Chapter 4
442words
Damian's fury and malice vanished instantly when he saw the name on the screen, replaced by servile nervousness and wild joy. He fumbled with the device like a teenager answering his first crush.
"Seraphina! You finally…"
Whatever came through the call transformed Damian's expression from ecstatic joy to intense focus, then to unhesitating obedience.
"Yes, I understand… I'll handle it immediately… don't worry."
The call lasted less than thirty seconds. When he hung up, his look toward Genevieve returned to that cold evaluation one gives a tool.
He needed to immediately handle something for his true goddess. And Genevieve, this compliant, occasionally useful "imitation," had become a nuisance to be discarded.
"Get out," he commanded coldly.
Here by Moon Goddess Lake, deserted except during rituals, in the bone-chilling early morning cold. Abandoning a defenseless Omega here was practically a death sentence.
Damian felt no hesitation. For Seraphina's happiness, he would do anything.
Genevieve looked at him, her eyes perfectly timed to show shock, disbelief, and the deep pain of betrayal.
Then she obediently opened the car door and stepped out.
The door slammed behind her. The hover car's engine growled, and it sped away without mercy.
Genevieve stood in the biting morning wind, watching those taillights slice through darkness, growing distant. Her thin silk dress offered no protection against the wilderness cold. She hugged herself, body trembling, face a portrait of helplessness and despair. From the rearview mirror, she was the perfect image of a tragic beauty abandoned by her lover, left to wither in the wilderness.
This exquisite performance would make even the coldest Alpha feel a twinge of guilt later.
Finally, the last gleam of light disappeared at the horizon's edge.
The world fell into darkness and silence, broken only by lake water lapping against the shore and wind moaning through dead grass.
All expressions on Genevieve's face—sadness, despair, helplessness—vanished instantly.
She straightened up, her supposedly freezing body suddenly rigid and controlled. She expressionlessly brushed imaginary dust from her skirt, then calmly activated the emergency communicator hidden in her sleeve, disguised as a jeweled cufflink.
A faint blue light pulsed three times.
Within thirty minutes, her pre-arranged extraction team would arrive.
Genevieve leaned against a dead tree, exhaling a long plume of white mist, her eyes filled with fatigue and impatience.
"What a pain in the ass," she muttered. "If it weren't for the money, who'd want any part in this twisted love game between you psychos?"
She just wanted to get back to her apartment, sink into a hot bath, and sleep until she could forget this entire nightmare of a night.
