had been printed before he could cancel. Maybe he’d been trying to call and something was wrong with my phone.
The car from the airport dropped me at the mansion just as the sun began to set. The compound had been transformed into something beautiful. Lights were strung through the trees, expensive cars lined the driveway, and wolf shifters wandered around in fine attire.
My chest constricted. The ceremony was already underway.
I rushed through the mansion, desperate to find Dimitri, butgot cornered.
“Isabella!” Edmund appeared, already in his formal Beta attire. “You’re back. Good. You need to get dressed. The ceremony starts in an hour.”
“I need to talk to Dimitri first—I mean, Mr. Ravencrest.”
Edmund’s expression tightened, a conflicted shadow crossing his features as he hesitated. “He’s in pre-ceremony meetings with the Council,” he said, his voice dropping slightly. “You’ll see him after.”
After. After he was crowned Alpha. After he announced his engagement. I couldn’t wait that long.
I immediately rushed to my room. I searched my closet for the best dress I owned—a deep emerald green, elegant and simple. I put it on, applied makeup with shaking hands, pinned my hair up.
In the mirror, I looked like someone going to a celebration.
I felt like I was walking to my execution.
The Mate bond pulsed urgently as I made my way back downstairs.
I followed the sound of music and laughter to the gardens.
I rounded a corner into a secluded alcove and froze.
There he was.
Dimitri stood alone, leaning against the stone wall with a cigarette between his fingers. He wore a charcoal suit tailored to perfection, making him look every inch the Alpha he was about to become. Every line of the fabric was flawless, every detail immaculate—a picture of power and control.
He was perfect, a living statue of everything the pack had groomed him to be: lethal, immaculate, inevitable. And the sight of him there—so untarnished, so completely theirs—slammed the final nail into the coffin of every reckless hope I’d carried across three time zones. I’d let him ruin me in the dark, let him brand his name across my skin with teeth and whispered lies, and here he stood, not a crease, not a tremor, not a single fingerprint of me left on him. The irony tasted like rust on my tongue. I’d fought for scraps of a man who’d already been lacquered into someone else’s future, and the proof was in every flawless inch of him.
I felt my wolf come alive, pushing against my skin, urging me torun to him and touch him, inhale his scent. After three weeks of silence and distance, seeing him was like oxygen after drowning.
He felt it too. His head snapped up instantly, dark eyes finding mine across the space between us.
For a heartbeat, we just stared at each other.
“Isabella.” His voice cracked on my name, low and rough. He looked genuinely surprised. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly before they darkened with something unreadable. “You’re back.”
Was he actually going to go through with this? Get engaged without even talking to me?