Chapter 1: Bitter Wine
“Smile, Jasmine. You’ll crack your face if you keep frowning like that.”
It was Mindie, my best friend. The only person who knew everything about Elliot and the pain I’d buried. About the bond that nearly broke me.
Her voice was low and teasing, but I heard the concern underneath it. She hadn’t let me face this night alone. Said if I was going to walk into hell, she’d walk beside me. Right now, she was the only reason I hadn’t bolted through the door.
I forced a smile. The kind I’d worn like armor for months. Bright, controlled and empty. But no smile could shield me from what I saw next.
Elliot. His hand cupped Isabella Laken’s cheek, gently. My stomach twisted. Then he kissed her, slow, deep and tender. In front of everyone. The same way he used to kiss me.
I couldn’t breathe. I turned away, heart pounding. My wolf whimpered inside me. She curled in on herself, wounded and weak. Just like she had been the day he rejected me... having marked me a week earlier.
He didn’t even wait for the bond to settle.
I stared down into my wine glass as I twirled it in my hand. The crowd clapped and cheered as if this was the fairytale ending everyone hoped for. Except, I wasn’t the princess in this story.
I was the discarded and shameful past.
“Still standing?” a deep voice said beside me. It instantly sent shivers down my spine. A woody musky scent overwhelmed me. What?
I blinked, startled, and turned. The man looked older. Maybe forty-five or fifty. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a sharp jaw. A streak of silver ran through his dark hair, but it was his eyes that caught me.