Chapter 4

ELARA POV:

The next morning, I finalized my plans. A new identity, a transfer of funds to an offshore account, all the mundane human paperwork needed to disappear.

Then, a message flickered in my mind. It was Lyra.

"Elara? I'm going to visit your parents' graves. I thought... maybe we could go together?"

It felt like a trap. But it was a clumsy one, laced with a guilt I could practically smell. She was trying to fix this, trying to manage Kaelen and me, and I wanted to see just how badly she would fail.

Kaelen was already there when I arrived at the cemetery gates, leaning against his car with a casual air that was completely staged. "What a coincidence," he said, a faint smile on his lips.

"How did you know I'd be here?" I asked, my voice flat.

"Lyra told me," he lied, not missing a beat.

We stood before the two granite headstones. My human father and my werewolf mother. Kaelen placed a hand on my shoulder, a gesture of hollow comfort. He and Lyra spoke to the cold stone, a bizarre duet of promises.

"We'll take care of her," Kaelen said solemnly.

"She'll never be alone," Lyra added, her voice thick with an emotion I now recognized as profound regret.

They were talking about me as if I were a child, a burden to be managed between them.

The ride back was a special kind of torture. They sat in the front, talking and laughing about Pack memories from a decade ago, a time before I was even a part of Kaelen's world. I sat in the back, invisible, the silence around me a suffocating shroud.

Kaelen pulled up to a high-end restaurant. He got out, opened the door for Lyra, and handed her the menu as soon as we were seated. It was a habit so ingrained he didn't even notice what he was doing.

After they ordered, he finally turned to me, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. "You shouldn't be eating that," he chided, pointing at the dish I'd chosen. "It has herbs that aren't good for the pup."

He had been so engrossed in his conversation with Lyra that he hadn't bothered to help me choose, yet now he was scolding me for it.

The final act of the tragedy came as he stood up to greet another Alpha. He moved too quickly, bumping a waiter's cart. A tureen of steaming hot soup tilted, a wave of scalding liquid rushing towards us.

In a blur of motion, Kaelen reacted. His body half-shifted, fur sprouting along his arms, his muscles bunching with protective instinct. He threw himself in front of Lyra, shielding her completely with his own body.

He never even glanced my way.

The boiling soup slammed into my legs, searing my skin. The pain was immediate and white-hot.

But Kaelen didn't see. He was too busy fussing over Lyra, who had only gotten a small red mark on her hand.

"Clear the way!" he roared, his voice laced with the undeniable power of the Alpha's Command. The entire restaurant froze. He scooped a whimpering Lyra into his arms and stormed out, leaving me behind in the chaos, my legs on fire, utterly and completely forgotten.

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