"Luna!" The maid's frantic voice cut through the quiet kitchen, and in an instant, my world tilted.

“It’s Noah…”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest. My heart dropped to my stomach as I bolted from the room. There was only one reason they’d come for me in such a panic—Noah’s condition was worsening. The familiar terror gripped me, the same dread that had haunted me since the day he was born.

I’d spent my life unafraid of almost anything. Even as the daughter of a fallen pack, not even Alphas flaunting their dominance could make me flinch. But becoming a mother changed me. Now, I live in constant fear—not for myself, but for my son. The thought of losing him was paralyzing.

As I ran, memories of my helplessness flooded in. Noah’s illness was a curse I couldn’t fight. I had tried everything, every remedy, every plea. Even swallowed my pride, kneeling before Garett, begging him to send Noah to a bigger hospital. But he’d refused, cold and heartless as ever. If I had known this was the kind of man Garett would become, I never would have accepted him as my mate, no matter what bond the Moon Goddess had tied between us.

I burst into Noah’s room, my heart hammering in my chest. “Noah!” I gasped, rushing to his side.

His small body was drenched in sweat, his skin burning with fever. He was struggling to breathe, his little chest heaving with effort, and his face twisted in pain. Every groan, every tear that escaped his eyes was like a dagger to my heart.

“Where’s the healer?” I asked, looking at Delia, his nanny. She stood by the bed, wringing her hands, her face pale with worry.

“I called him thirty minutes ago,” Delia said, her voice trembling. “But he hasn’t arrived yet.”

Thirty minutes? That’s all it would take to lose him. A cold sweat broke out over me, a sickening dread twisting in my gut. The healer was Noah’s only hope. Without him, my son wouldn’t make it through the night.

“What’s taking him so long?” My voice cracked as I knelt beside Noah, gripping his tiny hand. He was crying in his sleep, soft whimpers escaping between labored breaths. The pain was unbearable—for both of us.

Delia wiped her tears, her hands trembling. “I’ve tried everything to lower his fever, but this time it’s worse. I’ve never seen him like this before.”

I was losing him, and all I could do was pray. I had prayed a thousand times before, begging the Moon Goddess for a miracle. Now, it felt like all I had left.

“Keep wiping him with cold water,” I instructed Delia, my voice barely steady. “I’ll go get Martin.”

I ran to the clinic, only to find it empty. My heart pounded in my ears as I frantically searched, my desperation growing with each passing second. The clinic was only minutes away from our room if he'd go through the back door. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here?

Tears blurred my vision as I stumbled through the packhouse, running from one hallway to the next like a mad woman. Then, as I passed the gardens, hushed voices caught my attention.

“I swear, I saw the Alpha carrying her like a princess, right up to his room. She looked pale, and he was really worried.”

“Don’t talk nonsense! Someone might overhear yah.”

“I’m telling you, he summoned the healer. The Alpha was furious.”

“Woah. But wasn’t she the Luna’s cousin?”

“Tsk! You really don’t give a rat’s ass about your surrounding, do yah? The Alpha made her his mistress long ago!”

My blood ran ice-cold as their words registered. I had known about their affair from the beginning. Fiona flaunted it like a crown, and the betrayal never stopped cutting me like a fresh wound.

However, Garett calling the healer to his room, for Fiona, while our son was suffering in the old stockroom was like driving a stake through my chest.

Still, this was no time for self-pity. I pushed the pain aside, clinging to one thought—Noah needed help.

I ran to the Alpha’s room, taking the stairs two at a time. My legs felt like lead, but desperation pushed me forward. I knocked on his door, my voice cracking as I begged, “Garett, please! Let the healer see Noah. He’s getting worse!”

Silence.

I banged harder, my sobs started to rise, but still, no response. The tears I had been holding back spilled over as I sank to the floor, my knuckles bruised from pounding against the wood. “Please…”

Finally, the door opened, but it wasn’t Garett who appeared. It was Ben, his beta. His face was hard, his expression indifferent. “The healer will be done shortly. Go back.”

The words stung, but it was the coldness in his tone that broke me.

I wouldn't care if Garett treated me like trash and worked me as a servant despite being his Luna, I'd endure it, for Noah. But this—this was too much.

Garett knew our son was suffering, and still, he chose her. He chose to make him wait. My heart broke all over again.

I stumbled back to Noah’s room, tears streaking my face. Delia’s tearful eyes met mine the moment I entered. “Did you bring the healer?”

I couldn’t make myself to answer her.

We put our hopes to the moon goddess and waited patiently for the healer. Noah was trembling in my arms, and every shallow breath he took chipped away at my sanity. The fever that had gripped his tiny body was relentless, and nothing I did could ease his suffering. Every second felt like a lifetime. The silence in the room was thick, suffocating, broken only by the occasional, ragged gasp from my son.

“Why isn't he here yet?” Delia muttered under her breath, pacing back and forth, her eyes flicking towards the door as if willing the healer to appear.

The sun dipped below the horizon, its final light casting long shadows across the floor. But still, no healer. By the time he arrived, it was too late. I already knew. I could feel it in my bones. Noah’s body had gone still, unnaturally still. The pain had left him, and with it, the light from my world.

The healer, Martin, rushed in, his face flushed with urgency. But one look at my face and his steps faltered. "Luna, I’m so—"

“Don’t,” I cut him off, my voice hollow. “It wasn’t your fault.”

And it wasn’t. Noah’s illness wasn’t something a healer could fix. I had clung to hope, to the belief that somehow, something could be done. But whatever had taken hold of him was beyond anything Martin or any other healer could have managed. If I had been stronger, smarter—if I had gotten specialists to check on him earlier—maybe Noah would still be here. But those thoughts were useless now. He was gone.

My throat constricted as I clutched Noah’s cold hand, the tiny fingers I used to stroke to lull him to sleep now stiff with death. I had brought him into this world, and all I had done was watch him suffer. I failed him. My sweet, innocent boy.

I wailed. It was the kind of sound that comes from the deepest part of you, the kind that steals your breath and leaves you gasping for air that no longer feels worth taking in. I clung to his body, wanting nothing more than to follow him. He deserved a better life than this. A life full of laughter, not pain.

Delia stood beside me, her own tears flowing silently down her cheeks, and Martin’s head hung low. They were grieving too, but I barely registered them through the haze of my sorrow.

At some point, the tears dried up, though my heart still felt like it was bleeding. I rose on shaky legs, my body feeling like a ghost of itself. I needed to find Garett. He had to know. Maybe, somehow, this would snap him out of whatever had consumed him lately. He had to feel something, right?

But I found Ben first. “Where’s Garett?” I demanded, my voice hoarse from crying.

“He’s not here, Vivian. He just left,” Ben said awkwardly, glancing away as if the words tasted bad in his mouth. “Fiona was poisoned with wolfsbane. He took her to the hospital.”

The world seemed to tilt around me, and for a moment, I thought I might pass out.

Fiona. It was always Fiona. He let our son die, but he would burn the world down for her. Fury rose up inside me like a tidal wave, fierce and uncontrollable. I wanted to scream, to tear something apart, to make him feel even a fraction of the pain that was shredding me from the inside out.

Instead, I felt myself shrinking. Smaller and smaller. It hit me like a punch to the gut—I had no one. I had lost my family to rogues, and now, my only light in this miserable existence was gone too. All I had left was an estranged mate who couldn’t care less and a snake disguised as a relative. The pressure of it all crashed down on me, and before I could take another breath, the darkness pulled me under.

When I woke, Delia was by my side, her face pale with worry. “You’ve been out for a couple of days,” she said softly, as though speaking any louder might break me. “I... I prepared a dress for the funeral. The Alpha hasn’t come back, and I didn’t know what to do.”

I sighed. Of course, he hadn’t. He couldn’t be bothered with his son’s funeral, not when Fiona needed him. The thought stung, but I was too tired to feel the full force of my anger anymore. Noah deserved peace. I couldn’t leave him waiting just because his father didn’t care enough to show up.

“Tell Martin we’ll do it,” I murmured. “Just us. The people who actually cared.”

We buried Noah deep in the forest, away from prying eyes. There were no grand ceremonies, no speeches, no guests. Just us, and the quiet of the woods. I said my final goodbyes, my voice barely more than a whisper. And just like that, three days of mourning passed in a blur of grief and exhaustion.

I stood in the backyard, staring blankly at the line of trees bordering the pack’s land. The forest that now held my son’s grave. The air was still, the quiet almost peaceful, but it didn’t reach me. My mind was as numb as my heart.

Then Garett’s voice cut through the silence. His mind-link was cold, detached. "Bring Fiona some orange juice to the sunroom."

The first sentence he said to me in a while was to get his mistress an orange juice.

My heart pulsed with fury, each beat a reminder of the gaping emptiness Garett had carved in our lives. No word about Noah, no apology—just a demand, as if my grief, my pain, were beneath his notice. I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat making it difficult to breathe, my fists curling tightly at my sides.

I took my time heading to the sunroom. Not because I wanted to follow his ridiculous order, but because, for the first time, I allowed myself to truly feel the anger that had been simmering beneath my sorrow. When I reached the kitchen, I didn’t make the juice myself. Instead, I looked at one of the maids—one of the same people I had been afraid to give orders to in this wretched pack—and simply said, “Make it. He wants it now.”

It was strange, almost freeing, to see the maid’s startled expression as she scurried away to fulfill my command. I had always played the part of the obedient Luna, biting my tongue to avoid Garett’s wrath, but today, I was done. Today, I would not bend for him.

By the time I reached the sunroom, I could hear Garett’s snarls through the door. He was berating the maid, his voice sharp with impatience.

“Fetch Vivian!” he barked. “Now!”

I sneered. How fitting. The great Alpha, barking orders for me to serve him while our son rotted in the ground.

I opened the door with casual indifference, refusing to show the storm brewing inside me. Garett turned, his expression immediately twisting into one of disdain when he saw me. His eyes swept over my black funeral dress, and he scoffed, the sound cruel and mocking.

“What kind of ploy is this now, Vivian?” His voice dripped with contempt. “You’re not fooling anyone with your theatrics. What are you trying to manipulate me into this time?”

His words were venomous, each syllable a slap to my face, but I refused to let him see the hurt. I had known the man Garett had become for a long time now. I wasn’t surprised by his cruelty—just hollowed by it.

I glanced over at Fiona, lounging on a chaise, her face was pale, wrapped in blankets Garett had carefully tucked around her. His hand rested gently on her arm, his eyes flickering with concern every time she coughed. As if she were a fragile piece of glass he couldn’t bear to see crack.

The bitter taste of betrayal rose in my throat. He had never looked at me like that, not even when I gave birth to Noah—his supposed son.

I squared my shoulders and met his glare head-on. “I’m not here to play your games, Garett. I’m here because the first thing you did when you came back wasn’t to check on our son. It wasn’t even to ask how I was doing.” My voice was cold, emotionless. “You came back and went straight to her, and then you sent for me—to fetch juice for your mistress.”

Garett’s eyes narrowed, his lips curling into a sneer. “Don’t talk to me about Noah.”

“Why not?” I stepped forward, my voice rising. “You’ve barely acknowledged him since the day he was born! He was dying, Garett, and you couldn’t be bothered to lift a finger—”

“Because he’s *not my son!*” Garett’s roar cut through the room like a whip. His eyes blazed with hatred as he stood, towering over me. “You think I don’t know? I know everything about you, Vivian. Every lie, every scheme. You’ve been trying to manipulate me from the start, trying to trap me with that boy, but it won’t work. It never has.”

His words hit me like a physical blow, knocking the wind from my lungs. He didn’t believe Noah was his. After everything—after all we’d been through, after all the suffering Noah endured—he still denied his own blood.

“Are you crazy?” I yelled. “I’m your mate, Garett! Why would I need to manipulate you?”

“Because you faked it,” he flatly said, making me speechless.

“You regret it that much to believe that, huh?” I whispered, my voice shaking.

Garett’s expression darkened. “Of course I regret it,” he spat. “If I had the power to change our fate, I would’ve chosen Fiona as my fated mate, not you. I would have spared myself the misery of being bound to you.”

A sharp, suffocating pain tore through my chest. His words cut deeper than any wound I had ever felt, deeper than the pain of losing my son. I could handle his indifference, his cruelty, but this—he was tearing apart what little remained of my soul.

I clenched my fists, my nails biting into my palms. “Noah was your son,” I said through gritted teeth. “No matter what you tell yourself, no matter what lies you’ve convinced yourself of, he was yours.”

Garett scoffed again, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. “You’re pathetic, Vivian. Trying to use him to pull me back in. I’m done with you. We’re done.”

I felt a cold emptiness spread through me as I stared at the man I once thought I loved. He wasn’t the person I had mated with, the person I had trusted. He was a stranger—cruel, bitter, and consumed by his own lies.