Lyra’s POV

“Are you insane, Lyra? You pushed her into the pool!”

Soren's voice cut through the crowd—sharp, furious, aimed straight at me. Every head turned. Every eye measured me, judged me, found me guilty before I'd said a word.

"Selena can't swim," he added, like that settled it. "Were you trying to kill her?"

Selena clung to him, soaked, shaking like she might fall apart if he let go. Beside them, his twin Kael was already glaring at me like I was something he'd scraped off his shoe.

Nobody watching this would believe these two men had been my boyfriends for eight years.

My mates.

And yet here they were, holding Selena—a woman who'd been in their lives for maybe two years—like she was the one they'd sworn to protect. Not me. I was the one who'd loved them for eight. I was the one who'd built them up from nothing until they became the most respected Alphas in Vermora.

"Lyra. Apologize to Selena."

Kael's voice was ice. It finished off whatever hope I had left.

"I didn't push her." My fists curled at my sides. The pool deck had turned into a stage. Guests were pouring out of the ballroom, phones already up, recording. All because Selena had decided to stage a drowning.

"Don't lie. I saw you." Soren pulled Selena closer.

The bond between us screamed in protest at how easily he held her. But I held his gaze anyway.

"I said I didn't. We've been together eight years. Doesn't that earn me—"

"Don't twist this." Soren cut me off. "I know what I saw."

He let his Alpha pressure bleed into his voice, trying to force me down. Muna whimpered inside me. We refused to bow. Kael and Soren might be our mates, but that didn't give them ownership of our dignity.

That's when Selena stirred weakly in his arms. "Don't be too hard on her, Soren... it was probably just an accident..."

Her fake mercy was gasoline on the fire.

Kael's eyes burned. "An accident? Stop making excuses for her, Selena. You're too kind." His voice dropped, low and lethal, and swung back to me. "And you—did you really think we couldn't see through you?"

"Everyone knows you've been jealous of Selena since day one. You can't stand that she's younger, prettier, kinder, more loved than you."

"Did you think humiliating her would steal her spotlight? Wake up, Lyra. You could live ten lifetimes and still not be worth her little finger."

Every word landed like a blade between my ribs.

Kael—the man who used to whisper poetry against my ear—when had he become this? Soren, my protector, when had he started looking at me like I was something monstrous?

A bitter laugh rose in my throat. I turned to the real villain of this story.

"Maybe," I said, barely above a whisper, "I shouldn't have saved you at all."

If I hadn't insisted on bringing her home that night—

"Enough, Lyra!" Soren snapped. "Are you threatening her now?"

"Threatening?" I jabbed a finger at my own chest, then at her. "I took her in when she had nothing. I—"

"Please... don't..." Selena cut my words; her voice trembled falsely. "Please don't fight because of me."

"Enough!" Kael's voice cracked like thunder. He stepped forward, pulling Selena slightly behind him, as if shielding her from the mere sight of me. His eyes were cold, distant, the eyes of a stranger.

"You helped her. That doesn't give you the right to look down on her." A pause. "Anyone could've done what you did for her. I could've done it myself."

"Anyone?" My throat burned. "I gave her everything. I gave you two everything. Without me, you all—"

"There again." Soren's voice turned vicious. "You can't stop reminding people what you've done for them—for Selena, for us, for everyone."

He looked at me like I was something filthy. "Stop pretending you were selfless. You had your reasons too. Yes, you funded us. But everything we are today, we built with our own hands. Without us, your money would still be sitting in some account, gathering dust. You never could've turned it into this."

The sheer nerve of it almost made me laugh out loud.

Yes, I'd had my reasons for helping them. When I first came to Vermora alone, I never imagined I'd find my mates so fast—let alone twin Alphas. Back then I thought it was fate. Fate that had pulled me out of an arranged marriage and walked me straight into their arms.

At the time, Kael and Soren's pack was falling apart. I hadn't hesitated. I'd poured every cent I had into keeping them alive. Eight years, step by step, day after day, I'd stayed beside them and built their dying pack into the most unstoppable force in Vermora.

They'd promised me that when they reached the top, I'd become their Luna. We'd have a wedding.

Eight years. We'd made it.

I'd come here tonight expecting a proposal. Instead I'd walked straight into Selena's graduation party. Planned by my own friends. I wasn't even on the guest list.

Selena spotted me first. She ran toward me to say hello. Then—somehow—she ended up in the pool.

And just like that, I was the villain.

"She planned this." Muna paced inside me, claws out. "You can't let that bitch get away with this. Let me rip her throat open."

"Not here," I held her back. "If we shift now, they'll know what we are."

"Does any of this even matter anymore? I'm sick of everyone treating us like a worthless Omega!"

I understood her fury. But I'd made a promise to my father. I couldn't reveal who I really was until the Draven brothers had formally claimed me as their Luna in front of everyone. Otherwise, he'd never accept this bond at all.

I swallowed the bitterness and lifted my chin toward Kael.

"So that's really what you think?" I stepped closer. "Every promise you made me was a lie. Every kind word, just because you needed my money. And now that you don't, you can't wait to throw me away."

"Watch your words, Lyra." Kael's voice was ice. "You're getting good at twisting the truth."

"I'm twisting the truth?" I let out a cold laugh, turning to Soren. "You think the same thing, don't you?"

"Don't make this bigger than it is, Lyra. Tonight is Selena's party. Tonight should be about her—"

"And what about me?" My voice came out raw, scraped thin. Soren saw something in my eyes that made him look away.

He opened his mouth to answer—

But then everything happened at once.

A catering cart broke loose from the ramp and barreled straight toward me and Selena. I didn't have time to react before Kael and Soren lunged forward—not for me.

For her.

They pulled Selena into their arms, shielding her. In the scramble, a hand shoved me backward. My heels slipped. I reached out and caught nothing.

The water swallowed me whole.

I climbed out on my own. No one offered a hand. Selena's friends covered their mouths, whispering, laughing like I'd gotten exactly what I deserved.

I was still wringing water out of my hair when one of them—a girl I didn't even know—raised her voice loud enough for the whole courtyard to hear. "Wait. The brake on that cart was locked. Someone released it on purpose." Her eyes cut straight to me. "Right before it almost ran into Selena."

"She probably staged it," someone else said. "Made it look like an accident so she could play the hero. Or scare her."

It made no sense—the cart had come for me too—but no one in that courtyard wanted sense. They wanted a villain, and I was standing right there, dripping, convenient.

Kael's jaw went rigid. "Is that true?"

"You're asking me that?" I stared at him, waiting for him to hear how absurd it sounded out loud. He didn't.

Soren stepped forward, something cold settling over his face. "Get on your knees and apologize to Selena. Now. In front of everyone."

The words hit harder than the water had.

Eight years. He was asking me to kneel for a woman I'd raised out of nothing, in front of two hundred strangers with their phones still raised, recording.

"No," I said.

"Lyra—"

"I said no." My voice didn't shake. I wouldn't let it.

My hand found the bracelet at my wrist—the one they'd given me the night the bond first settled between the three of us, moonstone set in silver, warm against my skin for eight years. I unclasped it slowly, deliberately, and held it up where they could both see it catch the light.

Then I let it fall.

It hit the wet stone between us with a small, almost gentle sound. Nobody moved.

I lifted my chin, drenched, ruined, and looked at them like I was seeing them for the first time.

"Kael Draven. Soren Draven."

The air went still. The bond between us—that invisible thread—pulled taut, trembling.

"I, Lyra Voss, hereby sever the bond between us. From this moment, we are nothing to each other."

The bond between us twisted. It yanked, pulled, then snapped back like a whip cracking against bone. The pain was so total, so deep in the marrow, I nearly lost my breath.

And then—Kael's presence beside me, gone. Soren's warmth at the back of my mind, gone.

Kael stood frozen for a long moment. Then he staggered back, one hand pressed flat against his chest, jaw locked, shoulders rigid like he was holding himself together by sheer will alone. His breathing turned ragged and uneven, but he kept it together. Barely.

Pain flickered across Soren's face too. But he squared his shoulders, forcing his spine straight, and looked at me with something close to contempt.

"Well," he said. "Look at you. Getting bolder by the day. An Omega, rejecting two Alphas." His voice dropped, edged with a warning. "You'll pay for this."

Kael followed, twisting the knife deeper. "That's right. One day you'll crawl back, begging us to claim you again."

I swallowed hard, forcing down whatever was rising in my throat, and met their eyes with nothing but scorn.

"Is that so?" I said. "Then keep dreaming. That day's never coming."

I turned on my heel and walked toward the exit, spine straight, chin level. The crowd parted for me on its own. Behind me, whispers caught and spread through the courtyard like wildfire.

"What just happened?"

"Did she actually reject two Alphas?"

"But why doesn't she look like she's in pain at all?"

"I thought she was an Omega."

"She said Voss... you don't think she's one of the Meadowbank Voss, do you?"

"No way. I heard the Voss heir is already engaged to the Alpha King."

The whispers chased me from behind like rising water.

I didn't look back.

By the time I reached the hotel entrance, a black Rolls-Royce Phantom Badge Edition was already idling at the curb.

The driver stepped out and bowed deeply. "Good evening, Miss Lyra." His eyes lifted, taking in my soaked dress, my dripping hair. Something flickered across his face—worry, then something sharper, anger on my behalf. "You're soaked through. Please, let me take you home."

I didn't move.

Exhaustion hit me all at once.

"Christopher," I said slowly. "Did my father send you to drag me back?"

He paused, then bowed again, deeper this time. "The Alpha and the Luna miss you terribly, Miss Lyra." His gaze flicked to my shoulder. "The Luna asked me to tell you—if things out here haven't made you happy, come home. No matter what's happened, you will always be a daughter of the Voss family."

That was the moment I stopped holding back the tears.

I slid into the car, head falling back against the seat, staring blankly out the window.

"Drive, Christopher," I whispered. "Take me home."