My Fated Mate, My Coldest Enemy.

Aiden POV

The beast inside me was pacing, clawing at the back of my skull, demanding blood. It took every ounce of my restraint not to chase Marcus Thorne down the hallway and rip his throat out. He had touched her. He had dared to put his filthy hands on what the Moon Goddess had decided was mine.

Mine. The word echoed in my head, a taunt rather than a comfort.

I turned my back on Emery. I couldn't look at her. If I looked at her—at those wide, terrified eyes and that trembling mouth—I would lose the fragile grip I had on my control. I would claim her right here on the conference table, consequences be damned.

Instead, I focused my rage on the incompetence that had allowed this to happen.

Janice Spears stood near the door, her face a mask of crumbling plaster. She reeked of fear—sour and acrid.

"You," I growled, my voice low but carrying the weight of a thunderclap.

Janice flinched. "Alpha Madden, I... I didn't know he would—"

"Silence."

The command slammed into her, snapping her jaw shut. I stalked toward her, the employees in the open-plan office parting like the Red Sea. They kept their heads down, submitting to the aura of violence rolling off me.

"You sent a junior liaison into a room with a known predator," I said, stopping inches from her. "You failed to vet the client. You failed to secure the perimeter. You failed to protect a member of this Pack's staff."

"It was a test," she whimpered, sweat beading on her forehead.

"A test?" I laughed, a dark, humorless sound. "You gambled with my assets. In my Pack, stupidity is a crime."

I looked around the room, meeting the gaze of every terrified onlooker. "Janice Spears is hereby stripped of her title. You are demoted to Junior Assistant in Archives. If I see you on this floor again, you will be terminated. Permanently."

I didn't wait for her response. I turned on my heel and stormed toward the elevators, forcing myself not to glance back at the conference room where Emery still stood.

Hours later, my office felt like a cage.

The scent of her—wild lavender and rain-soaked pine—was haunting me. It clung to my clothes, my skin, my very soul. I tried to focus on the acquisition reports on my desk, but the letters blurred.

Suddenly, a sharp spike of irritation pierced my mind. It wasn't mine.

My head snapped up. The bond—that thin, unwanted thread connecting me to her—vibrated with a foreign presence. It was faint, muffled by the distance and the fact that we hadn't completed the mating process, but I could feel it.

A male presence.

It was sliding into her mind, familiar and possessive.

Who is he? My wolf snarled, pacing aggressively in my mind's eye. Kill him.

I couldn't hear their words, but I could feel the texture of the connection. It was intimate. Comfortable. She was opening her mind to another male while I sat here, fighting a war against my own instincts.

The intercom buzzed. "Sir," Ferdinand's voice came through, hesitant. "You asked for an update on... the new Liaison Officer."

"Speak," I gritted out.

"She has left the building. She has a reservation at The Gilded Antler for three."

"Three?"

"Yes, sir. She met a man and a woman in the lobby. The man... he seemed very close to her."

My pen snapped in half, ink exploding over my hand like black blood.

So, she had a lover. And she was parading him around my city, eating at my restaurants, mocking the bond that was currently tearing me apart.

"Get the car," I ordered, standing up. The chair flew back and hit the wall. "Now."

The Gilded Antler was dim, smelling of roasted venison and old money. The maître d' froze when he saw me, his face draining of color, but I ignored him. My eyes scanned the room, hunting.

I found them in a secluded booth near the back.

Emery was sitting there, her back to the wall. She looked beautiful, which only fueled my rage. But it was the man next to her that made my vision swim with red.

He was the one from the airport. The one who had touched her arm. The one whose scent was all over her.

As I watched, the man leaned over and wrapped his arm around the woman sitting next to him—a woman with long dark hair, similar to Emery's. He pulled her in and kissed her deeply, a display of affection that was nauseatingly public.

And Emery? She was smiling.

She was watching her lover kiss another woman, smiling as if this depravity was normal. Was this what she was? A woman with no morals? A woman who shared her bed and her heart with whoever was available?

The betrayal tasted like ash in my mouth. I had almost killed an Alpha today to protect her honor, and here she was, spitting on mine.

I didn't just walk toward their table; I marched toward it like an executioner approaching the scaffold. The air in the restaurant grew heavy, the chatter dying out as my Alpha aura suffocated the room.

I stopped at the edge of their table. My shadow fell over them, cold and absolute.

Emery looked up, her glass of water halfway to her lips. Her eyes widened in shock, and for a second, I saw fear. Good. She should be afraid.

"Mr. Madden?" she squeaked, her voice trembling.

She didn't know. She had no idea that the man standing above her wasn't just her boss, but the husband she had betrayed before the ink on the marriage certificate was even dry.

And I was going to make sure she regretted every single second of it.