"They forced her to suppress for Arabella's convenience?" I asked. I didn’t wait for an answer as I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand across my mouth. Every warning sign I'd ignored came rushing back, from the descenter burns to her constant exhaustion. All this time, I'd assumed she was neglecting herself. Now I realized she was never given a choice.
"Where is the rest of the family?" I asked quietly. The staff exchanged another nervous look.
"They've been staying at the hotel." One of them said, and I frowned.
"What hotel?" I asked, incredulous that they weren’t here.
"With Arabella." A younger worker answered.
“What? For how long?” I wondered if they had Ivy with them. If she was there, I was going to stop at nothing to retrieve her. This was my mate. My real mate, one who’d just gone through a heat alone. Nothing in this life prepared me for the uprising of rage that thought brought out.
“Is Ivy with them? Be honest.” I asked, stepping closer.
“No! Like I said, we don’t know where Ivy went. Her family left the moment she started her heat.” She said, and just when I thought things couldn't get worse, they did.
“Her family left her herealone? With just a guard?” I said, and terrible images flashed through my mind.
"They thought it would be easier.” The woman said, wringing her apron in her hands. “They said Ivy's heat was... distracting." Distracting. Like she was an inconvenience. Like she wasn't their own daughter.
A pulse of pure rage surged through me so violently that for a moment I genuinely struggled to breathe. I thought about that tiny room upstairs, and the scent of a suffering omega - my own mate. My own match that suffered needlessly as I went about living my life unaware. I thought about Ivy suffering through one of the most vulnerable periods of an omega's life, completely alone, while the people responsible for her well-being abandoned her here, checking into a luxury hotel with her step-sister.
And then, I felt a surge of the most painful guilt I’d ever felt. All that time while Ivy had been isolated and suffering, we had been taking Arabella on dates. We had been comforting her, turned against Ivy while we catered to a liar. We had listened to Arabella while she painted herself as the victim, and we allowed ourselves to believe every word. Even when our own mate told us the truth.
For months, I knew something wasn’t right. Yet Ivy had stood in front of me, trying to tell me the truth, begging me to see her. And we denied her. I stumbled, gripping the wall as I lifted my hand to my chest. I’d failed her. I’d failed my mate.
The one who I’d secretly wanted all along was the right one for us. And instead of listening to my gut, to my heart - I’d listened to a damn piece of paper that was so easily manipulated that we took another omega as ours right in front of our mate.
I turned toward the door, and the staff immediately stepped aside. My phone was already in my hand before I reached my car. Hunter answered on the second ring.
"Elias?"
His voice sounded normal, and this was the last time it would. Because things were about to get so very bad. I gripped the phone so hard my hands hurt.
"I’m at Pack Carrington’s house. Get Ronan and get over here." I could feel Hunter’s concern through the phone.
"What? What happened?" Something in my tone must have reached him because his voice immediately sharpened. "Elias, what happened?" He repeated.
I looked back at the house one last time, my eyes lingering on the stairs up where Ivy's room sat hidden away from the rest of the family like something shameful. For months, we had been looking at the wrong person. When I finally spoke, my voice was low and deadly serious.
"We've made a catastrophic mistake.”
Chapter 37
Ronan
We met Elias at the front door of the Carrington house. We’d driven there as fast as we could, the feeling from his bond urging us, though he didn’t explain much until we arrived.
“Try to remain calm when you smell it,” He’d warned, and I couldn’t imagine what he meant.
“This is the real scent? And you say it belongs to Ivy?” I asked, brushing past him, not willing to wait.
“Ronan, there’s more-” Elias started to say, but the moment I stepped onto that porch, the entire world seemed to shift beneath my feet.
Once I breathed in the lingering traces of that scent for myself, every remaining piece of denial shattered. Elias said Arabella used a replica that time at the launch event, and though I could tell it wasn’t quite a natural perfume, thisrealscent blew me away. Now I realized the replica Arabella had used was a pale imitation of the scent. The real, unfiltered perfume that belonged to Ivy was more complex and beautiful than I ever could have imagined. It lingered throughout the house, still strong from a past heat. But beneath the scent was something that made every protective instinct inside me immediately go on alert. There was pain, fear, and heartbreak in this scent - sadness and distress laced throughout it.
For months, I had been forcing myself to ignore my instincts, convincing myself that the constant unease in my chest was just confusion. Every time something about Arabella felt slightly off, I reminded myself that trauma could explain it. But now Elias told us the truth about the scent - though he didn’t need to say a word. The moment I smelled it, I knew.
The scent we'd been chasing since the gala had never belonged to Arabella. It belonged to Ivy.
