While he was eating, my thoughts drifted far from the quiet crackle of the hearth and the familiar comfort of his presence.

It had all begun a week ago, beneath the pale blessing of the moonstone altar when I still believed the Moon Goddess had woven something gentle for me. I had just returned from the healer’s hut when she confirmed what my senses had already begun to whisper through the bond—I was carrying his child. Not one, but twins, their presence small but undeniable, like two faint pulses beneath my own heartbeat.

I remember standing there for a long while, one hand resting over my abdomen, feeling something I had never allowed myself to hope for settle into place. I had imagined telling Lucan beneath the sacred willow where we once swore, through trembling mindlink, that whatever storms came, we would face them as one. I even carried the crystal vial of the healer’s confirmation, wrapped carefully in cloth, as though it were a blessing too fragile for the world to see.

I went to his dwelling that evening with a heart too full to contain itself, but as I reached the carved wooden door, I heard voices within, the heavy timbre of laughter spilling through the narrow opening that had been left ajar.

Lucan’s voice came first, light, careless, as though speaking of something trivial rather than a life shared beneath the Goddess’s gaze.

“She is easy enough to deceive,” he said, and I remember how the sound of it unsettled something deep within me, though I could not yet understand why. “I only needed to show her what she wanted to see. All of this,” he added with a low chuckle, “is nothing more than repayment for what her bloodline took from Ellie.”

There was another laugh inside, rough and approving. “You have truly committed yourself to it then.”

Lucan did not hesitate. “She believes we are bound by fate, as though the Moon Goddess herself placed her in my path. It is almost laughable. She clings so desperately to the idea of being chosen. And Ellie—Ellie understands me in ways she never could. She is fire where Elowen is nothing but quiet obedience.”

The words struck through me like iron dipped in frost, but I remained where I stood, unmoving, as though the earth itself had anchored me in place.

Ellie.

The name was not unfamiliar. It belonged to a girl whose life had always seemed to echo my own in ways I never understood, as though the threads of our existence had been tangled long before either of us could speak our names.

I had been born beneath the blessing of a powerful bloodline, the only daughter of a house the elders once said was favored by the Moon Goddess. But beneath that same roof had lived Marga, a servant whose silence concealed a truth no one suspected. She carried a child of her own, born only hours apart from me, and in her desperation, she committed a sin that altered every path that followed.

She stole me away and left her own daughter in my place.

For years, I grew up in a world that was not mine, until fate—or perhaps punishment—unraveled the lie. When truth returned like a storm across the pack lands, I was taken back to the life that had always been meant for me, while Ellie was cast out of it, stripped of everything she had believed was hers.

And she never forgave it.

Now, standing outside Lucan’s dwelling while his voice spoke of me as though I were nothing more than a tool in another’s vengeance, I understood that the past had never truly remained buried. It had only been waiting.

I do not remember how long I stood there before I finally turned away, but I remember the hollow feeling that followed me like a second shadow.

Even as I sat across from Lucan now, watching him eat as though nothing within him had ever been false, I could no longer see the man I had loved. I could only see the shape of what had been used.

That night, when sleep finally claimed the silence between us, he held me as though I were something precious, his arms heavy around my waist beneath the furs, his breath steady against my neck. For a moment, I almost wanted to believe it was still real, that warmth could still mean safety. But the bond no longer answered the way it once did, and something in me had already begun to wake.

When he rose carefully from the bed and left without sound, I did not move.

I waited until the door closed fully behind him, until the night itself seemed to swallow his footsteps, before I followed.

Barefoot beneath the cold breath of the earth, I moved through the shadows of the path that led beyond the dwelling, my pulse striking hard against my ribs as though warning me to turn back. But I did not.

I saw them beneath the old iron gate where the boundary stones marked the edge of the pack lands.

Lucan did not hesitate when he reached her.

Ellie stepped into his arms as though she had been waiting there all along, and then they kissed with a hunger that was not gentle, not restrained, but something raw and consuming, like wolves no longer bound by reason. The sight of it tore through me more cleanly than any blade ever could.

And still I did not look away.

Even when their bodies pressed against one another with a familiarity that made my stomach twist, even when his hands—hands that had once rested so carefully over the life growing within me—gripped her as though I had never existed at all.

Their voices came between breaths and fractured movements, low and unguarded, carried by the night wind as though the Moon Goddess herself had chosen to reveal what I was never meant to hear.

“She has already accepted everything I showed her,” Lucan said, his tone unsteady but satisfied, as though speaking of a victory already secured. “Her trust, her name, her place within her house. It will all open itself to me soon enough.”

“And after she breaks?” Ellie’s voice followed, sharp with something like satisfaction.

“Then there will be nothing left for her to protect,” he answered without hesitation, a quiet laugh slipping through his words. “Everything she is will belong to us.”

The world around me did not move after that. Even the wind seemed to forget how to breathe.

I understood then that I had never been part of their story in the way I believed. I had only been the path they walked upon.

But something within me, something deeper than grief and sharper than betrayal, began to harden in the silence that followed.

If they had written me into their tragedy, then I would learn how to rewrite the will of fate itself.

I was already lying upon the healer’s stone bed when the scent of crushed herbs and burning moonleaf grew too heavy for my senses, the chamber dimly lit by pale moonstones set into the walls. The decision had been spoken of in hushed tones by the healer and the attending nurses of the pack, as though my will no longer held weight within my own body.

An abortion, they called it gently, as if gentleness could soften the meaning of what was to be done.

Twin lives. Two small sparks of existence beneath my womb. And yet my thoughts had become a storm of confusion and fear, whispering that perhaps ending it would be easier than surviving what came after. Lucan, Ellie, the lies tangled around my fate like poisoned vines—I told myself I could not bring children into such ruin.

But even in that moment of trembling surrender, something within me resisted. I had not spoken of the pregnancy to anyone. Not to the pack elders, not to Jace, not even to Lucan. These lives were still mine alone, untouched by the cruelty of the world outside my skin.

When the healer prepared the silver instruments blessed beneath the moon, I felt something inside me snap awake, sharp and instinctive like a wolf recognizing danger to its young. My breath stilled as I looked up at the carved stone ceiling, and suddenly I could not bear it.

I was not a murderer. Not of my own blood.

Before the ritual could begin, I tore the binding threads from my arm where the sleeping draught had been set, pain flaring through me like lightning. I rose so abruptly that the healer called after me in alarm, but I did not hear her properly over the pounding of my own heart. I ran barefoot through the corridors of the healer’s hall, the cold stone biting at my feet, the echoes of pursuit fading behind me as instinct overtook reason.

I did not stop until I burst beyond the archway into the open grounds of the pack, where the air was colder and heavier beneath the watch of the moon.

That was where I saw her.

Ellie stood near the waiting carriage of polished dark wood, her cloak wrapped neatly around her frame, the faint curve of her abdomen visible even beneath fine woven fabric. Her presence alone was enough to make the air feel sharp, as though the land itself recognized the fracture between us.

Her eyes lifted to me, and whatever calm she had worn shattered instantly into something venomous.

“So even the healer’s hall cannot hold you,” she said, her voice edged with scorn as she stepped closer. “Tell me, Elowen, are you so desperate now that you follow me into every place I go?”

I froze, breath uneven. “What are you doing here?”

Her lips curled faintly. “The Moon Healer summoned me for my lunar blessing. Eight weeks now,” she added, one hand brushing lightly over her stomach as though claiming something sacred. “The child of my mate.”

My chest tightened so violently it felt as though the bond itself had been struck. “You are carrying Lucan’s child?”

Her smile deepened, slow and deliberate. “Did you truly believe you were the only one the Moon Goddess favored?”

Something in her tone shifted, sharpened by old resentment that had never truly healed. She stepped closer until there was barely space between us, her voice lowering into something far more dangerous.

“You took my place once already,” she whispered. “Do not pretend you do not understand what comes after that.”

I tried to move past her, but she shifted with me, her hand already reaching for the carved latch of her waiting carriage. “Go on then,” she murmured coldly. “Run as you always do. It seems to be your only talent.”

I had taken no more than a step forward when the sound of hooves striking stone shattered the silence.

The carriage moved without warning, sudden and violent, as though guided by something far more deliberate than chance. The world tilted in a blur of motion and light, and before I could call upon instinct or mindlink, impact struck me with a force that stole breath and thought alike.

I fell beneath the weight of it, the earth rushing up to meet me as pain bloomed through bone and flesh in waves too overwhelming to comprehend. The taste of iron filled my mouth, and beneath me the ground warmed with spreading blood.

My hands moved on their own, instinctively seeking the life within me.

My pups.

Ellie stepped down from her carriage as though nothing of consequence had occurred, her movements calm, almost elegant, the sound of her footsteps measured against the stone path. She crouched beside me, studying me with a gaze devoid of mercy, then slowly removed her veil before spitting upon the ground near my face.

“Look at you,” she said softly, almost amused. “Even now, you cannot carry yourself with dignity. How easily you break.”

I tried to speak, but my voice faltered beneath the weight of pain and disbelief.

She leaned closer, her scent overwhelming in its closeness, her words sliding into me like poison beneath the skin. “Did you truly think you were chosen? That your blood made you untouchable? You were never anything more than a replacement placed where I should have stood.”

Tears blurred my vision as the world began to fade at its edges.

“And do not weep as though you are wronged,” she added with quiet cruelty. “You should have thought of that before you laid claim to what was never yours. Lucan only ever returned to me. He told me himself that you were dull, lifeless… something he endured rather than desired.”

My breath broke at the edges, shallow and fading.

She laughed, low and unrestrained. “He said you were like still water left too long beneath the sun. And I—” she paused, smiling faintly, “—I am the storm he always comes back to.”

My lips parted in a broken plea, but she only watched as though I were already gone.

Her hand lifted then, as if to silence whatever remained of me, but before she could speak again, another presence cut through the air like a blade drawn in the dark.

“Elowen.”

The voice was distant at first, then closer, urgent, carrying through the bond like something long forgotten but never truly lost. Strong arms lifted me from the ground, cradling me with desperate care as the world threatened to slip entirely from my grasp.

“Stay with me,” he said, his voice breaking through the haze. “Do not close your eyes. I will not let you fall.”

And as my vision dimmed beneath the weight of blood and loss, I saw him clearly for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.

The boy who had once stood beneath the silver moon with me when we were younger, the only one who had ever looked at me as though I mattered.

But even as I clung to that fading recognition, I understood the truth settling over me like winter.

It was already too late.

I do not remember everything that followed after I lost consciousness, only fragments that came and went like broken visions beneath a fading moon. Pain came in waves, distant voices spoke in hurried tones, and at times I felt a hand clasp mine firmly, urging me to hold on through the pull of darkness, as though someone refused to allow my spirit to slip beyond the veil.

When awareness finally returned to me, it was to the quiet rhythm of a healing chamber deep within the pack’s infirmary, where moonstone lamps cast a pale glow against stone walls and the air carried the sharp scent of medicinal herbs. My body felt foreign, as though I had been torn apart and stitched back together without the blessing of the Moon Goddess.

An elder healer stood beside me, his expression weighed down by something heavier than words.

“You were bleeding beyond what the body should endure,” he said gently, as though softness could dull truth. “We did what we could. The only path left to preserve your life was to sever the pregnancy.”

For a moment, I did not understand him. My mind lingered on the words as though they belonged to someone else’s fate, not mine. Then slowly, my hand moved to my abdomen, where there was only emptiness beneath my palm.

Gone.

Both of them.

My twins.

Something inside me did not break loudly. It did not shatter in a way that demanded sound or movement. It simply collapsed inward, like ice giving way beneath a frozen lake, swallowing everything without witness. I did not cry. I could not. I only accepted the scroll placed before me, my fingers unsteady as I pressed my seal upon it, as though even grief had become a ritual I no longer had strength to resist.

Yet while I lay in that silence, far from the warmth of life I had once carried within me, the world beyond my chamber continued without pause.

Lucan and Ellie were not grieving.

They were celebrating.

I do not know what compelled me to reach for the carved obsidian tablet beside my resting place, a warding crystal I had placed there days before without understanding why. Perhaps instinct, perhaps something deeper than thought, guided my hand as I activated the viewing spell etched within it, a simple enchantment meant to observe one’s dwelling from afar through moonstone reflection.

What appeared before me was not mercy.

It was betrayal made flesh.

My own chamber, the place that once held my laughter and my scent beneath woven furs, was no longer mine. Ellie stood there as though she had always belonged, draped in my silk robe, the same one I had woven beneath the blessing of the full moon. Lucan was with her, his presence careless and unrestrained, as though no sacred bond had ever existed between us.

Their laughter filled the room as they moved together upon the bed I had once shared my dreams upon, their words careless, unguarded, and cruel.

“She was always too soft,” Ellie said, her voice carrying a mocking sweetness as she leaned into him. “Too willing to believe in love where there was only convenience.”

Lucan’s laughter followed, low and unbothered. “She was simple to guide. Everything she gave, she gave freely. But you—” his voice deepened, heavier with desire, “—you are the one who makes me feel alive.”

I watched without blinking, though something within me was already fading beyond recognition.

When it was over, Ellie only rose slowly, as though nothing of consequence had taken place, while Lucan remained where he was, as if my absence had already been written into his future.

My fingers moved without thought then, sealing the vision into memory through the warding crystal, binding it beneath layers of enchantment meant for preservation. Not for now, but for later. For a time when grief would no longer be the only thing I carried.

Because something within me had already begun to change.

Grief was no longer all I had.

There was clarity now. And beneath it, something far colder taking root.

When I opened my eyes again, the chamber around me had softened into a quieter light, the harshness of healing replaced with stillness and the faint fragrance of white blossoms placed carefully along the stone ledges. Someone had tended to the space with deliberate care, as though attempting to restore what could no longer be repaired.

And then I felt it.

A hand holding mine.

I turned my head slowly.

Alaric.

For a moment, breath escaped me entirely, as though the world had stolen it without warning. The last time I had seen him, we were little more than children beneath the orphan grounds of the eastern valley, where he, son of a noble house, had once shared stolen hours with me away from watchful eyes. We had spoken then in hushed promises beneath the old willow, believing the world might one day allow such things to survive.

Then he vanished, taken away by his bloodline without farewell or choice.

And I had been taken away as well, before either of us could return to what we had lost.

Now he sat beside me as though time had only bent rather than broken us, his presence steady, his gaze carrying the same quiet strength I remembered from another life. The years had shaped him, but not erased him.

“You are safe now,” he said softly, as though the words themselves were meant to steady the fracture within me.

Something inside my chest trembled at the sound of his voice, and before I could stop myself, tears slipped free.

I did not know when I began to cry, only that I could not stop.

He did not hesitate. He only drew me into his arms as though I had always belonged there, as though no time had ever passed between what we were and what we had become. And for a fleeting moment, I allowed myself to exist within that fragile warmth, even as everything else inside me remained shattered.

But grief no longer stood alone within me.

There was something else now, coiling quietly beneath it.

Rage, cold and precise, shaped not by despair but by understanding.

They had taken everything from me and called it fate. Lucan, Ellie, all of them who had stood behind the lie.

But I was no longer willing to remain the part of their story written to suffer.

When I was finally discharged, I parted from Alaric with nothing more than a quiet thank you, though something in my gaze lingered longer than words could carry. That night, I told Lucan I would be away for a brief journey beyond the pack lands, and he kissed my forehead without hesitation, without question, as though I had never been anything more than something temporary within his reach.

I had almost left cleanly.

Until I returned to my chamber and saw it.

Red silk laid deliberately across my bed, not mine, but hers. A mark left without subtlety, without shame, as though meant to remind me that nothing within that space had ever truly been sacred.

I did not break.

I did not remain.

I simply closed my pack trunk, lifted my chin, and walked away as though I still belonged to the world I was leaving behind.

Because one day soon, I would no longer be the one walking away.

When I returned to my homeland beneath the silver watch of ancestral trees, my parents stood waiting beyond the threshold of the great hall, their relief so deep it bordered on disbelief. My mother embraced me as though afraid I would dissolve again into absence, while my father held his silence tightly, though his grip on my shoulder betrayed what he could not say.

“It is good to have you home,” he said at last, voice low.

My mother’s smile wavered as she added carefully, “There is an engagement meeting today. We did not wish to delay it any longer. Your union has already been arranged.”

I nodded without protest.

It did not matter to me then who awaited me beyond that decision.

Not until my brother Jace approached, his expression carrying something too amused to be innocent, as though he already knew how the threads of fate had begun to tighten again.

“You will find this interesting,” he said lightly. “The one chosen for you has returned from the western lands. He arrived only recently from Paris.”

I turned slowly, following his gaze without understanding what I was meant to see.

And then I saw him.

Alaric.

My first love.

The one who had held me together when everything else had fallen apart.

The one who had found me in the aftermath of ruin.

Was the man I had been told I would now bind my life to.

And for the first time, fate did not feel like mercy.

It felt like a reckoning waiting to unfold.