Chapter 4: My Future

Juno's POV

My lungs burned as I finished my morning run, the physical pain a welcome distraction from my emotional turmoil. The pack's reaction was immediate as I entered our territory—conversations halting, gazes averted, their scents betraying everything. Excitement, curiosity, and underneath it all, pity. The news about Matthew finding his fated mate had spread like wildfire.

They're already choosing sides, Seraphine growled within me, bristling at the sideways glances and whispers that followed me through the compound.

Matthew sat at the kitchen table when I returned home, his breakfast half-eaten. I walked past him without a word, ignoring his regret-laden voice calling my name.

I needed a shower because I had a meeting to attend today. Luna Scarlett invited me to the meeting; she's one of my closer friends. Despite feeling upset about yesterday's events, I still decided to go.

In the scalding shower, my thoughts turned to Scarlett and Freya—women whose Alphas had found their fated mates. Their hollow eyes and forced smiles haunted me. Would I become just another cautionary tale? Another Luna discarded for destiny?

We are not them, Seraphine snarled. We will not fade.

When I returned to the bedroom wrapped in a towel, Matthew waited on our bed. I ignored him, the rejection I felt bone-deep and primal. When his arms encircled me from behind, his lips finding my marking, I spun away in fury.

"Don't touch me," I spat. "Not after what you did last night."

"Juno, please—"

"You humiliated me," I cut him off, my voice shaking. "In front of everyone."

"I stopped," he insisted, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "I didn't—we didn't—"

"What?" I laughed, bitter and cold. "You didn't fuck her? Is that supposed to make me feel better? That you only did everything else?"

The hurt in his eyes should have given me satisfaction, but it didn't. There was something else there too, a longing that had nothing to do with me.

"Hurry up and change, we have a meeting to attend," I said impatiently, not wanting to say much more to him.

"The meeting's been pushed to this evening," he said softly. "Juno, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"I'm tired of that word," I muttered, turning away from him. "Sorry doesn't mean anything if you're just going to do it again."

"I never wanted to hurt you," he whispered, grabbing my arm and pulling me against him. His eyes were wet with unshed tears. "You have to believe me. I've never felt so ashamed."

"But you couldn't help yourself, could you?"

"You don't understand what it was like," he said. "I couldn't—I can't—fight this pull."

To my shock, Matthew fell to his knees, wrapping his arms around my legs as he pressed his face against my thighs. I'd never seen an Alpha so broken, so vulnerable. It went against everything in their nature.

"Please don't give up on me," he begged, his tears soaking through the fabric of my jeans. "I need you, Juno. I've always needed you."

My fingers found their way into his hair, feeling its familiar texture.

"I know this is happening fast," he continued, his words muffled against my leg. "But we can figure it out. I promise I'll do better. Just don't shut me out."

"You want me to accept sharing you with her," I said flatly.

"I don't know what I want," he admitted, looking up at me with red-rimmed eyes. "But I know I don't want to lose you."

"You already have," I whispered. "What happens now is just... aftermath."

"No," he insisted, getting to his feet and cupping my face in his hands. "I'll fight this, Juno. I swear I will."

I didn't believe him, but I didn't have the energy to argue anymore. The pull of a fated mate was too strong, especially for an Alpha. I knew he was speaking the truth, but I also knew he couldn't follow through.

The ache in my chest threatened to consume me. Our life together, the happiness we'd built, it was over. I knew that with a certainty that terrified me.

The pack meeting hall buzzed with nervous energy as Matthew and I walked in that evening. I felt eyes on me from every direction, heard the whispers that followed in our wake. I picked up fragments of conversation, about Matthew and Isabelle on the balcony, how he'd been so far gone he'd torn her dress, how she'd moaned loud enough for half the party to hear.

Each detail was a fresh wound.

Freya came up to me during the break. She looked terrible. I could tell she'd been drinking. You could smell it on her even through all that perfume.

"How are you holding up?" she asked, her voice raspy from years of drinking.

"I'm fine," I lied.

Freya gave me a knowing look. "It's okay not to be fine, you know. No one expects you to be."

I glanced around the room, noticing how the other women carefully avoided the topic of Matthew and Isabelle. I appreciated their attempt at tact. Some genuinely hoped this was just a phase that would pass. Others, like Scarlett and Freya, knew better.

"Does it get easier?" I asked Freya, keeping my voice low.

She let out a humorless laugh. "You want the truth? No. But you get braver."

"Quinn hasn't touched me in over a year," Freya continued, her fingers fidgeting with her necklace. "Our bed grew cold long before that. He sleeps in her room now."

"And you just... accept it?" I couldn't keep the disbelief from my voice.

"What choice do I have?" she countered. "An Alpha won't reject his fated mate - the risk of weakness is too great. And no one wants used goods, Juno. No wolf will challenge an Alpha for a woman he's marked and discarded."

Her statement landed like a punch to the gut. Seraphine, usually so quick to roar in defiance, fell silent. A chill ran down my spine. This was my future, watching Matthew fall deeper in love with Isabelle while I faded into the background.

"So what do you do?" I asked, desperate for some solution, some way out of this nightmare.

Freya's smile didn't reach her eyes. "I find comfort where I can. Discreetly, of course."

It took me a moment to understand what she meant. "You have affairs?"

"Quinn doesn't care who I fuck anymore," she shrugged. "As long as I don't embarrass him in public. It's... an arrangement."

Is that what my marriage would become? An "arrangement" where Matthew slept with Isabelle while I sought physical comfort elsewhere? The thought made me sick.

When the meeting started up again, I was watching Matthew across the room. I noticed how he was talking to Alpha Charles, Isabelle's dad. I could totally tell there was tension between them, like Matthew was trying to act polite but was actually pretty pissed off.

A storm was coming.

"Alpha Matthew."

Charles's deep voice stopped us in the parking lot after the meeting. I felt Matthew tense up beside me. I could feel the tension between the two Alphas.

"Not now, Alpha Charles," Matthew warned, his hand possessively at the my back.

"This can't wait." Charles's gaze flicked to me, contempt clear in his eyes. "You know you can't keep him, right? Not when my daughter is his fated mate."

The words stabbed into me like knives. Seraphine snarled, wanting to lunge at the other Alpha.

"Don't bring my wife into this," Matthew growled, stepping slightly in front of me.

Charles laughed, the sound harsh. "She's already in it. You made sure of that when you put your hands on my daughter at the party and then left her there."

"We didn't—"

"What? Fuck?" Charles spat. "Is that supposed to make it better? You were all over her and then you just walked away with her." He jerked his chin toward me.

Before Matthew could respond, Charles's fist connected with his jaw, the impact echoing in the empty parking lot. I should have been horrified, but my heart felt a twisted satisfaction. It was what I'd wanted to do myself.

"I spent years protecting Isabelle," Charles continued, his voice shaking with emotion. "She just finished her master's degree. She had options. Plans. Now what? She becomes one of your whores?"

"That's not—"

"Shut up," Charles snarled, "Let me make this crystal clear for you. You're taking Isabelle from my pack because I can't stomach watching what comes next. You're going to mark her—properly—because you've already ruined any chance she had at a normal life. And then the three of you can sort out your pathetic little circus of an arrangement." His lips curled into a cruel smile.

"I can't reject Juno," Matthew said. "She means too much to me."

Charles laughed, "And you can't reject Isabelle because it would cripple your wolf. How convenient for you." He leaned in, "I know exactly how this works. So does she." He jerked his chin toward me, not even bothering to use my name. "You want to play both sides? Fine. But remember who put the noose around all your necks." He tapped Matthew's chest with one finger. "This bed? You made it, son. Now all three of you get to lie in it. Enjoy the thorns."