Divorcing My Cheating Mate To Become The Lycan Queen

Cora POV:

The single candle flame flickered across the white tablecloth, untouched. The steaks were cold. The Cabernet was unopened. The second crystal glass sat empty, collecting dust.

Three years. Our third wedding anniversary. And Vance hadn't been home in thirty-one days.

I pressed my fingertips to my temple, reaching for the bond-that thin, silver thread of awareness that was supposed to connect mated wolves. Nothing. A flat, dead silence where his presence should have been. He'd blocked me. Again. Walled me out of his mind like I was spam he couldn't be bothered to delete.

I picked up my phone and dialed.

Ring. Ring. Voicemail.

I dialed again. And again. And again. Seven times. Twelve times. Sixteen.

My parents had wanted this. That was the only reason I was still trying. Before the mission that killed them, my father had gripped my hand and said, "Find someone, little wolf. Settle down. Let us see you safe before we go." So I had settled. I had married Vance Hayes. And for three years I had endured his coldness, his absences, his silence, because I had made them a promise.

But they were gone now. And today, finally, the military was releasing their remains to family. All I needed was for him to stand beside me. Just once.

The seventeenth call connected.

My heart leapt. "Vance, I need you to come with me tomorrow morning. It's my parents' ashes, they're finally being-"

"Jesus Christ, are you serious?" A woman's voice. Sharp. Irritated. Caroline Le. "Can you give him some space? He's at a private event. You call, call, call, like some desperate little barnacle glued to a man's hull. Do you have zero ability to function independently? Get a hobby. Get a job. Get a life that doesn't revolve around ringing his phone like a lost puppy."

Click. Dead air.

I stared at the screen. Checked the number. Checked it again. I hadn't misdialed.

Maybe he was in a meeting. Maybe his phone was in her hand by accident. Maybe.

I booked a single train ticket for the morning. Then I texted my lawyer: "Prepare divorce papers. Maximum favor. All clauses."

The next day, I collected my parents' ashes alone. The colonel saluted me. The cadets roared "Duty, Honor, Country!" I held the wooden urn to my chest and walked out into the afternoon sun, the white roses I'd bought trembling in my grip.

My phone buzzed. Instagram notification. Caroline Le had posted twenty minutes ago.

The location tag: a private beach club in the Hamptons. Forty minutes from where I stood.

The photo was a video, actually. Vance and Caroline, arms intertwined, drinking from each other's glasses in a slow, deliberate toast. His free hand rested on the small of her back. Her head tilted against his shoulder. His friends cheered around them. A beach party. He'd been here the whole time. Not in a meeting. Not blocked by work. At a beach, drinking cross-cups with another woman while I stood in a military chapel holding his dead in-laws.

Something hot and ancient snarled behind my ribs. The wolf my parents had trained to stillness ripped its leash.

I hailed a cab. "Hamptons. The Shoreline Club. Now."

I arrived with sand still gritty under my shoes and the urn clutched to my chest like a shield. The party was in full swing-music, champagne, laughter. Vance stood at the center of it, tie undone, grinning at something Caroline whispered.

"Vance."

He turned. His smile died. "Cora? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I called you seventeen times. You didn't answer. Your girlfriend answered instead and called me a barnacle." My voice was steady. Flat. "Where were you supposed to be this morning?"

Before he could speak, his friend Tristan Knight materialized, champagne flute in hand, sneering. "Oh look, the stray followed him to the beach. Seriously, Taylor, don't you have a community college exam to fail? No job, no skills, no pedigree. You're a leech with a pulse. Maybe if you stopped chasing men and got a résumé, someone would take you seriously."

Caroline drifted over, draped in a sarong, looking effortlessly gorgeous. She tilted her head with a pitying smile. "Cora, sweetie. A woman should be self-sufficient. You can't just cling to a man and expect him to orbit you. It's unbecoming."

I looked at her. At the intertwined-cup wine still staining her lips. At Vance's hand still resting possessively on her hip.

"Self-sufficient," I repeated. "Like you? Is that what you call it-drinking cross-cups with another woman's husband at a beach party while his wife collects her dead parents' bones alone? That's not independence, Caroline. That's being a mistress with a PR team."

Her smile shattered. Color flooded her cheeks. "You little-"

She lunged. Not at me. At the urn.

Her hand swiped the wooden box from my arms in one vicious arc. It hit the sand with a crack. The lid split. A plume of fine grey ash puffed into the salt air, settling over the white roses, over my shoes, over the ground.

My parents. Scattered in the sand like cigarette ash at a beach party.

The world went white.

I didn't think. I didn't plan. My hand moved on fifteen years of combat reflex, and my palm connected with Caroline's cheek with a crack that silenced the music.

She spun. Hit the sand. Stared up at me, mouth agape, a red handprint blooming across her face.

"I said," I whispered, crouching down, my voice a blade wrapped in silk, "pick. Them. Up."