My Alpha husband, Cyrus of Uteria Pack, never gave me a proper wedding and never declared me his Luna, even though we had been married for years.

I thought it was because the pack was still recovering from a lost war—until his first love, Dianna, returned.

“What about Felicity?” I overheard her ask.

“My marriage with her is fake. Ours is true. You will be my Luna soon,” Cyrus promised her.

The vows I had dreamed of for years, he offered so easily to another woman. Not only did he fake our marriage, but one night he also demanded that I give up my wolf core to save Dianna’s life. He forcefully took it from me, leaving me broken.

I had enough. So when Alpha Damien, my childhood friend, offered to take me away from that hell, I agreed.

“Give me a week, and I’ll come with you,” I promised him.

But when I finally chose freedom, Cyrus kidnapped me—determined to marry me and make me his Luna for real, when he refused to do so all those years before.

---

Felicity’s POV

For three years, I had been Alpha Cyrus’s wife—at least on paper.

But not once had I been called Luna.

Not by the elders. Not by the pack. Not even by him.

Every morning when I woke and slipped the plain silver band onto my finger, I told myself it was real. That I wasn’t just the woman who signed a document in the Alpha’s office. That someday, I would walk down the aisle like a true Luna, with the whole pack bowing their heads in reverence. Someday, the whispers behind my back would stop.

But three years had passed, and the whispers had only grown louder.

She’s not really the Luna.

Just a placeholder.

The Alpha will throw her away soon.

I had heard them all, but I had learned to keep my chin high and my steps steady. I was raised to be strong, to support my alpha no matter what. And Cyrus had promised me. He had promised that once the pack recovered from the destruction of the war, once Uteria rose again from its ashes, he would give me the ceremony I deserved.

I had believed him. And in truth, I wanted to. Because I loved him.

Even when he was cold. Even when he spent nights away in his office at the border. Even when the pack’s stares burned holes through me, reminding me that no matter how many times I cooked his meals, washed his bloodied shirts, or smiled at his warriors, I wasn’t their Luna.

I was nothing more than a shadow at his side.

But that night was different. That night marked our third wedding anniversary. Three years since I became Mrs. Felicity—Alpha Cyrus’s wife.

If he wouldn’t celebrate it, then I would.

So I spent the entire morning baking a cake from scratch. Not something bought, not something ordered. A carrot cake, rich and sweet, just the way he liked it. I had seen him buy carrot pastries before leaving for the office, so I knew it was his favorite. I thought… maybe if I showed up with something he loved, he would remember me. He would look at me not as the paper wife, but as his mate.

Of course, he had warned me not to visit the Alpha office.

“It’s too close to the border,” he had said. “The enemy pack still prowls. Stay in the safe zone, Felicity.”

But what was an anniversary without effort? What was a marriage without risk?

So, with my cake wrapped carefully, I walked toward the far corner of our territory, where the tall stone building stood at the edge of the borderlands. My wolf paced anxiously inside me, her paws clicking against the walls of my mind.

“I just want to see him smile,” I whispered back.

The closer I came, the colder the air felt. The scent of pine and iron filled my lungs, sharp with the tang of enemy territory nearby. The warriors on patrol eyed me curiously, some even smirked. They didn’t stop me, though. Why would they? If the Alpha’s wife wanted to embarrass herself, who were they to deny the show?

By the time I reached the building, my hands were trembling, not just from nerves but from the eerie silence of the border. I pushed the heavy door open—and froze.

The door had been left ajar. And there he was.

Cyrus sat behind his desk, tall and broad-shouldered, his black hair gleaming under the lantern light. But he wasn’t alone.

Beside him stood a woman. Not just any woman.

Dianna.

His first love. The omega who had left four years ago during the war, vanishing without a word. The one I thought he had lost forever.

She was holding his hand. Smiling at him in that soft, radiant way that made my chest ache.

On the table before them lay a set of papers. Marriage papers. My eyes widened as the man opposite them—the officiant—slid the documents across the desk.

“Congratulations,” the man said, sealing it with a signature. “Alpha Cyrus and Dianna, bound by the law of the wolf realm.”

I stumbled back, my heart dropping to my stomach. No. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.

Dianna glanced at him, her voice hesitant. “But… what about Felicity?”

My breath caught. My name on her lips was like a dagger.

Cyrus’s voice was calm, almost bored. “What I had with her was fake. A paper marriage to keep the council quiet until the pack was stable. She’s too emotional to handle the truth, so I’ll keep it from her for now. If she throws a tantrum, I’ll send her away. She’ll adjust.”

My entire body trembled. My vision blurred. I couldn’t breathe.

Then, as if to finish crushing me, he pulled out a small cupcake from the box in front of him—carrot. He placed it gently before Dianna.

“For you,” he said softly.

And that was when it hit me. It was never his favorite.

The carrot cake… it was hers.

All this time, I had been baking, cooking, buying—thinking of him. But it was her. It was always her.

I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying to stifle the sob clawing its way out of my throat. I couldn’t stay another second. Quietly, desperately, I turned and slipped out the door. My tears blurred the path as I ran, the cake box tumbling from my hands and shattering against the dirt.

My wolf howled inside me, a raw, broken sound. He betrayed us. He never chose us.

I kept running, not knowing where my feet carried me, only that I had to get away, away from that office, away from the lies, away from the image of him sliding a ring onto Dianna’s hand.

Branches whipped against my face. The night grew darker. My lungs burned, but I couldn’t stop.

Then I heard it.

A growl. Low. Menacing.

I froze, my breath hitching. Slowly, I looked up—and my blood ran cold.

Rogues.

At least half a dozen of them, their eyes glowing crimson in the shadows. Their fur was mottled, scarred—rogue pack wolves. They had caught my scent, and I had wandered too close to their side of the border.

My heart pounded. I backed away slowly, but they began to circle me, teeth bared, snapping jaws catching the moonlight.

My wolf surged forward inside me, ready to shift, ready to fight. But I was alone. No warriors, no Alpha, no pack. Just me.

And the bitter taste of betrayal still fresh in my mouth.

“Cyrus,” I whispered, tears streaking my cheeks as the first wolf lunged. “Why wasn’t I ever enough?”

Felicity’s POV

It all happened too fast.

One moment I was running through the borderlands, and the next, fangs and claws tore into my flesh. Their growls drowned out my screams as I stumbled, blood spilling down my arms, my side, my legs.

I tried to fight. Goddess knows I tried. My wolf clawed at the surface, but my body was too slow, too weak against so many of them. Their claws raked me open again and again, and with each slash, my strength bled out of me, pooling into the dirt.

I knew then. I was going to die.

The world blurred. The taste of iron filled my mouth. My knees buckled. My wolf howled inside me, fading. This is it…

And then everything went dark.

When my eyes opened again, I was surrounded not by wolves but by white walls, bright lights, and the faint antiseptic sting of a hospital. My body ached, stitched and bandaged, but somehow still alive.

I blinked, disoriented. “Where…?”

“You’re awake,” a soft voice said. A nurse stepped closer, her expression grave. “You lost a lot of blood. But you’re stable now. You’re lucky… another Alpha brought you here. He must have saved you from the border.”

Her words barely sank in before she added, hesitantly, “Miss… I’m sorry. You were one month pregnant. But… the baby didn’t survive.”

My breath caught. The room tilted, spinning. Pregnant? I hadn’t known. I hadn’t felt it. The words hit harder than claws, cutting straight through me.

“No,” I whispered, clutching the sheets. “No, no, no…”

Tears blurred my vision as a sob tore free. A baby. My baby. Gone before I even knew it existed. My heart felt like it had been carved out of my chest. I hadn’t just lost blood that night—I had lost a piece of myself.

The nurse placed a hand on my arm. “Rest. Your body needs to heal.”

But how could I heal when my soul was shattered?

Hours passed, or maybe it was days—I couldn’t tell.

All I knew was the scent. It lingered faintly on my skin, clinging to me like a brand. The scent of the Alpha who had carried me here. Strong, dark, grounding. Not Cyrus. Someone else.

Who was he? Why had he saved me?

I reached for my phone with trembling fingers. If anyone should know I was alive, it was Cyrus. My husband. My alpha.

I called him. Once. Twice. Five times. No answer.

My heart pounded harder with each ring that ended in silence.

Desperate, I opened my social media, hoping to message him. Instead, the first thing that greeted me stole the breath from my lungs.

A post. Public. It was Dianna.

And beside her, smiling with an ease I had never once seen directed at me, was Cyrus. They stood together on a yacht, the sea glittering behind them. His arm was around her waist, his lips curved in affection.

The caption beneath the photo cut through me like a blade.

Planning our wedding ceremony soon.

The phone slipped from my fingers. My chest constricted until I couldn’t breathe. While I had bled out at the border, losing the baby I hadn’t even known I carried, he had been with her. Smiling. Planning. Celebrating.

I curled into myself, the tears coming too hard, too fast. I thought betrayal couldn’t hurt more than it already had. I was wrong.

The door slammed open.

Cyrus stormed in, his face dark with fury. “Why didn’t you try harder to contact me when you were in danger?”

I flinched at the sharpness in his voice. My lips parted, but no words came. Because what could I say? That I had tried? That I had bled and screamed until my voice was gone? That I had called him again and again, but he hadn’t been there?

My silence seemed to enrage him further. He loomed over me, arms crossed. “Do you realize how reckless you were? Going to the border like that? Do you even think before you act?”

Hopelessness swallowed me whole. Even now, after everything, he wasn’t worried about me—only about my mistake. Only about my failure.

“It’s my fault, then,” I whispered, staring at the blanket. “Even bleeding out was my fault.”

He didn’t deny it. Instead, he sighed, pulling a container from the bag in his hand. “I brought you food.”

He set it on the table and opened the lid. Carrot soup.

Of course.

Carrot. Always carrot. Always her.

My hands shook as he lifted the spoon toward me. My stomach twisted. I couldn’t do it—not this time.

But before the first spoonful reached my lips, the door burst open again. Beta Noel rushed in, his face pale.

“Alpha Cyrus! It’s Lady Dianna. She fainted!”

Cyrus dropped the spoon at once. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t glance back at me, didn’t even ask if I needed anything else. He just turned and walked out with Noel, his strides long and urgent.

I was left alone again. Abandoned.

Numbness seeped into me, heavier than the pain. What was left of me to even break anymore?

But then… That scent.

The same one I had noticed before, rich and commanding, with an undertone of wild pine and storm. My wolf stirred faintly inside me, recognizing it, pulling me toward it.

And there he was.

A man leaned casually against the doorframe, arms folded, his gaze fixed on me. He was an Alpha, no doubt about it. His presence filled the room, powerful and suffocating in a way Cyrus never had been. His long, dark hair fell past his shoulders, framing a face too sharp and handsome to belong to any ordinary man.

But his eyes—Goddess, his eyes—held a heat that made my pulse trip.

“Do you want me to help you run away from your mutt of an Alpha?” he asked, his voice low and smooth, curling through the air like smoke.

My breath hitched. My wolf pressed forward, ears pricked, her attention utterly captured by him.

And for the first time in years, I felt something stir in my chest besides pain.

Hope.

Felicity’s POV

He was Damien.

I barely recognized him at first. He stood at the hospital doorway, radiating power in a way that made the air feel heavy, his dark hair cascading past his shoulders, his gaze sharp and commanding. It was nothing like the Damien I remembered.

Once, long ago, he had been a visitor to my parents’ pack. My father, though not an Alpha himself, had been one of Damien’s early mentors in diplomacy and battle strategy. Despite Damien’s pack being far larger and more formidable than ours, he had spent time in our home, listening intently to my father’s lessons.

Back then, he had been… softer. A little nerdy, bookish, with glasses that always slipped down his nose and a frame that seemed too lean for an Alpha heir. I had never thought he would one day carry the weight of his pack with such confidence, such strength. Years of leadership had carved a new man before me, nothing like the shy young wolf I once knew.

“You…” My voice had cracked when I saw him. “Damien?”

His smirk had been faint, but real. “So you do remember me.”

Of course I had. How could I forget the boy who once snuck me extra sweet buns from my mother’s kitchen? But the man before me was no boy. He was all Alpha, and his words had made my heart stumble.

“Do you want me to help you run away from your mutt of an Alpha?”

The weight of his question still lingered with me days later, long after I had begged him for time. “A week,” I had whispered to him. “Give me a week. To settle what’s left of me here.”

And Damien, steady and unshaken, had only nodded. “I’ll be waiting. Always.”

I stayed in the hospital for three more days. My body healed, but my heart did not. I grieved endlessly in silence—the baby I had lost before I ever knew it existed, the marriage I thought was real, the betrayal that stared me in the face every time I closed my eyes.

When the healers cleared me to leave, I walked back to the packhouse, dragging the weight of despair with me. But as soon as I stepped inside, I froze.

The air was filled with laughter. The living area was bright, crowded with food on the center table as though it were a feast. There they sat—Alpha Cyrus, Beta Noel, and her. Dianna.

The laughter stopped the moment I entered. All eyes turned toward me.

“Oh,” Cyrus said after a pause, his voice casual, as though I had only interrupted a minor gathering. “I forgot you’d be coming home today. You should have called me.”

Called him. Again with blame. As if I had been wrong to simply return to my own home.

But my eyes were not on him. They were on her.

Dianna sat close to him, her smile sugary sweet, her hand resting on her lap as though she had every right to be there.

Cyrus cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably before he spoke again. “This is Dianna. My childhood friend. She’ll be staying here at the packhouse for a while. She’s recovering—from… an attack. Some sorcery in the past month.”

Sorcery? I nearly laughed. But I forced myself to breathe, to stay composed. “I remember Dianna,” I said quietly. “You used to… hang out. Years ago.”

“Yes,” Cyrus said quickly, almost too quickly. “Exactly. She’s been through a lot, Felicity. Her condition is serious. That’s why I left the other day—she needed me more. Your border stunt…” He waved a hand dismissively. “…I knew you’d be fine, It can be avoided if you only stayed away from the borders.”

My jaw dropped. He was blaming me? The scars still burned across my skin. The ache in my womb still throbbed.

“I wasn’t—” My voice shook, but I pushed through. “I lost something. I lost our baby—”

But before the words could fully leave my lips, before I could tell him of the baby, Dianna let out a sudden shriek.

Her hand flew to her chest. “Oh, Goddess! Alpha—it’s happening again—my condition—!” She slumped dramatically against the chair, her face twisted in false pain.

And just like that, all eyes went to her.

Cyrus was on his feet instantly, hands on her shoulders. “Dianna! Breathe, I’m here. I’ve got you.”

“No,” I whispered, my voice drowned beneath her cries. “No, listen to me—I lost our—”

But he didn’t hear. He didn’t see. All his focus was on her trembling form, her crocodile tears spilling like rain.

The words about our baby died on my tongue, strangled by the weight of his indifference.

I turned and walked away.

Upstairs, I pushed open the door to my room, my sanctuary, my last remaining corner of this cursed packhouse. But the sight that met me sent me reeling.

It was empty. The furniture was still there, but my belongings were gone. My clothes, my books, the little trinkets I had carried from my parents’ pack, vanished. The space felt foreign, stripped bare.

And then I understood. This wasn’t my room anymore.

I felt her presence behind me before I even turned.

“Like it?” Dianna’s voice was honeyed with false sweetness. “Cyrus gave me this room. Said it was bigger. More comfortable. More fitting… for me.”

My stomach twisted. She stepped closer, her lips curving. “After all, it was always meant to be mine. From the very beginning. I left, yes—but then you stole everything that belonged to me. Even Cyrus.”

Her words dripped venom, but her eyes glittered with triumph. I saw her now for what she truly was, not the fragile childhood friend, not the victim of sorcery, but a wolf who had returned to reclaim everything, no matter who she destroyed in the process.

“So your illness,” I asked softly, “is it real?”

For a fraction of a second, her mask slipped. But then her voice rose, trembling theatrically as tears spilled down her cheeks. “Are you accusing me of faking my pain? After everything I’ve been through?”

Her wails echoed down the hallway. Loud. Calculated. And right on cue, Cyrus appeared. His eyes immediately locked on her, full of concern, before they flicked to me with fury.

“What did you say to her?” His voice was sharp as a whip.

“I—”

“She’s accusing me,” Dianna sobbed, throwing herself against him. “She accused me of pretending to be sick just to get your attention. She hates me, Alpha! She wants to ruin us!”

“That’s not what I said!” I shouted, desperate, but it was useless.

Cyrus’s gaze hardened. He strode forward, his grip suddenly like iron as he snatched my hand. Pain flared as his fingers clamped down, and before I could protest, he ripped the ring from my finger.

The ring. The simple band he had placed there three years ago, promising me that someday it would be replaced by a Luna’s coronet. Promising me that my time would come.

His eyes were cold as he pocketed it. “You don’t deserve this ring anymore.”

The final thread that had tied me to him snapped.

And I stood there, hollow, realizing every promise, every word, every dream had been a lie.