Chapter 21
YVAINE
Social media: a messy swamp of faux smiles, filter abuse, and enough insecurity to power a generation. I knew that. Rationally. Logically. I was in the middle of training that would end with me slicing into people’s brains for a living—I understood how dopamine worked.
But when emotions hijacked your frontal lobe? Logic got tossed out like a pair of bloodied gloves after a botched surgery.
Up until that day, I had managed to ignore the world of likes and the abrasion of ever-scrolling fingers. I was living my best no-filter life.
But then I found my mate. I would have loved to give a friendly reminder about the risk of early-onset arthritis and myopia to everyone zooming and double-tapping on someone else’s mate—my mate—but it felt something like justice.
If they all ended up needing physical therapy for their thumbs and bifocals before thirty, they’d have earned it.
I only made an Instagram because Makena and Tiziano kept whining about how they couldn’t tag me in their stories.
Lachlan—bless him—was like me. Mind-links and texts were enough, but being team captain meant having a public presence.
Engagement and visibility. Who was measuring it all, anyway?
Probably the same people who still thought that likes equaled love.
Ultimately, my twin had caved and made an account. But this had triggered a dangerous chain reaction: Uncle Andrew and my mother had joined, too, with a joint account. Scottish Twinos. That had led my father to make his very own.
And that, ladies and gentlewolves, was the day my digital dignity had died.
Imagine being tagged in Lachlan’s post only to find your Alpha father—the terrifying, war-hardened leader of your pack—dropping a string of heart and kissy-face emojis on it.
With 870,000 other people also watching.
Most of his feed was old pictures of me, Lachlan, and Ian as kids, and he refused to post my mom because he didn’t want “creeps” looking at her.
His words. He defended himself by stating he missed us, and scrolling our posts helped him feel close.
From a man who still called Facebook “the face space.”
Sweet? Yes. Cringe? Also yes. Therapy? Everyone needed it.
And somehow—this was the worst part—he had more followers than me. I wasn’t saying I was bitter, I was just saying…I was not not bitter.
Anyway, back to the heart of the matter. It had been two days since I’d found out who my mate was, and despite my better judgment, I folded like a cheap scalpel. I opened Instagram.
Specifically—his profile.
The official account belonging to my mate. 1.2 million followers. At least 80% women. Yes, I checked.
And the comments?
Some of them were explicit enough to be classified as biological threats.
My gut boiled. My wolf howled. I muttered curses that would make my grandpa proud and our pack nun faint.
Still, I had to admit—seeing his pictures did something medically concerning to my uterus.
The good thing was that he didn’t seem active. In fact, it looked like someone else was running it for him.
There were so many posts, all of them related to wereball.
My mate chatting to fans, hands gesturing in front of him, hair slicked back.
My mate in midair, frozen in a throw that made my jaw fall.
My mate grinning, a trophy in one hand, a towel around his neck.
I’d zoomed so far in on one of his smirks that I could see the micro muscles in his face.
“Does Instagram notify someone if you take a screenshot?” I asked over the mind-link.
“No. Why?” Tiziano’s voice came back, suspicious.
“Social experiment.”
More like a stalking experiment. I screenshotted a handful of his photos and saved them under Night Watch. To look at before I went to bed.
My neuroanatomy book sat catching dust on my nightstand, silently judging me, while I conducted a case study on my mate’s cheekbones.
Another fact about social media: When you go looking for things you shouldn’t…you’ll find them.
My fingers moved without my permission. I didn’t want to snoop. Well, I did, but I told myself I didn’t.
I typed in a few names. Scrolled. Kept going.
Then I saw it.
A post from one of his teammates.
My mate was laughing with some tall, very muscular brunette. Her hair short and curled, her legs endless, with different tattoos down them like the map of Germany—which begged the question, why?
Both of them were wearing wereball gear, already sweaty from training. He was ushering her into what looked like a dorm, his hand on her ass.
It was posted a day ago.
My heart dropped like an elevator with a snapped cable.
Fear crept in. Whispered in my ear how I’d never compare. Reminded me he had a whole separate place to take his flings.
It ordered me to reject him before he could reject me. That I wouldn’t be enough to keep a wolf like Logan interested.
Fear was a funny thing. It pretended it was there to protect you, holding up a big neon DANGER sign to steer you away from pain.
In reality? It trapped you. Weighed you down. Kept you stuck while life, and possibly love, passed you by.
Fear was one step from the edge of a ravine—and as someone who studied trauma fractures and spinal cord damage, I knew what was waiting at the bottom. A human frittata, all 206 bones shattered.
The hollow ache in my chest returned, this time doubled in intensity. I turned off my phone, like that could erase the image burned into my brain.
Then I buried my face in my pillow and sobbed. Quiet, but not pathetic. Never.
Eye mask on and hot panda water bottle on my chest, I put in my earbuds, hit play, and fell asleep with a yoga mantra on repeat.
Inhale Peace. Exhale the world.
Party night. Open invite, the entire campus was buzzing. It was the event of the semester.
Since I had no class the next day and Teresa had offered to cover my shift at the children’s hospital, I decided to join. Against all predictive models, Amaia had agreed to come too.
Were pigs flying?
Tiziano and Makena were in his room, currently waging civil war over his flat iron.
“Careful with that device! You’re melting my bangs!” Tiziano exclaimed.
“No I’m not!” Makena shot back.
“I can smell burning keratin!”
“So why don’t you straighten your hair yourself?”
“I would, but you won’t shut up about being the Hair Sha-woman! Expert, my balls!”
I was ready—had been for so long that I’d run a load of laundry and dusted the leaves of my aloe vera, Icarus. I’d also popped downstairs for a drink with my brother and his friends. The wereball crew had ditched us for some frat pre-game. But they’d also promised to catch up with us later.
“Aarrgh! Woman! Do you need to pull that hard?! I swear, you’ve got pincers, not hands!” Tiziano’s voice seemed loud enough to be coming from a megaphone. Which wouldn’t be out of character—he did use one at wereball matches to alternate between pep talks and death threats.
I leaned against the hallway wall, sipping my whiskey on ice. “You two good, or do I need to call dermatology for a second-degree burn consultation?”
“Tell our diva he has a delicate scalp,” Makena huffed, “like a baby hamster.”
Tiziano strutted to his wall-mounted mirror with half-straightened hair, looking like a K-pop idol who’d been electrocuted on one side. “I look like an IKEA catalog model!”
Makena cocked her hip. “You are very welcome.”
“That wasn’t a compliment!” he shrieked.
“You moved!” Makena yelled.
I unplugged the flat iron as they bickered.
My phone buzzed. I sprinted to my room, smacking my hip against the door frame, a little tipsy.
Ugh, I missed the call.
Unlocking my phone, I actually spotted two missed calls from Santa’s reindeer, so I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder while I pulled on one mismatched sock.
There was something like a sigh when he picked up.
“Hellooo, Rudy the Reindeer!” I yelled over the EDM thumping at full capacity.
The music was Tiziano’s foolproof technique to prevent Amaia from diving back into her textbook while the rest of us got ready.
A giggle bubbled up in my throat as I remembered her irked face.
Amaia had been ready for the party way before even me.
At the time, Tizzy had still been in his pajamas, with a regenerating mask and cucumbers over his eyes, while Makena had been applying nail polish in her running gear.
The line went silent for so long, I had to check my screen to make sure the call was still connected. “Rudy?”
“Are you drunk, Bunny Doc?” His voice was smooth, rich, with just the right amount of scolding. If his voice could sedate a nervous system, what would my mate’s voice do?
“You should really consider voice acting,” I blurted. “Is my mate’s voice just as throaty as yours?”
A low chuckle sneaked through the phone, with that hoarseness that should be banned. I flopped onto my bed with a silly smile, one leg half on the mattress, one leg out.
“Bunny Doc—”
“You know what’s incredible?” I rolled over and whispered into the phone, “My mate’s hair. It looks sooooo soft. So caressable. I bet his wolf is just a giant, fluffy pillow. Do you think he has long fur? Like a majestic teddy bear?”
Another breathy laugh. “You’re wasted.”
“I am slightly influenced.”
“You should stop. How much did you drink?”
“Don’t police my consumption! I just had this much…
” I gestured with my fingers, forgetting he couldn’t see.
“…of whiskey and one Irn-Bru, which isn’t even alcoholic.
” I pushed my lower lip out and peered at it.
“I was drinking with the neighbors. You know, my brother lives downstairs. And Gaius, Sillas, and—”
“Who?” His tone dropped hard, all friendliness gone.
“Who’s who?”
“Who. Did. You. Say. Was. There?” he snapped. “Yvaine. Are you deaf, too?”
“Okay, rude, Rudy!” A fit of giggles erupted out of me at my own pun, while Rudy the Rude remained silent, listening to my laugh.
Sobering up a little, I paused.
“Rudy?”
No answer.
“Still there?”
Nada.
“Lucien?”
“Yeah,” he clipped out.
I let out a cleansing sigh.
“Today, I saw, like, two thousand million photos of my mate with girls. Loooots of them. At parties, events, arenas. I loathe it.”
He muttered something I couldn’t catch.
I hiccuped. “Shouldn’t he delete that stuff now that he has a mate?”
“Yvaine, he probably hasn’t even looked at his account in weeks.”
“My friends were right! My mate is just a petty, hobby-less womanizer! Mr. One-Night Stand, hit-and-run, having fun, onto the next one—”
“Yvaine!”
The command in his voice halted my tirade. It shut me up in a way similar to a surgical incision: clean and effective.
“They could just be from team stuff. PR. You think he gets to pick who he stands next to at charity events?”
“Sure, kissing his lube girls and cheating. Very team spirit. Fundamental for a player.”
He cursed. “Why do you think he’d cheat?”
“Just because!” I said with a muddled voice. “I need to go now.”
My mood had clouded, and I had to do something about it. I needed my sunshine back.
“Where do you think you’re going? Stay home, you’re in no condition to go out.”
Condition to whom?!
“Says who? You? You’re just a hoofed reindeer!” I huffed, wriggling off my bed, my head spinning a little. “And if my mate gets to party with the whole wereball female team and steal girls like Archie told me he does, then I can do the same!” Minus the stealing.
The growl that came through the phone was low. It crawled up my spine and made my knees a little weak.
“You’re real quick to throw accusations, huh?” His voice might have been scary if I hadn’t been so tipsy. “One scroll through Instagram, and you’ve got him tried and judged.”
I snorted, spraying some mucus onto my chin. I hurried to my bathroom, a hand cupped to my nose.
“When social media is full of evidence, I don’t need to accuse anything.” I wiped my face. “It’s a fact.”
“So, you think your mate is a hit-and-run kind of guy, huh?” Was there a threat in his voice? I couldn’t tell.
“Yeah, someone who abandons women, including me,” I stated with confidence. The hurt came from the fact that he hadn’t reached out to me since the wereball conference, and it was clouding my judgment.
He went quiet for a second.
Then he laughed. Not a happy laugh. A dry, bitter one, like paper tearing in half.
“If that’s what you think,” he drawled, “who am I to deny it?”
There was a pause.
“And you know what? You’re right,” he added. “He does abandon women. All the time.”
And I had no idea what that meant.