"Kneel down!" Luna's voice cut through the air. The former Luna of Thornley Pack, my mother-in-law.

The funeral crowd had scattered hours ago. The moment we stepped back into pack, she ordered the guards to force me down at the entrance.

When I raised my eyes to meet hers, I saw black mourning garments hanging from her frame and her eyes were red and swollen.

The death of her son, Ray Thornley, had been a great blow to the woman who'd always seemed unbreakable now appeared decades older.

"Mom..." I started to speak, but she interrupted me.

"Shut up! Don't you dare call me that! Five years married and your belly's still flat. You’re a shame to be name Thornley." My mother-in-law's finger almost poked my nose .

I bit my lip and said nothing. I've heard these words for five years. Now there was only numbness.

"And you!" She turned to Rose standing beside her. "Ray went bungee jumping because of you! because you wanted him to! He never took risks like that. If he wasn't trying to please you, why would he do something so reckless? You brought disaster on him!"

Rose's face was deathly pale while tears rolled down her cheeks. She was wearing a black dress, looking utterly pitiful. But I knew that beneath that black mourning attire lay a frivolous red thong!

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Yesterday's images kept replaying behind my eyes.

Guests were still filling the house when exhaustion drove me back to our bedroom for rest, only to hear sexual sounds drifting from inside.

My first thought was that some relatives had gotten carried away, which almost made me laugh at their lack of restraint, until I caught my husband's name through the door. What I glimpsed through the crack would burn in my memory forever.

Rose perched on the desk with her black dress hiked to her waist, that crimson thong fully exposed. Caspian Thornley knelt before her with both hands clutching her hips, his face pressed between her thighs while he made ravenous sounds.

"Caspian... does your wife leave you unsatisfied?" Rose's voice dripped like honey.

Caspian Thornley responded in a rough whisper thick with hunger. "I never go near her." Between words, he kissed her again.

"Then why did you marry her...?"

"I only married her to get back at you for marrying my brother." Caspian Thornley lifted his head, eyes blazing. "These five years, I haven't laid a finger on Seraphina. You're the only woman who exists for me."

I stood frozen in the doorway, unable to draw breath.

So he wasn't indifferent to sex, wasn't buried in work. He simply had no interest in touching me.

The shock hit like a lightning strike. I stayed paralyzed there until they began kissing again, then finally peeled myself off the wall and stumbled away.

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"Mom, please." Caspian Thornley's voice dragged me back to the present moment.

Something lurched in my chest as I glanced up. He emerged from the house carrying a black umbrella, walking directly toward Rose.

"Rose is delicate by nature, and after what happened to my brother, she can't handle kneeling out here," Caspian Thornley said while reaching to pull Rose to her feet.

I knelt beside where he stood, body rigid. He moved past me without sparing me even a glance.

"Caspian, Mom's right, I should be kneeling..." Rose caught her lower lip between her teeth as fresh tears spilled down.

"You don't have to kneel." The gentleness in Caspian Thornley's voice was something I'd never heard directed at me. "What happened to my brother wasn't because of you; it was just a terrible accident."

"Caspian..." Rose gazed up at him, her expression radiating helpless dependence.

Watching them together felt like a fist closing around my heart. Five years of marriage and he'd never once looked at me that way, never spoken to me with such tenderness.

"Mom, Rose really isn't well enough for this. Let her stand up." Caspian Thornley turned to his mother with unusual firmness in his tone.

Then I watched Rose's five-year-old son William come running out to throw himself into his grandmother's arms. "Grandma, Mom didn't do it on purpose. You and Mom are both people Dad loved most, and he wouldn't want either of you crying. Grandma, please forgive Mom." His voice still had that childish quality.

Right then, Rose's body went slack and she collapsed sideways.

"Rose!" Caspian Thornley caught her with impossible speed, though the umbrella handle jabbed me hard enough to hurt.

"Mom, Rose passed out!" Caspian Thornley's voice carried real alarm as he cradled her.

"Quickly, bring her inside!"

Caspian Thornley immediately swept Rose up into his arms. She let her head rest against his shoulder—the intimacy between them was impossible to miss.

He carried her through the doorway while his mother and William hurried after them.

I remained alone in the courtyard.

Rain fell harder now, each drop stinging where it hit exposed skin. Kneeling there, I suddenly recalled being cared for this same way years before.

My parents had just died, and I was around sixteen years old. Standing alone in the rain with nowhere to go and no idea what came next.

That's when Adam found me. He walked up holding an umbrella, didn't say anything, just draped his coat across my shoulders before taking my hand to lead me forward.

"From now on, I'll take care of you," he'd said.

Adam was five years my senior, someone I'd known my whole life. We were inseparable until I turned thirteen—right around when he left for university. We lost touch during those years, probably because he'd made new friends at college.

Later, after learning my parents had died in a car crash, he returned to being the way he'd been before he left.

During that period, he monitored my meals, tucked blankets around me at night, drove me to and from school daily.

He enrolled in distance learning classes and didn't go back to campus until his final semester needed completion.

Being apart for just five days left me unable to sleep from missing him so intensely.

Could this be love? Had I actually fallen for someone I considered my brother? The thought terrified me.

Then Caspian Thornley entered my life.

Caspian Thornley was Adam's friend who came by for a visit. He told me I was special, that he liked my kind of person. He began pursuing me—sending flowers, arranging dates, pouring out sweet words.

"Adam will never marry you." Caspian Thornley said this to me one day. "He's the Fleur family heir and he'll marry into wealth. You're just a little sister to him—he's only fulfilling some promise he made your parents to look after you while you grow up."

Those words planted themselves in my heart like seeds that took root and grew. I started watching Adam more carefully; he treated me kindly, but the way one treats a child needing protection.

He'd ruffle my hair and pinch my cheeks, but never anything more intimate than that.

Fear took hold of me. Fear that Caspian Thornley was right, fear that I'd invented feelings that didn't exist.

So when Caspian Thornley proposed, I accepted.

Adam erupted when he found out. He confronted me demanding to know if I'd lost my mind, if I'd been manipulated.

"I like him," I told him.

"What exactly do you like? His smooth talking?" Adam gripped both my shoulders. "Seraphina, you're still young, there's so much you don't understand yet. Caspian Thornley is a..."

"I'm not a child anymore!" I cut him off. "I'm grown now, capable of making my own choices! Adam, thank you for all those years of care, but you've fulfilled your obligation."

After those words left my mouth, I turned and walked away. Something shattered behind me, but I didn't look back.

That was the last time I saw Adam.

After the wedding, all contact between us ceased. I convinced myself I'd made the right decision, that happiness in marriage would follow.

Clearly I was wrong.

I pulled my phone from my pocket—raindrops smeared across the screen. Scrolling to Adam's number, my finger hovered over the call button.

I chose this path myself, and now I wanted to retreat? Wouldn't that be pathetic?

I backed out of contacts, found a different number, and placed the call.

"Hello?" My best friend Angela's voice came through.

"Angela," my voice came out rough, "could you prepare a divorce agreement for me?"

"What?" Angela practically shouted. "What did you just say?"

"Divorce agreement," I repeated with more conviction than before. "I'm divorcing Caspian Thornley."