Olivia's POV

On our eighth anniversary, I found out I was pregnant.

That same day, my phone buzzed with an alert from my mate’s car tracking app. His car had exploded.

My stomach dropped. Tears blurred my vision. "No... please, Moon Goddess, no."

After eight years of being mated, four miscarriages, and countless nights spent crying myself to sleep, I finally had another chance to be a mother. But James wouldn't be a part of it. Our pup would grow up without a father.

I refused to accept it.

I tried reaching James several times through our mate bond, but it was blocked. It was a good sign, it meant he wasn’t dead, but something could still be very wrong.

I called his phone several times, but no answer.

The tracker showed that his phone was active across town. But the app insisted his car had exploded. None of it made sense.

I grabbed my keys and drove.

Minutes later, I spotted his black BMW parked in a deserted lot. It was untouched. No smoke, no damage. Relief flooded through me—the app must have malfunctioned again. It had done that before. Then I paused.

Why was he here? Why had he blocked our mate bond?

I stepped out quietly and moved closer, my wolf's hearing picking up sounds coming from the car.

A woman's moan.

A man's low groan.

I froze, covering my mouth before I could gasp. My wolf howled in anguish inside my mind, but I forced her back. My mind screamed at me to turn back, to leave, to pretend I never came here, but my body refused to obey.

Through the half-open window, I saw him—James with his shirt open, his wolf's eyes glowing in the darkness, and his fingers tangled in long dark hair as he kissed a woman's neck.

Mia.

My adopted sister.

The air left my lungs. My chest caved in, but I didn't make a sound. I pressed myself against the side of the car, with my hand clamped over my mouth as silent tears ran down my face.

James, the man I loved and had been mated to for eight years.

And my adopted sister, the same person that James had claimed to despise because of how she had made my life a living hell.

Just when I thought the worst had happened, James's phone rang.

"Fuck," he muttered, voice hoarse. "Hold on."

He answered with irritation. "What is it, healer?"

A pause. Then he grinned, his eyes still gleaming.

James ended the call and pulled Mia close as a genuine smile spread across his face. It was something I hadn't seen for years.

"You're pregnant," he said softly.

Mia gasped, her hands flying to her stomach. "Are you serious?"

"Yes." He kissed her deeply. "And the healer said your womb is responding perfectly to the treatment. The wolf essence transfusions are working. One more test next week to confirm your womb is fully restored, and then we can finally start our family properly."

Happy tears streamed down Mia's face. "Oh my Goddess. James, we're going to have a pup."

"We are." He cradled her face in his hands. "You're going to be an amazing mother."

My heart bled as my hand moved instinctively to my own stomach, where my pup was growing.

Mia's smile faded slowly. "What about Olivia?"

James's smile grew cold, his eyes flashing gold briefly. "You don't need to worry, baby. After next week's test shows you're healed, I won't need her anymore."

My blood ran cold.

What did that mean?

"I still can't believe she never figured it out," Mia laughed. "You told her it was incompatibility between your wolves, and she believed you."

"Olivia's an idiot," James said dismissively. "She signed every consent form I put in front of her without reading a single line. The experimental treatments, the wolf essence extractions, the terminations—she authorized all of it, thinking they were pack registration forms or whatever bullshit I told her."

My legs threatened to give out, but I forced myself to stay still. I had to keep listening.

"Those four pups," Mia murmured. "You really used their wolf essence to cure my womb?"

"Every single one," James replied without remorse. "Different stages of development, different protocols. And it worked. You're cured, and you're carrying my pup."

Mia giggled softly. "Thanks to Olivia's pups."

My knees went weak, and I almost dropped to the floor. It became hard to breathe, and my ears rang. My vision blurred, and for a moment I thought I would lose consciousness. My wolf was screaming for vengeance.

My four pups hadn't died from miscarriage—they had been murdered by their father, for my sister.

Olivia’s POV

"All I had to do was slip wolfsbane extract into her meals to trigger early labour," James said, almost amused. "It would terminate the pregnancy naturally. Then I would tell her her body rejected the pup. She would cry, I would comfort her, and life would go on."

My mind flashed back to each miscarriage. The pain. The blood. The white rooms in the pack clinic that I had come to hate.

After each loss, Mia would show up at the pack clinic with broth. "I made this specially for you," she would say, her eyes full of fake tears. "I know how much you're hurting. I'm here for you, sis."

She would stay the night, sleeping in the chair beside my bed, holding my hand whenever I woke up crying in pain.

James would be there too, stroking my hair, whispering, "We'll try again. We'll have our pup. I promise."

I had believed them both.

My hands shook violently. I bit down harder on my palm to keep from screaming, my wolf clawing at my mind for vengeance.

They had poisoned me four times with wolfsbane.

"Are you really going to break the mate bond when my womb is cured?" Mia asked, her voice dripping with false concern.

"Of course," James said casually. "Once the healer confirms the wolf essence treatments worked, I don't need to keep her around anymore."

He paused, and I heard the smirk in his tone. "Then you and I can finally be together publicly. Become bonded forever."

Mia's voice was breathy. "What about the pack and my family? What will they say?"

James laughed coldly. "Your family that favours you over their own blood daughter? Please. They'll side with us. Her mother already told me she thinks Olivia is an embarrassment to the bloodline."

The words cut through me like silver knives, because it was the truth.

"Olivia already signed her five percent pack shares over to me years ago without realizing it," James continued. "She'll walk away with nothing. She has no friends, no pack support. After I break the bond, she'll have nothing and no one. She'll probably end up as some pathetic rogue."

Mia furrowed her eyebrows. "How do you plan on doing that? The pack loves her."

James chuckled coldly. "Next week, we'll throw a huge pack gathering to announce your pregnancy to everyone important—the pack’s business partners, your family, the Alpha Council, and other ally alphas."

He continued. "Then I'll have silver-laced champagne ready for her. The silver will weaken her wolf enough that she won't remember anything. Halfway through the gathering, Harry will find her in one of the upstairs rooms with some wolves I hired."

Mia gasped. "You're going to frame her?"

"She'll be too drugged and silver-poisioned to know what's happening. Harry will make sure there are photos. By the end of the night, everyone will believe Olivia Grant betrayed her mate at a gathering celebrating her sister's pregnancy."

"That's brilliant," Mia breathed. "Everyone will think she's the villian."

"Exactly. Breaking the bond right there will be justified, and she'll get nothing." James's voice dripped with satisfaction.

My heart pounded so hard I thought it would burst through my chest. My wolf snarled viciously in my mind.

He was going to drug me with silver, frame me, and destroy everything.

Their moans filled the silence again. I backed away from the car slowly, careful not to make a sound. My hand was bleeding where I had bitten it, but I didn't feel it.

All I could feel was devastation, heartbreak, and my wolf's pain.

I climbed into my car, and my body shook so violently I could barely hold the wheel. I sat there in the darkness, tears streaming down my face, my palm pressed protectively over my stomach where my pup was growing.

Four pups murdered. Their wolf essence stolen to cure my sister's infertility so she could carry my mate's pup.

And now he was going to destroy my reputation and take everything I had left.

I barely remembered driving home. My hands shook so violently on the steering wheel that I almost crashed twice.

I drove home in a daze, their conversation replaying endlessly in my head.

'She's an idiot. She has nothing and no one. She'll end up as some pathetic rogue.'

I walked inside the house absentmindedly, then I headed straight to James's home office.

I needed proof. Evidence. Something to make sense of what I had heard.

My hands shook as I searched through his files, his laptop, his locked drawers. I found the small brass key hidden beneath the drawer lining and opened the filing cabinet.

Medical records with my name. Dates that matched every pregnancy. Procedures I never consented to. Bank statements showing payments to a private research facility specializing in werewolf genetics.

I kept searching, my hands moving faster.

Finally, I found the transfer record. The pack shares James had promised me as a mating gift—I had signed them all back to him without realizing it.

I stared at the document until the words blurred.

"She'll walk away with nothing."

A bitter laugh escaped me. James was so ignorant of the truth.

I couldn't be left with nothing, because what James didn't know was that he hadn't built the Blue Moon Pack businesses from nothing.

I had.

Five years ago, when his pack businesses nearly went bankrupt, an anonymous investor saved it. The investor paid all the debts, funded the expansions, and covered the losses.

That investor was me.

I was the anonymous silent shareholder with fifty percent ownership of his company. I had created the account under my maiden name, Olivia Hale, using an offshore account that James never knew existed.

Before I married James; Alice, my foster mother, had left me her entire life savings. It was money she had carefully saved from her potion brewing over decades, along with inheritance from her parents.

It was about a million dollars, but I was careful with it. I invested it wisely, made smart decisions, and over the years, it grew. By the time James's pack was failing, I poured $147 million into the failing businesses.

So his pack was built on my money.

And he called me an idiot.

Another laugh escaped me as satisfaction washed through me.

I gathered every document, every file, every piece of evidence, and made copies, hiding them where he would never think to look.

Then I sank to the cold floor of his office and cried until my body had nothing left to give.

When there were no tears left, I just sat there, feeling empty. I had no idea where to start.

Then I remembered something James had said months ago.

"Stay away from Asher Storme. He's my biggest rival. He is ruthless and dangerous. He will do anything to destroy me."

Asher Storme. James's biggest rival and worst enemy. The Alpha of the Northern Ridge Pack.

He was the only one who could help me now.

I picked up my phone with trembling fingers and began searching. It took twenty minutes to find Asher's private number buried deep in James's files.

I stared at it for a long time.

Once I made this call, there would be no going back.

But when I thought of my four pups, of Mia's mocking laughter, of James's cruelty, I pressed Call.

The phone rang twice before a deep, smooth voice answered. "Who is this?"

My throat tightened, but I forced the words out. "My name is Luna Olivia Grant. I'm Alpha James Grant's mate."

A pause. "Grant's mate. What do you want?"

Tears blurred my vision. "I need your help."

"Why would Alpha James Grant’s mate be calling me? I am your mate’s rival." His tone sharpened.

"Because I want him destroyed," I whispered. "And I think you're the only alpha who hates him as much as I do."

Silence stretched.

Then Asher laughed. It was a dark, low sound that sent a shiver through me, and made my wolf perk up with interest.

"Luna Grant," he said slowly, his voice was heavy with Alpha authority, "you have my complete attention."

Olivia's POV

"Tell me everything." Asher's voice was sharp and cold. "Tell me why James Grant's devoted mate wants him destroyed."

I explained everything from the fake explosion notification, to finding James with Mia, the conversation I had overheard about the wolf essence experiments on my pups, and his plan to break our bond.

By the time I finished, tears were running down my cheeks again, and my wolf was whimpering in pain.

Asher was silent for a long moment.

"Do you have proof?" he finally asked.

"Yes." My voice was stronger now. "Medical records, bank statements, transfer documents. Everything."

"And you have fifty percent shares of his pack business?" Asher asked.

"He doesn't know about them. Nobody does." I replied. "I also have evidence of everything illegal he's done. But I can't use it alone. He has connections, pack lawyers, and my family—"

"Your family supports him?"

The question was like a silver blade to my chest, because the answer was a bitter truth.

My mother had never wanted me back.

I was ten when the DNA test results came back. Mia and I had been switched at birth because of an error at the pack clinic. We had been mixed up in the chaos of a full moon delivery.

When my parents came for me, I had been living in a small cottage by the pack’s border with a potion mistress who had raised me. We were not living extravagantly, but I was happy.

They took me to their mansion, but my mother couldn't let Mia go. She had raised Mia, bonded with her wolf.

So she kept both of us.

But there was never any question who she preferred.

"Olivia, fix your posture. You shift like a rogue."

"Olivia, control your wolf. Your lack of discipline is embarrassing."

"Olivia, why can't you be more like Mia? Her wolf is so graceful."

Nothing I did was ever good enough. I took shifting classes but I was too clumsy.

Mia's wolf was sleek and perfect, and my mother made sure I knew mine didn't measure up.

By eighteen, I had learned to stay quiet, to suppress my wolf, and to not expect love.

That's when I met James. He was charming, successful, an alpha wolf. And he looked at me like I mattered.

"Your wolf is beautiful," he had said, watching me shift under the full moon.

My wolf and I fell in love with him fast and hard.

When he proposed after six months, I said yes immediately.

My mother had pulled me aside the night before the ceremony. "Alpha James Grant is using you. But you're too stupid to see it. You are not up to his level"

I hadn't listened.

I had bonded with him, spent eight years trying to be the perfect mate.

And the whole time, Mia had been there, sleeping with my mate behind my back, and I had never suspected a thing.

My chest ached as I blinked hard, forcing myself back to the present.

"My family loves my sister. They'll side with him when he breaks the bond, and I can't count on pack support."

Asher was silent for a moment. "So you want revenge."

"I want justice," I corrected, my voice breaking. "He murdered my pups. He stole their wolf essence to cure my adopted sister's womb so she could carry his pup. He made me sign away everything I had, and now he's going to throw me away like some weak omega."

"And why did you come to me?" Asher asked curiously.

"Because you hate him." I replied desperately. "James told me to stay away from you. He said you would do anything to destroy him and this pack. That you're a ruthless alpha who shows no mercy."

He chuckled coldly. "What do you want from me, Olivia?"

I clenched my fists tightly. "I want to take everything from him, the way he took everything from me. His pack, his reputation, his freedom. I want him to lose it all. I have fifty percent of his pack assets. You're his biggest rival. Together, we can ruin him."

Asher was quiet, then finally he spoke. "If I help you, it won't be charity. I want something in return."

My stomach clenched at the tone of his voice, and my wolf stirred warily. "What do you want in return?"

"Become my mate."

"Your mate?" I repeated incredulously, my voice barely above a whisper. My wolf stirred.

"Yes," Asher said simply. "If I'm going to help you destroy James Grant, I want something permanent in return. Not money. Not shares. You. A true mate bond."

"But I'm already bonded—"

He interrupted. "And you'll break it soon. Think about my offer, Mrs. Grant. You have my number."

The call was disconnected.

I stared at my phone, my mind spinning. Become Asher Storme's mate? The alpha who was James's worst enemy?

I shook my head. No. I didn't need him. I had the evidence. I had the shares. I could handle this myself.

I would make sure James lost everything, the same way he'd taken everything from me.