After His Luna Killed My Son, I Ran

The heat radiating from Lennox’s small body was enough to blister my skin. My seven-year-old son lay thrashing on the narrow cot, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps that rattled in his chest. The shifting fever had come too early, and it was burning him alive.

“Momma,” he whimpered, his eyes rolling back. “It… hurts.”

“I know, baby, I know.” I pressed a cool, damp cloth to his forehead, my hands trembling. I turned to the heavy oak door, the only barrier between my prison and the rest of the Obsidian Shadow Pack house. I pounded on it with my fist. “Elias! Open the door! He’s crashing!”

The lock clicked. My breath hitched, a desperate hope flaring in my chest. Alpha Elias Wilson stepped into the dim room, his tall frame filling the doorway. He looked impeccable in his suit, a stark contrast to the sweat and terror soaking the air of the annex. But he wasn’t alone.

Giselle Perry, the woman wearing the title that should have been mine, stepped out from behind him. She held a silver tray. On it sat a syringe filled with a glowing blue liquid—my liquid. The wolfsbane serum I had been developing for months, the one that was only half-finished.

“No,” I breathed, stepping between them and my son. “It’s not stable, Elias. The dosage is tricky. If you give him that, you’ll kill him.”

Elias didn’t look at me. He looked at the wall, his jaw clenched tight. “The Elders are waiting outside, Maeve. They need to see their Luna perform a miracle. Giselle must do this.”

“She’s not a healer!” I screamed, panic clawing at my throat. “She’s a fraud! Elias, please, he’s your son!”

“Guards,” Elias said, his voice void of emotion.

Two massive Delta wolves grabbed my arms, dragging me back. I fought, kicking and screaming, but I was weak from ten years of confinement and limited food. I was forced to my knees, helpless, as Giselle approached the cot.

She looked at the syringe with a sneer, then at Lennox. There was no compassion in her eyes, only annoyance. “Hold still, brat,” she muttered.

“Check the concentration!” I begged, tears blurring my vision. “Giselle, listen to me! It’s too potent! You need to dilute it!”

She didn’t listen. She didn’t even hesitate. She jammed the needle into my son’s small arm and depressed the plunger all the way down.

My world stopped.

Lennox’s back arched violently off the mattress. A choked, gurgling sound erupted from his throat as the unfinished serum tore through his veins like acid. He seized once, twice—and then he went limp. The rattle in his chest stopped. The heat faded.

Silence crashed into the room, louder than any scream.

Giselle pulled the needle out and frowned. “He was too weak,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel as if she had just spilled a drink. “An Alpha’s son wouldn’t have died from a simple cure.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. My wolf, the spirit that had kept me sane for a decade, let out a single, mournful howl in my mind, and then… she went silent. Dormant. Broken.

***

Two days. Or maybe two years. Time didn’t exist in the annex anymore.

I sat on the floor, staring at a crack in the stone wall. I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t slept. I was just a hollow shell where Maeve Austin used to be.

The door opened again. Elias walked in. He looked tired, dark circles bruising the skin under his eyes, but he held himself with that rigid Alpha posture.

“Maeve,” he said. His voice was rough. “The Summit is in three days. We need the new batch of stamina elixir. Giselle… she doesn’t know the mixture.”

I didn’t blink. I didn’t look at him.

“Answer me!” he snapped, the Alpha command rolling off him. It hit me like a physical weight, but I was too empty to care.

Giselle sauntered in behind him. She was smiling. In her hands, she held a small, decorative ceramic urn. My heart, which I thought had stopped beating, gave a painful thud.

“She’s sulking, Elias,” Giselle purred. She walked toward me, her heels clicking on the stone floor. “Maybe she needs a reminder of her place.”

She stood over me, holding the urn. I knew what was in it. I could smell the faint, lingering scent of burnt pine and vanilla. Lennox.

“Please,” I whispered, my voice cracked and dry. “Give him to me.”

“An Omega’s bastard doesn’t get a crypt,” Giselle said. She tilted her hand. The lid fell off with a clatter. Then, she turned the urn upside down.

Grey ash poured out, cascading over my legs, dusting the dirty floorboards, swirling in the drafty air. My son. She was dumping my son onto the floor like trash.

I scrambled forward, trying to catch the ash with my hands, sobbing hysterically. “Stop! Stop it!”

Elias flinched. He looked away, his hand twitching at his side, but he said nothing. He did nothing. He let her desecrate the only thing we had ever created together.

“Clean it up,” Giselle sneered, dropping the empty urn beside me. “And get back to work.”

They left. The lock clicked shut.

I lay on the floor, pressing my cheek against the grey dust, my tears turning the ash into mud. I used my hands to sweep him into a pile, terrified of missing even a speck. My fingers were shaking, my skin raw.

Suddenly, a burst of static whined in my head. My dormant wolf stirred, just for a second, fueled by a rage so pure it felt like fire. The mental barrier Elias usually kept up had slipped.

*“...she’s broken, Elias,”* a voice said in my mind. It was the Beta, Marcus. *“She won’t work if she’s catatonic. Just claim her. Giselle is a liability. Everyone knows the boy died because of her incompetence.”*

I froze. I held my breath, listening to the private mind-link channel I shouldn’t have been able to hear.

*“I can’t,”* Elias’s voice came through, clear and cold. *“Look at her bloodline, Marcus. Her father was a traitor. The Council would strip me of my rank if I mated a traitor's daughter. I don't care if the Moon Goddess chose her.”*

*“So what is she to you?”* Marcus asked.

*“She is a resource,”* Elias replied. *“Nothing more. We use her until the Summit is over. Giselle is the Luna I chose. I will not let a mistake like Lennox ruin the lineage I’m building.”*

The connection cut off.

I sat up slowly. The tears stopped. The shaking stopped. I looked down at the ash on my hands—the remains of the son he called a mistake.

For ten years, I told myself Elias was protecting me. I told myself he hid me away to keep me safe from the politics that killed my parents. I thought he loved me.

I was wrong.

I wasn't his mate. I was his battery. And he had just drained the last drop of love I had left.