The phone felt heavier than it should have, cool against her trembling hands. Elara stared at the screen, the faint glow lighting her face in the quiet room. Every inch of this device represented a life that wasn't hers — a digital map of someone else's existence.
Her fingers hovered uncertainly over the icons before she pressed the message app. Conversations filled the screen instantly. Most were mundane — reminders from stylists, messages about meetings, short exchanges with someone named Lucien Draven. Others were colder, formal: "Confirming your attendance, Mrs. Rhyne."
The title made her flinch. Mrs. Rhyne.
Each word felt like a tiny fracture spreading across the glass of her reality.
She backed out of the messages and opened the photo gallery next. Rows of perfect images flashed across the screen — Celine Arden in a world Elara could hardly comprehend. Charity events, business galas, luxury dinners, her delicate hand resting on Kael Rhyne's arm in picture after picture.
The woman in the photos smiled — graceful, effortless, confident. But to Elara's eyes, there was something else there too. Something small and hollow behind the practiced smile, like the quiet exhaustion of a woman who had learned to hide her sorrow beneath perfection.
Elara's throat tightened.
Who had Celine really been?
And how much of that woman was she supposed to become?
Her gaze drifted down the phone again, until one particular app caught her attention — Notes.
She tapped it.
The page opened to a list of neatly organized entries, all labelled with dates. She scrolled, scanning quickly until familiar names appeared: Kael Rhyne. Lucien Draven. Adrian Vale.
Curiosity stirred in her chest like a spark.
She tapped on the first.
The words were brief but loaded. Mentions of meetings, whispered rumors, and cryptic phrases like "Lucien and Kael at odds again — Adrian involved." Beneath them were fragments that read more like thoughts than notes: He looks at him differently now. It's not just business. It never was.
Elara frowned, unease crawling through her. The further she read, the more tangled the threads became — names repeating, stories overlapping.
When she returned to the search bar and typed Kael Rhyne again, an avalanche of information spilled out, this time from online articles and saved clippings.
Headlines. Gossip. Whispers of scandal.
Kael Rhyne and Lucien Draven — the most powerful Enigmas of their generation.
Adrian Vale: The Omega at the heart of it all.
A bond that defies order — or destroys it?
Each title seemed to blur into the next, weaving a story of three lives bound by power, secrecy, and something much deeper than ordinary affection.
Elara leaned back slowly, the phone slipping slightly in her grip. Her heart pounded in her chest.
Kael and Lucien — both Enigmas. Adrian — an Omega.
It sounded like something out of a fantasy novel, not the world she'd known. Yet here it was, staring back at her in newsfeeds and social posts, detailed and accepted as fact.
Enigma. The word carried weight, mystery. It appeared again and again — sometimes whispered in admiration, sometimes in fear. They were powerful, dominant, unpredictable. And Kael Rhyne, her husband, was one of them.
But what did that make her?
Elara searched again, typing carefully: Alpha, Beta, Omega, Enigma — classification.
Dozens of results flooded the screen. She opened the first and began to read.
Alphas — dominant leaders, commanding by nature, their presence magnetic and undeniable.
Omegas — rare and sensitive, the most sought after, often protected or desired to obsession.
Betas — the steady balance between the two, strong but adaptable, overlooked yet essential.
And Enigmas — an anomaly of their own kind. Dominant like Alphas, but bound by no rules, existing between logic and instinct, driven by intuition and secrecy.
Her eyes darted down the page, absorbing every word.
This world was built on biology, social order, and instinct — a hierarchy that shaped lives before they were even born.
Her breath hitched.
She placed the phone down on the bed and pressed her fingertips lightly to her own pulse.
Nothing.
No heat rising, no sharp ache beneath the skin, no faint buzz of pheromones she'd read about in the articles.
Just… calm.
Neutral.
She let out a slow, shaky laugh.
"So that's it," she murmured to herself. "I'm a Beta."
Not a protagonist.
Not a villain.
Not someone powerful enough to bend fate — just steady, average, unremarkable.
And yet, for the first time since waking in this strange life, she didn't feel fear. She felt relief.
Because being invisible might just be her greatest advantage.
She could exist without expectation. Watch. Learn. Survive.
Her eyes wandered toward the mirror on the opposite wall.
The woman who looked back wasn't the one who had collapsed on the subway floor from exhaustion, her spirit worn thin by years of thankless work. This woman stood tall in pale blue silk, her features elegant and composed, her gaze sharper than she remembered.
Celine Arden's face. Elara Vaughn's soul.
A strange combination — fragile yet unyielding.
She crossed the room slowly, each step light on the polished wood. The mirror reflected her movements like a quiet observer.
When she stopped before it, her reflection met her eyes squarely.
"Elara Vaughn is dead," she said softly. Her voice didn't tremble this time.
The words hung in the air for a long, still moment.
"In front of you stands Celine Arden."
She reached out and brushed her fingertips against the mirror's surface. It was cool beneath her touch, grounding her in this moment — this fragile line between past and future.
"This is my life now," she whispered.
The reflection's lips moved with hers, forming the same quiet declaration.
Her pulse steadied.
"This life is mine to live… on my terms."
The corners of her mouth lifted in a faint smile — small, but real.
For the first time since her death, a spark flickered deep inside her chest — not fear, not confusion, but something closer to determination.
Maybe she wasn't the heroine of someone else's story. Maybe she didn't need to be.
The world outside might be tangled in power, politics, and desire, but here, in this quiet moment, she found something she hadn't had in either of her lives — clarity.
She straightened her shoulders.
Celine Arden — Beta, reborn, resolute.
A woman with no past she wanted to reclaim and no script she had to follow.
And from that clarity bloomed a single thought:
If this world had written her a role, she would rewrite it herself.