My Husband's Love Was a Lie,So I Made Him Lose Me Forever

Three years into our mating bond, I stumbled upon a secret: my husband, Alaric Blackmoor, the Alpha who supposedly loved me to the marrow of his bones, kept a hidden nesting den on the outskirts of pack territory.

I followed him there and watched with my own eyes as he slid his hand inside another woman's clothes in full view of his enforcers, his gaze burning with a desire I knew all too well.

The wolves around them exchanged knowing looks. "You're so desperate for her, Alpha, why not just claim Vesper Thornscar already? You've been feeding your Luna that wolfsbane through the healer for years. Aren't you just waiting for her to fail to conceive so she'll offer to step aside herself?"

He cut them off with a frown. "Shut your mouths. And speaking of the manor, make sure Malach keeps the dosage careful. I won't have it damaging her health."

After a pause, he added one more warning.

"If word of this reaches my mate, none of you will be spared."

They all went silent, hands at their sides, and watched as he wrapped his arm around the woman and led her into the back room.

Soft moans drifted through the closed door. My heart froze over, inch by inch. Somewhere deep in my chest, my wolf went perfectly, horribly still, like a creature that had just heard the crack of a snare closing around its leg.

So the Alpha who had treated me like his whole world had already given his heart to someone else.

Fine, then. Moon Goddess above or abyss below, I would make sure he never found me again.

——

I fled the den in a blind panic, wandering aimlessly until the moon hung high before I finally made it back to the manor.

Aria was waiting in the kitchen with the usual glass of warm tonic the pack healer had prescribed, ready for me to drink.

The faint metallic tang of blood hit my nose, and my thoughts drifted far away.

After our mating ceremony, Malach had examined me and declared my constitution too weak to conceive easily.

Alaric refused to watch me grieve. He summoned healers from as far as the Northern Lakefront packs and the coastal territories until one of them devised a rare remedy: a tonic brewed with a wolf's own blood, said to strengthen the body at its root.

Without a moment's hesitation, he took a blade to his own chest and began brewing the tonic with blood drawn from over his heart, every single day.

I would trace the lattice of scars across his chest, my heart aching so badly I could barely breathe. I refused to waste a single drop of what his suffering had bought. So I choked down that bitter, iron-reeking tonic for three years straight, never missing a dose.

I had believed he wanted the same thing I did: a pup that carried both our bloodlines.

Yet he would rather cut himself open than let me bear his child.

Alaric walked through the door just as I sat staring blankly at the glass in my hands.

He came up behind me, rested his hands on my shoulders, and murmured, "What are you thinking about, Selene? The tonic will go cold if you don't drink it soon."

I looked up at the gentle, warm man before me and let my gaze travel over him, careful not to show it.

He had changed his clothes at some point. His fingertips and hair carried a clean, freshly scrubbed scent. He must have bathed before coming home.

But no matter how meticulous he was, the faint trace of jasmine and copper still clung behind his ear. Vesper's scent. His own cedar and cold iron couldn't fully mask it.

The ghost of her scent on his skin conjured the image of their tangled bodies, and bile rose in my throat. My wolf recoiled, pressing against the far wall of my ribs as though trying to get away from the wrongness.

"It's nothing. I ran out past the old border today and might have caught a chill. The tonic tastes more bitter than usual."

A flicker of panic crossed Alaric's eyes.

"Past the border? Why on earth would you go out there? It's still freezing. Did you run into anyone?"

"No."

I shook my head and set the glass on the table, letting my lower lip jut out in a small pout. "Do I really have to keep drinking this? It's been years and nothing's happened. That healer must have been a fraud."

The tension drained from his shoulders all at once. He pulled me into his arms and tapped the tip of my nose.

"Now, now, Selene. Don't be a child. Don't you want to give your mate a son or daughter?"

He picked up the glass. "Be good. Let me feed it to you."

His dark eyes held a tenderness deep enough to drown in. My own eyes stung red as I asked one more time, my voice barely above a whisper: "I really have to drink it?"

He blinked, then smiled softly and nodded. Spoonful by spoonful, he tipped the tonic into my mouth.

I swallowed it mechanically, one mouthful after another, the bitterness so sharp that tears pooled in my eyes. Inside me, my wolf lay flat, ears pressed down, making no sound at all.

He was that determined. He would never let me carry his child.

If he had fallen in love with someone else, he could have simply told me. I would have stepped aside. There was no need for all of this.