Once Love, Double Betrayal Chapter 04

Once Love, Double Betrayal Chapter 04

“Claire?”

Adrian finally noticed something was off. “What’s going on?”

His voice hit me like a punch to the chest. The pain clawed so deep I could barely breathe. I forced the words out through a throat raw with grief.

“Adrian.”

I swallowed hard, then asked the only questions that mattered.

“Adrian, do you love me? Adrian, would you ever betray me?”

The day he confessed, he’d dropped to one knee in front of all our friends. When I nodded yes, he broke down sobbing. He pulled me into his arms and swore through the tears,

“Claire, I swear by the Moon Goddess I’ll never let you down. I love you. I’ll never turn into my mother. I’ll never betray you. I’m yours—forever.”

I believed him.

I believed him with every piece of my soul. I believed Adrian was the most important person I’d ever love, that even if the mate bond threw us curveballs, we’d fight through them together and walk hand in hand to the end of the line.

But now…

I watched Candy’s hands wander all over him outside the hotel entrance. When Adrian hesitated, she sank her teeth into his throat.

A muffled groan slipped from him, thick with restraint. Into the phone he said, “Claire, stop overthinking. I’ll be home tomorrow.”

He gripped Candy’s waist. As her arms snaked around him again, another stifled grunt escaped before he added, “Claire, I’ve got stuff to do. Gotta go.”

The line went dead before I could answer.

Adrian wrapped an arm around Candy, eyes dark with feral heat.

“You started this.”

“Candy.” He tilted her chin up. “You’d better take responsibility.”

I sat frozen in the car and watched the man I loved most tangle with my best friend under the hotel’s shadow. They couldn’t even wait to get inside.

I stayed there until dawn painted the sky—until Candy walked out, smug and satisfied, on Adrian’s arm.

A handful of his buddies—the packmates I once trusted like brothers—trailed behind, laughing like it was all some kind of joke.

I thought a heart could only break once.

Then I heard it, drifting through their chatter as they passed my window.

“Candy looks like a total tomboy most days, but dress her up and she’s not far off Claire.”

Candy laughed and swatted the guy. “Don’t compare me to Claire. How many she-wolves need to be babied every second of the day?”

Adrian didn’t stop them. He let them pit me against her, let the crude jokes spiral lower and lower.

My throat closed up, thick with nausea—like I’d swallowed a swarm of flies. I gagged, fighting the urge to puke right there on the dashboard.

I held it together until they drifted farther down the sidewalk. Candy reached for the passenger door—my door—like it was the most natural thing in the world. The guys whooped and hollered.

Something inside me snapped.

I flung my car door open and charged. Adrian’s face went slack with shock. He went pale as death, instinctively yanking Candy’s arm to pull her away, but I was faster. My palm cracked across his cheek.

“Adrian!”

My voice shredded itself on the way out. Every sweet memory flashed past—then shattered into the tears hitting the pavement. Shattered. Gone.

“Adrian!”

I raised my hand for another slap, but Candy caught my wrist.

Her eyes blazed. “What gives you the right to hit him?”

I swung my free hand and laid a matching slap across her face. “Since when do I need a schedule to hit cheaters? You’re not off the hook either!”

I seized a fistful of her hair, slammed her head against the car door, then spun and slapped Adrian again. “We’re done!”

“Adrian.”

I locked eyes with him, every word carved in stone.

“I, Claire Miller, reject you as my future mate.”