But it wasn’t Damien who made my blood turn to ice.
Standing beside him, close enough to be considered intimate, was a woman. She was blonde and stunning in an obvious, calculated way. Her red dress hugged every curve of her generous figure.
There was something familiar about her posture, about the way she tilted her head when she spoke, that made my wolf pace uneasily in my mind. I took a step closer, staying in the shadows near the elevator bank, trying to get a better look at her face.
“Yes, the Grandview Suites will be perfect,” Damien was saying into his phone, his voice carrying the authoritative tone he used for business calls. “Book the penthouse suite for… how long will you be staying?” He directed this last question to the woman beside him.
She turned slightly to answer him, and the overhead lights of the lobby illuminated her features clearly for the first time.
There was something familiar about her profile -the sharp angle of her cheekbone, the way she tilted her head when she spoke. A nagging sense of recognition tugged at the edges of my memory, like trying to recall a half-forgotten dream.
I stepped closer, staying in the shadows near the elevator bank, my eyes studying her face with growing unease. My heart began to beat faster as fragments of memory started clicking into place.
She turned fully toward the reception desk, giving me a clear view of her face in the bright lobby lights. The blood drained from my cheeks as recognition hit me like a physical blow.
Those calculating eyes. That perfectly sculpted nose. The bee-stung lips that had whispered poison into my ear during the worst moments of my teenage years.
Anna Blackwood.
Damien’s POV
The woman standing before me reeked of cheap perfume and desperation, a cloying mixture that made my wolf recoil instinctively. She clutched my golden pendant like a lifeline, her artificially enhanced breasts practically spilling out of a dress so tight it looked painted on. Everything about her screamed fake -from her bleached blonde hair to her surgically plumped lips to the calculating gleam in her eyes.
“Anna Blackwood,” she’d introduced herself with a sultry smile that felt as genuine as her hair color. “I’ve been looking for you, Alpha Nightshadow. I have something that belongs to you.”
The pendant was real -I’d examined it thoroughly, traced the familiar engravings with my fingertip, confirmed that the craftsmanship matched the half I kept in my desk drawer. But everything else about this woman was wrong. Completely, utterly wrong.
“I remember the woman I’m looking for having dark hair,” I said carefully, my voice neutral despite the frustration clawing at my chest. “And her… figure… wasn’t quite so…” I gestured vaguely at her enhanced proportions.
Anna’s laugh was like breaking glass, high-pitched and grating. “Oh, that! I went blonde especially for you, darling. And I got these done too,” she pushed her chest forward shamelessly, “because I thought you might appreciate the upgrade. Men always do, don’t they?”
She pressed closer to me, her manicured nails trailing down my arm with predatory intent. The contact made my skin crawl, every instinct I possessed screaming that this woman was wrong, wrong, wrong. But the pendant… how did she have the pendant?
“Tell me about that night,” I said, stepping back to put distance between us. “Five years ago. The Lunar Assembly celebration. What do you remember?”
Her eyes darted away for just a fraction of a second before meeting mine again. “Oh, it was magical,” she sighed dramatically. “You swept me off my feet, literally. We danced all night, and then you took me to your suite…” She trailed off with what was probably meant to be a seductive smile.
My phone buzzed in my pocket -Lucas, finally returning my increasingly frantic calls about the search. I’d been contacting him every hour for days, driving him to the edge of his patience with my desperate need for answers.
“Excuse me,” I told Anna, stepping away to take the call. The distance couldn’t come fast enough; her cloying perfume was making my head pound.
“Damien here.”
“Finally!” Lucas’s voice carried through the receiver, tinged with exhaustion and frustration. “I’ve been calling you back for the past hour. Look, I found her -or rather, she found the search notices we put out.”
My grip tightened on the phone. “What do you mean?”
“The woman with the pendant -blonde, mid-twenties, matches the description from the pawn shops. She tried to sell it at least four different times over the past month. Same woman, same pendant. The shop owners all gave consistent descriptions.” Lucas paused, and I could hear papers rustling. “But here’s the thing -she never went through with any of the sales. Just asked about values, got estimates, then left.”
A cold knot formed in my stomach. “And then?”
“Then our search notices started circulating through the community. Word about the job offer, the compensation package for anyone with information about the pendant… She showed up at three different shops yesterday asking if they’d seen the notices.”
“So she’s a fraud,” I said flatly, my voice barely controlled.
“I…” Lucas hesitated. “I don’t think so, actually. The timeline matches up perfectly. The pendant is definitely authentic -I had an expert verify it against your half. And she knew details about the Assembly that weren’t publicized. She’s legitimate, Damien. She’s just… not what you were expecting.”
I stared across the lobby at Anna, who was now using her phone’s camera as a mirror, pouting her surgically enhanced lips as she checked her makeup.
“Look, I get it. She’s not exactly… refined. But Damien, we’ve exhausted every other lead. Every database, every registry, every possible trail. If she’s not the woman from that night, then that woman doesn’t exist in any traceable way.”
“Fuck,” I breathed, the word barely audible.
“I’m sorry, man. I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear.”
My jaw clenched so tight I thought my teeth might crack. “The job offer stands. I gave my word.”
“Understood. I’ll make the arrangements.”
I hung up without another word, shoving the phone back into my pocket with enough force that I was surprised it didn’t shatter. Every instinct I possessed was screaming that this was wrong. But the evidence was undeniable, and my word was my bond.
Anna looked up from her impromptu makeup session as I approached, her face lighting up with a predatory smile that made my wolf recoil in disgust.
“Good news, I hope?” she purred, pressing herself against my side again.
Before I could answer, the soft ding of the elevator made me look up. My breath caught in my throat as Sera stepped out, her high heels clicking against the marble floor. She looked exhausted -her usually immaculate hair was slightly mussed, and there were dark circles under her eyes that spoke of long hours and too much stress.
Guilt twisted in my stomach. Had I been working her too hard? She had a child to care for, a life outside this office, and I’d been so consumed with my own obsessions that I’d barely noticed how late she’d been staying.
“Sera, you should have gone home hours ago,” I said, taking a step toward her. “I didn’t mean for you to -“
“OH MY GOD!”
Anna’s shriek cut through the quiet lobby like a fire alarm. She’d spotted Sera and was now rushing across the marble floor with her arms outstretched, her designer heels click-clacking frantically as she moved.
“SERA! SERAPHINA KNIGHT! I can’t believe it’s you!”
I watched in stunned silence as Anna threw her arms around Sera, pulling her into an embrace that looked more like an attack than a greeting.
Sera’s face cycled through a series of expressions -shock, and finally something that looked disturbingly like dread. “Anna,” Sera said carefully, her voice strained as she tried to extricate herself from the aggressive hug. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” Anna’s laugh was theatrical, designed to carry across the lobby and draw attention. “Darling, I’m here because of HIM!” She gestured dramatically toward me, her pendant catching the overhead lights. “Can you believe it? After all these years, I finally found my mystery lover!”
The color drained from Sera’s face so quickly I was afraid she might faint. Her emerald eyes darted between Anna and me, confusion and something that looked like pain flickering across her features.
“You two know each other?” I asked, though the answer was obvious from their interaction.
“Know each other?” Anna’s voice rose to an almost hysterical pitch. “We were Best friends!”
Before Sera could answer, I made a decision that would change everything. “Report to the office Monday morning,” I said, trying to keep my voice professional. “You’ll be working as a senior assistant. With Sera.”
Seraphina’s POV
Anna Blackwood -was someone I’d hoped never to see again for the rest of my natural life.
The memories came flooding back with crystalline clarity, each one hitting me like a physical blow. Anna and Valerie, standing over me in the high school bathroom during my sophomore year, their cruel laughter echoing off the grimy tiled walls as they shoved my head toward the toilet bowl filled with murky water and discarded cigarette butts.
“Look at the pathetic little omega,” Valerie had sneered, her manicured nails digging into my scalp as she held me down. “Does she really think she belongs here with real wolves?”
Anna had been right there beside her, recording everything on her phone while she giggled. “This is going straight to the pack forum,” she’d taunted. “Everyone needs to see what happens to omegas who get too uppity.”
The taste of chlorine and humiliation had burned my throat for days afterward. But that wasn’t the worst of it. They’d made sure to time their attacks perfectly -always when teachers were in meetings, always when the hallways were empty, always when there would be no witnesses except their loyal followers who found omega-baiting as entertaining as a sporting event.
There had been the time they’d dumped my entire lunch tray on my head in front of the senior class, then forced me to clean it up while they stood there critiquing my “technique.” The countless mornings I’d arrived at school to find my locker filled with rotting meat and notes calling me “worthless breeding stock.”
Anna’s specialty had been psychological warfare. She’d befriend me for just long enough to learn my insecurities, then weaponize them with surgical precision. She’d discovered I had a crush on a boy in our chemistry class and had convinced him to ask me to the spring formal -only to reveal it was all an elaborate prank when I showed up to find them laughing at me in front of the entire school.
“Did you really think someone like him would want damaged goods?” Anna had whispered as I stood there in my carefully saved-for dress, humiliation burning through my veins like acid. “You’re just a charity case, Sera. Always have been, always will be.”
For three endless years, they’d made sure I knew exactly where I stood in the pack hierarchy. Every day brought fresh reminders that I was nothing, nobody, a mistake that everyone tolerated only because the Moon Goddess apparently had a twisted sense of humor.
After graduation, she’d vanished completely. Valerie had mentioned once that Anna was “sleeping her way to the top” with various wealthy men, but I’d assumed that was just typical Valerie venom. Now here she was, draped all over my mate like a cheap accessory, acting as if we were long-lost best friends.
“Know each other?” Anna’s voice pitched higher, that same theatrical quality I remembered from our school days when she’d perform for whatever audience was available. “We were best friends! Isn’t that right, Sera darling?”
The casual lie made my wolf snarl with indignation. Ayla was pacing furiously in my mind, her mental voice sharp with protective anger. *That bitch tormented us for years. How dare she rewrite history?*
But what made my chest tighten with real pain wasn’t Anna’s presence -it was the golden pendant she kept waving around like a trophy. The craftsmanship was exquisite, clearly expensive.
“Report to the office Monday morning,” Damien said, his voice carrying that same professional tone he’d used during my interview. “You’ll be working as a senior assistant. With Sera.”
With me.
The words felt like ice water being poured down my spine. This woman -this creature who had spent three years of my life making me feel worthless -was being handed a position identical to mine. No interview, no qualifications check, no demonstration of ability. Just Damien’s word, apparently based on whatever sob story she’d fed him about their supposed romantic history.
“Excuse me,” I managed to say, my voice steady despite the fury building in my chest. “But did this… candidate go through the same interview process I did? Because I seem to recall multiple rounds of screening, reference checks, and a rather intense evaluation period before I was deemed qualified for this position.”
Anna’s perfectly manicured hand tightened on Damien’s arm, her artificially plumped lips curving into a smirk I knew all too well. “Oh, Sera,” she laughed, that same musical tinkle that had preceded so many of my teenage humiliations. “Always so concerned with rules and fairness. Some of us don’t need to jump through hoops when we have… special qualifications.”
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