Chapter 52

“It’s an invitation to Alpha Rygan’s engagement,” Vienna explained, watching quietly to see how her friend would react, but Elise didn’t so much as bat an eye.

She kept that pain hidden as she tried to think of something else than this harrowing pang in her heart as she stared at the invitation.

“You knew, didn’t you?” She asks Elise, who stands up from the kitchen bar stool, walking to the fireplace to stare at the open flame that kept them warm.

“More like, I’m the person who told him to go ahead with it... to hurt him and me,” she muttered. “I think I deserved to be hurt; I mean, I was the one who broke it off; what was I expecting?”

“You were expecting better, something he could not give when he is practically a mated man, but I don’t still get this honestly; you see the way he looks at you, how he...”

“Stop Vienna, please,” she tells her friend with a whimper. She didn’t need to recall whatever memory she had been trying to push back down for a whi