Betrayed By My Fiancé, Claimed By His Alpha Brother

Elara POV:

I carefully placed the silver cufflinks into the velvet box. They were perfect. Engraved with the Sinclair pack crest and a tiny, almost invisible moon on the back-our secret. A symbol of the life we were about to start.

I shoved the box into my wallet, my heart pounding like a drum in my chest. Tonight is a party before the engagement ceremony. In a few days, I will become the fiancée of Julian Sinclair.His Luna.

A faint smile touched my lips as I checked myself in the car's mirror. The silk of my gown shone, my hair was perfect, my makeup flawless. I was ready.

I was just about to start the car and leave when I suddenly realized I had forgotten to take my own phone.

My phone. I left it on the dining table in the living room at home.

"Damn it," I muttered softly, with a hint of annoyance. I sighed and fumbled for my apartment keys, then pushed open the car door, preparing to go home to retrieve my phone.

I arrived at the door of my apartment,the key turned in the lock. I pushed the door open, calling out my own carelessness. "Forgot my..."

The words died in my throat.

The air was wrong. Thick. Cloyingly sweet with an Omega scent that wasn't mine. It was cheap, like gas station perfume trying to be a rose.

This is the scent of Jenna, the scent of my best friend.The one I'd trusted with every secret, every fear, every hope.

My heart stopped. Then it slammed against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage.

A sound drifted from the master bedroom. A low, suppressed moan. Then, a giggle. Jenna's giggle.

The blood drained from my face. My breath hitched.

No. It couldn't be.

My feet moved without my permission, silent on the plush carpet. Each step was a lifetime. The bedroom door was slightly ajar.

I peered through the crack.

And the world ended.

There, on the bed we were supposed to share for the rest of our lives, were Julian and Jenna. Naked. Tangled together. His hands were in her hair, the same way he held me.

"As soon as I get what I want from her," Julian's voice was a low murmur, laced with the satisfaction of a full belly, "I'll break the engagement. Then you'll be my Luna, I promise."

Jenna laughed, a silky, venomous sound. "She's so pathetic, isn't she? Always playing the perfect little Luna. Did she really think you'd settle for her when you could have me?"

Julian's chuckle was dark, cruel. "Her family's influence is useful. Once the alliance is sealed and her father's pack falls in line, she's disposable. She never even suspected. So trusting. So blind."

"I've been playing her for months," Jenna purred, her fingers tracing his chest. "Every secret she told me? I used it. And she still called me her best friend. What a joke."

Bile rose in my throat. A wave of nausea so strong it made my knees buckle. I clamped a hand over my mouth, stifling the scream that clawed its way up my esophagus. My stomach churned, a knot of pure, physical agony.

My world, my future, my love-all of it, a lie.

In the crushing darkness of that pain, one cold thought cut through. I felt a sliver of ice pierce the inferno in my chest.

I returned to the living room and picked up my phone, which I had forgotten on the dining table. My fingers gripped the cold, smooth phone case. My movements were slow and cautious, like a surgeon preparing for a delicate and bloody operation.

I tilted my phone against the gap under the main bedroom door, and the screen became a cruel mirror, reflecting that distorted scene. My thumb found the recording button.

A small red light blinked to life.

The screen captured everything. Their slick bodies. Julian's lying mouth. Jenna's triumphant smile against his skin.

"After I dump her," Julian said, his voice gloating, "we'll make sure she's exiled. No pack, no family, no one. She'll be nothing."

Jenna pressed a kiss to his jaw. "And I'll be there to watch her break. Best friends 'til the end, right?" They both laughed-a shared, ugly sound that carved deeper into my soul.

One minute. An eternity.

Enough.

I stopped the recording, the file saving with a quiet finality. A ghost, I slipped back out of the apartment, my own home now a tomb.

The click of the lock behind me was the sound of a coffin lid closing.

I didn't go home. I couldn't.

I walked. The city lights blurred into a meaningless smear. The sounds of traffic, of laughter, were a distant hum.

I found myself in front of a place I'd only ever heard about in whispers. "The Crimson Moon." A bar so exclusive, so dangerous, it was practically a myth.

I pushed open the heavy oak door.

The air inside was thick with power and whiskey. I sat at the bar, the polished wood cool beneath my forearms.

"Whiskey," I told the bartender. "Neat."

The first glass burned. The second numbed. By the third, the edges of my pain were starting to blur.

A presence settled beside me. A shadow that blotted out the dim light. The air shifted, charged with a scent so powerful it cut through the whiskey and smoke.

Cedarwood and mint. Cold and sharp and utterly overwhelming.

I turned my head.

And looked into the eyes of the devil.

They were dark, bottomless pits behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Cain Sinclair. Julian's half-brother. The Alpha of our pack.

The Executioner.

Our eyes met, and the world tilted on its axis.

The scent hit me first, a physical blow. It wasn't just cedar and mint. It was him. My soul, a hollowed-out cavern of grief, recognized it.

My heart, which I thought had shattered, began to pound a new, frantic rhythm. A wildfire ignited in my veins, my skin tingling as if struck by a thousand tiny sparks of lightning.

A strange, terrifying sense of wholeness flooded me, a feeling of coming home to a place I'd never been. It filled the gaping wound of Julian's betrayal.

My inner wolf, a creature I barely knew, let out a silent, primal scream inside my head.

Mine!

His fingers brushed against the back of my hand as he reached for a glass. The contact was electric. A jolt of pure, raw power shot up my arm, making my whole body tremble.

The room spun. The whiskey, the betrayal, the shock of this... this Recognition. It was too much.

My body swayed.

Strong arms caught me before I could fall. He was holding me, pulling me from the chaos of the bar.

His car was a dark, silent cocoon. The enclosed space amplified his scent, a drug that systematically dismantled my remaining shreds of sanity.

I vaguely remember being led into a penthouse suite, the scent of him clinging to the air, the sheets, everything. He tossed me onto a bed softer than clouds.

He pulled off his tie, the silk whispering a threat. He unbuttoned his shirt, his eyes behind the glasses burning with a raw, primitive hunger I recognized because it was roaring inside me, too.

He leaned over me, his voice a low growl that vibrated through my very bones.

"You are mine."

And in that storm of instinct and despair, I gave up. I let the beast in.