Heart Given, Heart Broken

Queenie once told me that the diamond ring I gave Xavier was very pretty.

So, I had decided to give her another equally sparkling diamond ring for her birthday.

The next day, she wore the ring to Xavier's private winery and made sure to include him in the background of the photos she took there, as if she were flaunting some sort of secret possession.

Her posting schedule on the Instagram account got more and more frequent as of late.

She'd even posted a photo of the two of them secretly holding hands with each other behind my back when the three of us went out together.

The night Xavier proposed to me, she had posted another black photo with a caption that read, "I guess I've been waiting for some people for far too long.

"If he also loves me back, then he should give me an answer as well."

She made it.

Late that night, she made the first move to kiss Xavier, and he never pushed her away.

They promised to go to the beach the night before the mating ceremony to relax and unwind. That was why Xavier had told me that he was going to settle some "problems" that had arisen in his pack, and that he would be gone for a whole week.

I felt nauseated.

All of his excuses of "settling problems" were just a front for him going out on trips with Queenie.

She had literally recorded every single moment of the seven days she spent with him and posted them online.

They went to the place where I used to go with Xavier to look at the sea view and took the same videos with the same angles he and I took.

They went to the same restaurant Xavier and I went to on our first date, smiling in a carefree manner as she sat in the place where I used to sit.

She wanted every memory I had with Xavier to be filled with her shadow in his heart.

I felt like I was now forced to watch a movie that didn't belong to me play out before my eyes. Misty told me to stop watching, but I couldn't stop myself from scrolling further.

The pain in my chest eventually grew numb. Eventually, there was nothing left but an unexpected calmness in my heart.

As it turned out, even emotions didn't bother showing anymore once someone had reached peak disappointment in someone else.

Before light, I had made my decision.

The mating ceremony must be called off.

I turned on my laptop and began writing the notice for the ceremony cancellation. Every word I wrote felt like I was shattering all the trust that I had in Xavier for the past eight years.

Before I was done drafting it out, however, my phone suddenly began to ring.

It was Queenie.

"Vanessa? Haven't you gone to sleep yet?" she asked, her voice light as though nothing had just happened. "It's your big day tomorrow. You shouldn't tire yourself out tonight."

I gripped my phone a little harder, but I couldn't manage to say a thing.

Queenie followed up with more questions at once.

"What's the matter? Are you getting butterflies in your stomach? Isn't Xavier with you?"

I felt a chilling irony.

Misty was practically screaming in my head. "Liar! You lied to me the whole time!"

Just a few minutes ago, she'd posted a very intimate photo of herself and Xavier. But now, she was pretending that nothing was wrong when talking to me.

"I…couldn't sleep," I said, trying to make myself sound as calm as possible.

"You silly goose," Queenie said with a chuckle. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine tomorrow. You still have me."

Just then, I heard a very low exhale on her side of the call, sounding like it was from a male wolf.

Misty told me that it was Xavier.

I closed my eyes and said, "Queenie, are you hiding something from me?"

Queenie was startled for a while and began to panic. "Vanessa, you must be mistaken."

I inhaled deeply and said, "Put me on loudspeaker."

After a moment's deliberation, she still did as I said.

My voice was icy-cold as I said, "Queenie Blackrose. Xavier Lupine."

I could hear their breaths catching in their throat.

"I know everything. I hope—"

I paused for a while before slowly saying, "I hope that you'll hold your own mating ceremony very soon to become each other's mates."