Aveline’s POV

“Oh, Aveline, you’re back,” Calista said, smiling at me with that false, sugary sweetness that had begun to make my wolf bare its teeth.

I stopped in the doorway, confused.

I had rushed back to the packhouse, thrown open the door to our chamber, and braced myself for the worst.

But instead of what I had imagined, I found Calista curled up against my mate’s chest.

They were fully clothed.

Across the room, a scrying stone flickered with moving shadows, and the breathless moans I had heard outside were coming from the scene playing across it.

For a moment, my mind simply stopped.

“What... what is going on here?” I asked.

Calista had sent me that image of herself in Evander’s arms. But what I was seeing now looked nothing like it.

At once, Calista’s face crumpled, and tears rushed to her eyes.

“Oh, Evander,” she said shakily, “I knew we should have spoken to Aveline first. I feel awful. Just let me go back to my cottage.”

I frowned, still trying to understand what game she was playing.

The scene on the scrying stone changed, and the moaning stopped.

“You just can’t stand seeing Calista at peace, can you?” Evander snapped.

I turned to him in disbelief. “What did I do? I only just came back.”

“Calista cannot stay in the guest chamber,” he said coldly. “The bed in there makes her dizzy and sick. The bed in our chamber is softer, more comfortable for her, so I moved her here. And now you come in with that look on your face and frighten her.”

I stared at him, struggling to make sense of his words.

“Wait,” I said slowly. “I do not understand. Calista moved into our chamber? Our mating room?”

Evander frowned, kissed Calista’s forehead, and murmured, “Rest. Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll handle Aveline.”

Calista nodded and lowered her lashes obediently.

Then Evander crossed the room, caught my arm, and dragged me out into the hall.

His grip was so tight it made me wince.

“You’re hurting me,” I gasped.

He loosened his hold, but only barely, and let out an impatient breath.

“Listen, Aveline. Calista has been through enough. The last thing I want is for her to be uncomfortable.”

“She can be comfortable somewhere else,” I shot back, glaring at him.

“No,” Evander snapped. “It is just a chamber, Aveline. If it matters that much to you, I’ll have another wing prepared for you.”

I stared at him.

“But that is our room,” I whispered. “Ours. So what now? The three of us share it?”

“Moon above, no,” he scoffed. “Calista will stay there. I had your things moved to the guest chamber. It is only temporary, until she gives birth.”

I nodded once, biting the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.

My mate had taken my things out of our room and made space for another she-wolf.

“So where will you sleep?” I asked.

Evander rubbed at his jaw and looked away for a moment. “Do not make this difficult, Aveline. You know Calista still wakes screaming from nightmares because of what her ex-mate did to her. I will stay with her whenever I am home.”

A bitter laugh broke out of me.

“So you cast me out and move your first love into our bed?”

“It is not like that,” Evander said tiredly. “Stop being difficult. Calista is carrying a pup. You do not know what that feels like, so at least try to understand.”

That broke something inside me.

A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.

“Of course I do not know what that feels like,” I said.

Then I turned and walked away before he could see my face fall apart.

I shut myself inside the guest chamber, curled into the bed, and cried until my chest hurt and my eyes burned.

At some point, I fell asleep like that.

---

I woke with a violent start.

My heart was pounding, and my body was drenched in freezing water.

I shoved myself upright, gasping, and found Calista standing beside the bed with an empty basin in her hands and a smirk on her lips.

“Calista?” I stared at her. “Did you throw water on me?”

She scoffed. “What do you think? It is morning. Get your lazy ass out of bed.”

I frowned, still shivering, and looked around the chamber I had been thrown into.

“Excuse me?” I said. “You do not decide when I sleep or wake in my own packhouse.”

Calista gave a light, mocking laugh.

“After yesterday? And seeing as you are the one sleeping in the guest chamber?” She tilted her head. “Are you certain this is still your house?”

My glare sharpened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” she said lightly. “Only that your mate is mine. And the image I sent you yesterday? That was very real.”

“Do not flatter yourself,” I said coldly. “Evander only pities you. He is trying to help you.”

Calista laughed under her breath.

“You still do not understand, do you, Aveline?”

“Get away from me, Calista. I do not want to begin my day looking at your face.”

I swung my legs off the bed and stood.

Calista’s smile only widened.

“Oh, poor Aveline,” she cooed. “Crying herself to sleep in the guest chamber, and she still knows nothing.”

I turned back sharply. “What are you talking about?”

She stepped closer.

“What do you think Evander would do,” she asked softly, “if both of us were in danger?”

My brows Evander together. “What do you mean?”

I barely got the words out before she shoved me.

Hard.

I fell backward and struck the edge of the bed with my lower stomach.

Pain exploded through me.

A sharp, sickening pain deep in my abdomen.

I sucked in a breath, unable to scream.

But before I could even recover, Calista let out a piercing cry.

“No, Aveline, stop!” she screamed. “I’m sorry!”

I looked up in shock just as she threw herself onto the floor, clutching her stomach and writhing as though she were the one in agony.

My mind went blank.

“What... what are you doing?” I managed through clenched teeth, one hand pressed to my aching belly.

Then the door flew open.

Evander stood there, eyes wide, face stricken.

He looked from Calista on the floor to me beside the bed.

“What is going on here?” he demanded.

Aveline’s Pov

“Evander—” I tried to speak, but Calista’s loud sobs tore straight across my words.

“Evander, please don’t blame Luna Aveline,” she cried. “You told me to wake her, and she got angry and shoved me.”

My eyes widened.

I was crumpled on the far side of the room, one arm wrapped around my lower belly, barely able to breathe through the pain ripping through me.

“That’s not true,” I gasped. “She pushed me, Evander!”

Evander let out a cold scoff while Calista shook in his arms like some fragile, wounded thing.

“You expect me to believe a pregnant she-wolf shoved you?” he said. “Why are you always so vicious toward Calista? Why must you keep playing these ugly games?”

“It hurts, Evander,” Calista whimpered, clutching her stomach. “Please don’t blame Luna Aveline. I’m sure she is only upset because she had to sleep in this chamber. If I were in her place, I would be upset too.”

Evander’s face hardened as he looked at me.

“How heartless can you be, Aveline?”

Tears spilled down my cheeks as the pain in my abdomen worsened.

“I swear I didn’t touch her,” I cried. “She pushed me, Evander. I’m bleeding. Why won’t you believe me? I’m your mate!”

“Evander,” Calista whimpered again, pressing her hand more tightly over her belly. “It hurts.”

At once, Evander bent and lifted her into his arms.

“You want the room, Aveline?” he said without even looking at me. “Fine. Keep the entire packhouse. I’ll have another place prepared for Calista, and I’ll stay with her until she gives birth. Pray nothing happens to her.”

My breath caught.

“No, Evander, please,” I begged. “Help me—”

“Deal with it yourself,” he snapped.

Then he turned and walked out with Calista in his arms.

As they passed through the doorway, Calista looked over Evander’s shoulder and gave me a slow, smug smile.

Her lips moved silently.

He’s mine.

Then they were gone.

I did not know how long I remained there on the floor.

Bleeding.

Crying.

Realizing, little by little, that Evander had not come back because he did not care enough to come back.

Three years of mating vows, and he did not trust me.

All it had taken was the return of his first love for every promise, every tenderness, every scrap of devotion he had once given me to disappear like mist beneath the morning sun.

By the time the pain eased enough for me to move, I had nothing left in me except one last, humiliating thread of hope.

I dragged myself to the bedside table, reached for the moonstone, and tried to call Evander through it.

The stone glowed.

Then dimmed.

Blocked.

I tried again.

And again.

Seven times I reached for him through the moonstone, and seven times he shut me out.

At last, trembling and half-blind with pain, I grabbed the emergency moonstone the pack kept for life-threatening danger.

By the time the healer’s transport arrived, dark spots were already swimming across my vision.

Hands lifted me.

Voices blurred.

The world tilted.

Then everything went black.

---

“How do you feel, Luna Aveline?”

The voice pulled me slowly out of the darkness.

I blinked, and the room finally came into focus.

Pale stone walls.

The bitter scent of crushed herbs and antiseptic.

The steady chiming of a pulse crystal beside the bed.

It was the same healer from before.

My ears rang.

“Healer,” I croaked, my throat raw, “what happened?”

“That is what we had hoped you would tell us, Luna,” he said, frowning slightly.

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to push myself up.

The instant I moved, a sharp pain ripped through my body, and I cried out.

“Easy,” he said quickly. “You have only just woken from surgery.”

I stared at him. “Surgery? What happened?”

“You were brought here with severe damage to your womb,” he said carefully. “The bleeding would not stop. You had lost a dangerous amount of blood, and we had to operate at once. We reached your mate through the moonstone. He told us to do whatever was necessary.”

At the mention of Evander, bile rose in my throat.

I swallowed it down and said nothing.

The healer hesitated before continuing.

“After the surgery, you slipped into a coma. We continued sending word to your mate through his office and through the pack channels when he refused our calls. He told us not to disturb him. He said you were pretending.” The healer’s mouth tightened. “You remained in a coma for one full week, Luna Aveline. Your mate never came. Not once.”

A bitter smile touched my lips.

“So I’m alive?” I asked quietly.

The healer sighed. “For now, yes. But we still need to watch you closely, and there is something important I must tell you.”

I nodded once, though my heart already felt as if it were being crushed in an iron fist.

As I had lain on that floor in my own blood, I had already known, deep inside, that if help did not come, Evander would leave me there to die.

But hearing the healer confirm that he had ignored me for an entire week made the truth colder.

Far more final.

The healer studied me for a moment before asking, “Aveline... are you safe in your own home? Does your mate mistreat you? Do you need help?”

A dry laugh escaped me.

“Only a lawyer.”

He nodded solemnly.

“I will arrange it,” he said. Then his face grew graver. “But you must understand something. During the surgery, we had no choice but to remove your fallopian tubes. The bleeding would not stop. If we had delayed any longer, you would have died.”

For a moment, I could only stare at him.

My pulse began to race.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

He looked at me with open regret.

“If you had been brought here sooner, we might have avoided it. But as it is...” He paused. “The removal of both tubes greatly lowers your chance of conceiving. It is possible... that you may never carry a pup again.”

The room spun.

A bitter laugh broke out of me before I could stop it.

“First my pup,” I whispered. “And now this.”

“You are not barren, Luna Aveline—”

“Aveline,” I cut in sharply. “My name is Aveline. Not Luna.”

Silence fell for a beat.

Then I said, more coldly, “Get me a damned lawyer.”

For the rest of my stay in the healer’s den, I tried not to think about his words.

I focused on healing instead.

On eating when they told me to eat.

Sleeping when they forced me to rest.

Walking when my body screamed at me not to.

Evander never called.

He never came.

Not once.

By the day I was finally discharged, the lawyer the healer had arranged stood beside my bed, papers in hand and sympathy in her eyes.

“So once you leave, I’ll have these delivered to your mate’s office?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yes. And make sure he signs them.”

She hesitated. “Are you certain this is what you want, Luna— Aveline?”

A cold laugh escaped me.

“To dissolve the bond with the bastard who made me lose my pup and left me bleeding on the floor?” I said. “Yes. I’m certain.”

The lawyer nodded slowly.

“What will you do now?”

I looked toward the window.

“What I should have done three years ago.”

“Take care of yourself, Aveline,” she said softly before leaving.

A little while later, the healer returned.

“I take it you have finished your business with the lawyer?”

I nodded. “Thank you, Healer. I won’t forget what you did for me.”

He studied me for a long moment, then smiled faintly.

“Do not surrender all hope, Aveline. Nothing is impossible beneath the Moon Goddess.”

I looked away. “Thank you. Please call me a carriage to the airfield.”

He nodded and left.

A moment later, my moonstone lit up with an unfamiliar signal.

Unknown.

I accepted the call and listened in silence.

“Yes,” I said at last. “I’ve been discharged. I’m coming home today.”

I ended the call and looked slowly around the room.

Three weeks.

Three weeks of pain, grief, and healing.

Three weeks to finally accept what I had refused to see for far too long.

Evander had chosen Calista.

Not once.

Not by accident.

Not in confusion.

He had chosen her again and again while I bled.

I rose from the bed, slower than I once would have been, but steadier too.

For the first time in three years, I felt something close to fDuskbaneom.

I walked out of the healer’s den and toward the waiting carriage that would take me to the airfield—far away from Evander, far away from Calista, far away from the life they had poisoned.

They had changed me.

They had taught me exactly what love without dignity costs.

Now it was my turn.

And this time, they would pay for every piece of me they had destroyed.