Chapter 25

Cora

When I opened the break room door and saw Ethan pacing with a coffee cup in each hand, I knew something was wrong. Ethan never paced. He was too laid-back, too calculated for that.

He turned the moment he saw me, handing me one of the cups without a word. It was my usual—black with a splash of vanilla. He was such a gentleman that he had noticed and remembered this preference.

"Let me guess," I said, cradling the warmth. "This is about Kingston."

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “And the photo.”

I flinched. Even hearing the word photo was enough to make my stomach twist. That cursed image had followed me like a shadow all week. It was everywhere: online, in whispered conversations at the office, in the way people looked at me when they thought I wasn’t watching.

I leaned back against the counter. “What now?”

Ethan let out a long breath. “He’s worried. About you. About Billy. About everything, really. It’s so bad, he even told me to hold off on that break he demanded.”

He gave me a long look. “But mostly… about how you’re taking this.”

My fingers tightened around the cup. “He has a funny way of showing it.”

“I told him that,” Ethan said. “Blocking your messages, freezing you out, making you take the fall while he hides behind PR? Trust me, we’ve discussed it. But he’s between a rock and a hard place right now.”

“Then maybe he should stop treating me like a liability,” I said sharply. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I know that.” He looked at me meaningfully. “And now I can prove it.”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“The photo—the one where he’s holding you in the warehouse. You were both just rescued. Kingston let on that Amy was the one who took that photo. She timed it perfectly, then sent it anonymously to Brad’s team.”

I nearly dropped my coffee. “You’re sure?”

He nodded. “We dug into metadata and traced where the file was uploaded. It all points to Amy.”

My mind reeled. “But that’s not enough to clear my name. That just proves who leaked it, not what actually happened.”

“That’s why we pulled the warehouse security footage,” Ethan said, already pulling out his tablet. “You want the truth on record, right? Well, we have it right here. We just need to pull it from the warehouse.”

The warehouse security office smelled like cold metal and old coffee. Ethan and I huddled in front of the monitor while the grainy footage played back.

It was all there.

The hours of me curled up on the floor, utterly alone, stifling my rising panic.

And then Kingston, breaking through in a blur of fur and rushing to me.

And finally, that exact moment—the one frozen forever in the photo: Kingston reaching out to steady me as I collapsed into him, coughing, shaking, barely able to breathe.

He wasn’t kissing me. He wasn’t seducing me.

He was helping me stand.

We isolated the footage, clipped it, and enhanced the audio where possible. Ethan worked like a magician, fingers flying across the keyboard.

“There,” he said. “Now we just need to package this with the context. Chain of events, timestamps, metadata. I’ll make it look extra official, too.”

I swallowed hard. “We’re showing this to the investors, aren’t we?”

He looked up. “And the high-ranking officials of some of the packs, yeah. But there’s no we here. You’re the only one who can convince them of the truth. Well, besides Kingston.”

My heart sank. It was a lot of responsibility, but I knew what I had to do.

Later that day, after many of my coworkers had left, the room buzzed with tension as I stepped into the investor conference hall. All around me were werewolves. All powerful. All watching me with thinly veiled skepticism.

I felt like a lamb in a room full of wolves—and not the metaphorical kind.

Ethan stood beside me at the front of the room, his usual smirk replaced with something grim. “You got this,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear.

The lights dimmed. I pressed play.

The video ran—silent, clear, damning. The room shifted. Whispers rose, then quieted.

When it ended, I stepped forward.

“I’m not here to beg for sympathy,” I said, my voice steady. “Or to pretend I’m something I’m not. I’m a human. And in this moment—this photo that’s been torn apart and dissected—I wasn’t seducing anyone. I was surviving.”

I looked around the room. “I didn’t ask to be in the middle of this election. I didn’t ask to be the target of smear campaigns. But I will not let my name be dragged through the mud because I happened to need help in a life-threatening situation.”

A silence followed. Thick. Uncomfortable.

Then a gruff voice near the back spoke. “It’s clear the story was exaggerated.”

Another voice followed. “Yeah, this looks like a hit job. Seems like Brad did a number this time. ”

Heads nodded. Some mumbled agreements. Others still looked skeptical, arms crossed.

Progress. But not victory.

Because even as we left, I could feel the media circling like vultures.

By nightfall, the headlines were already out:

“Human Woman Seeks Werewolf’s Protection: Desperation or Strategy?”

“Office Romance at Guardian? Mystery Woman in Photo Revealed!”

My fingers trembled as I scrolled through the articles. How had this gotten so big, so out of control?

No matter how many facts I laid out, no matter how much proof I showed, people didn’t care about the truth.

They cared about drama.

And the narrative of a human woman clawing her way into werewolf society? That was too juicy to let go.

Back at the office, the cold was worse than the media frenzy.

Because Kingston hadn’t said a word.

Not a thank you. Not a good job. Not even an acknowledgment that I’d stood in front of hostile wolves to clear his name.

The closest I got to an acknowledgment was a nod when we passed in the hallway.

He was back behind his walls, unreachable. Unreadable.

I wanted to scream.

I’d done everything I could.

I’d faced humiliation, risked my reputation, and defended him in front of people who didn’t even see me as worthy.

And he was still treating me like a problem he couldn’t solve.

Ethan came by my desk later, dropping a candy into my palm. “You were brilliant in there yesterday.”

I gave him a tired smile. “It didn’t change anything.”

“Did you expect it to?”

“I don’t know.” I stared at the screen. “I guess I thought maybe… he’d say something.”

Ethan was quiet for a moment. “He’s protecting you in the only way he knows how.”

“By pretending I don’t exist?”

“By not pulling you deeper into a fire he doesn’t know how to extinguish. Plus, he posted a video trying to clear your name.”

I exhaled shakily. “I never asked him to protect me.”

“I know. But you’d do the same for him, wouldn’t you?”

My silence was all the answer Ethan needed.

He patted my shoulder. “You’ve already done more for him than most people ever will. If he can’t see that… maybe he’s not the wolf we thought he was.”

That night, I sat alone on my balcony, city lights flickering like tiny stars.

I held my phone in my hand, Kingston’s contact glowing on the screen.

Blocked.

Still.

I hadn’t tried to message him in days. I told myself it was pride. Maybe it was self-preservation.

But deep down, I just didn’t want to see another message go ignored.

I stared into the darkness.

Maybe he was right to distance himself.

Maybe he was trying to keep me safe.

But it didn’t change the ache I felt when I remembered the way he looked at me before all this started. Like I was more than just a human in a werewolf’s world.

Like I was someone.

Now I wasn’t sure what I was to him.

Or if I’d ever be anything again.

I was especially uncertain when I received the email announcement the next day that changed everything.