Chapter One

The mirror cracked beneath my fist, splintering with a sickening snap. Silvered glass rained down over the bathroom sink, sharp pieces glinting like teeth. A sliver lodged into the side of my hand, and blood slid in a thin line toward my wrist. But I didn’t feel it. Not really. Not compared to the agony that burned through my chest.

I hadn’t meant to find them. The Goddess knows I didn’t go looking.

I was delivering the council logs to Ronan’s private den—something his Beta usually handled, but I’d offered, eager to see him. To remind him it was our mating anniversary. Five years. Five.

The double doors were cracked open just enough for sound to slip through. My hand was already on the handle when I heard her laugh—light, feminine, unmistakable.

CiliaChavez.Her scent hit me first. Moonflower and clove. Then her voice: “Do you remember our runs down by the Ravine?”

Ronan laughed too. Warm. Familiar. “Of course I do. Those were the best nights of my life.”

I froze. My lungs stopped working. My wolf recoiled, silent in the back of my mind.

“I still can’t believe you left me,” she murmured, her voice silk and ash. “For her.”

He didn’t hesitate. “I didn’t. Not really. I mated her because I had to—after the accident. She was just… the safest option. No one would question it if I took her in.”

“She was there,” Cilia whispered. “It was a rogue attack, Ronan. You should have let her speak.”

“And destroy everything? She lost her Wolf and her voice in that crash. It was easy to twist the story. No one would believe her anyway. They see her as damaged. Broken. But they feel sorry for her. That’s why she works.”

Works?.I was a tool.A scapegoat.A shield.

I stepped back before I could fall forward, bile clawing up my throat. My fingers trembled, still clutching the scrolls I’d meant to give him. I turned, barely breathing, and walked out of the packhouse like a ghost. The scrolls slipped from my hand near the eastern watchtower. I didn’t look back.

I shifted before reaching the treeline, my clothes tearing as bones realigned and fur rippled across my skin. The night wind stung as I ran, not from the cold—but from betrayal.

I thought I’d cry. Scream. But I didn’t. I just kept running.

Hours later, I padded into the Alpha’s quarters, back in human form, the silence thick as snowfall. I made tea. Stared blankly at the hearth. The fire flickered and hissed, mocking me with its warmth.

Still, some fragile part of me picked up the small enchanted crystal orb by the bed—the one synced to our bonded link. I hadn’t touched it in months. We barely spoke through it anymore. But tonight… tonight I hoped.

Hoped he’d send something.A message.

A lie.A reason to pretend I hadn’t heard what I heard.

Instead, the orb shimmered to life with a headline from the Pack Network:

Alpha Ronan of Midnight Star Spotted with Ex-Lover Cilia Chavez in Moonlit Ravine.

There they were.A still image—him, holding her wrist. Her, smiling up at him like I never existed.

Like I had never existed.

I stared at the orb. Then I threw it.It smashed against the stone floor, a burst of blue light fading like a heartbeat.

And I knew.I was never his mate.I was never his Luna.

I was just a well-placed cover-up. A convenient silence. A lie wrapped in pity and sealed with a mark.

And the worst part?I had loved him with every shred of who I was.

Chapter Two

The nausea slammed into me before I was fully awake.

One breath, one twitch of my limbs beneath the furs, and my stomach revolted. I barely made it to the chamber’s wash basin before collapsing to my knees, heaving. Acid burned my throat. My claws scraped against the polished stone as I gripped the edge of the basin, cold sweat soaking the back of my nightdress.

Stress, I told myself. It had to be stress.

The emotional wreckage of the past moon-cycle had finally caught up with me, and now even my body was turning against me.

I rose shakily to my feet, splashing water on my face, the reflection in the enchanted mirror clouded by steam. As I wiped it clean, my eyes caught the calendar etched in silver script on the wall beside it. Days scratched through by claw-tip.

I stared. My pulse fluttered.I was late. Not by a night or two—but by almost two full weeks. My heart seized in my chest. I had been too consumed by betrayal and survival to even notice.

A tremble stole through me as I rummaged through the wooden drawer beneath the basin. Past vials of wound balm, fertility blockers, old herbs from the pack healer… and then I found it. A thin stick wrapped in parchment.

A lunar pregnancy test. One that reacted to a she-wolf’s blood and scent.

My hands shook as I pricked my finger and waited. The seconds stretched. A faint hum of magic stirred the air. Then—two glowing marks, bright and undeniable.

Pregnant.

The world tilted around me.If this had been before—just one day earlier—I would have run to Ronan , heart bursting, ready to tell him he was going to be a father. We would have howled beneath the moons, bathed in joy. I had even prepared a gift, hidden under our bed—wolf-crafted swaddling cloth and a carved token with our family sigil.

But that dream was dead.Instead, his words echoed inside me. Cruel. Cold. “She was just the safest option.” “She lost her voice and her wolf—it made her easy.” And Suzanne, mocking, “I hit her. You should have let her speak.”

A low growl rumbled in my chest. My claws scraped the basin edge.

Then—three soft knocks. My body stilled.

“Love?” Ronan ’s voice, muffled through the thick oak door, still smooth and honeyed. “Are you well?”

I stiffened. My stomach twisted again, not from the pregnancy—but from the sheer bile of rage.

He was back.I hid the test quickly behind the mirror’s panel, splashed more water on my face, wiped away the evidence of tears, and forced a soft smile. Then I unlocked the door.

He stood there, tall and polished, his Alpha aura curling around him like mist. He looked every bit the doting mate—concern shadowing his sharp features. His eyes flicked from my pale face to the shattered glass on the floor, and the thin line of blood on my palm.

His fingers moved in swift sign. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

I lied. “I’m fine. Just felt… faint. Knocked the glass over.”

He brushed past me, retrieving the healing salve from the shelf. “Careful,” he signed, smiling faintly. “You’re too precious to risk over something small.”

If I hadn’t known better, I might’ve believed him.But I did know better.

He dabbed the salve on my hand. As he did, he muttered under his mind, low and careless, thinking I still couldn’t hear.

“Useless she-wolf… breaking things like a feral mutt.”

My blood iced.I didn’t move. Didn’t react. Just watched him, silent and cold, as he bandaged the wound.Still unaware. Still thinking I was mute, deaf, harmless.

I thought back—years ago, at the orphan den run by Elder Faela. Ronan had come with his mother to donate supplies. He’d smiled at me then. Spoken to me like I was seen. Not just another discarded pup in a crumbling Pack.

And then the accident. The rogue attack. The carriage overturning. Ronan dragging me out, but not Suzanne.

I’d lost my voice and my wolf that night.

And Ronan had gained the perfect excuse to bind me to him.He pulled away with a final tug of the bandage. “I’ll be gone for a few days,” he signed. “Pack business.”

I nodded slowly. “Safe journey.”

Just then, his comm crystal vibrated on his belt. The voice that spilled from it was silk and venom.

“Where are you, Alpha mine?” Ciliapurred. “I’m already in your den. Naked. Waiting.”

Ronan grinned, casting me a glance as he silenced the call. “Leaving now,” he signed. “Try to rest. You look pale.”

I gave him a single nod.He kissed my forehead before striding out the door, the air disturbed by his exit.

The second the door sealed behind him, I locked it.Then my knees gave out. I sank to the cold floor, hands pressed to my belly, sobs racking me. My wolf whimpered deep inside, mourning—not for him—but for what could have been.

This pup… this tiny life… had been conceived in deceit. In lies.And I would not bring a child into this poisoned den.

That night, under the violet moons, I rode my wolf form to the healer's hidden grove. The procedure was swift. Clean. Painful only in the way heartbreak always was.

The physical pain passed. But the grief clung to me like a second skin.I stayed in the grove’s guest den for three nights. Ronan never sent a hawk. Never asked where I was. Not even to keep up the lie.

On the fourth morning, the healer handed me my discharge rune, wrapped in red cloth. I held it tightly, a symbol of choice. Of freedom.As I stepped outside into the golden sunlight, ready to disappear from this cursed Pack forever, a voice called out behind me.

“Oh, moon above…”

I turned sharply.An older she-wolf stood there, elegant in fine wool, silver rings gleaming on her fingers, and tear-filled eyes locked on mine. Her scent was noble. Ancient. Alpha-born.

She stepped forward, trembling.

“I’ve searched every province. Every Pack. And now…” Her voice cracked. “You… You’re the lost child of House Vargan.”

I blinked. “What?”

She reached out, gently brushing aside my hair. Her fingers landed on the small crescent-shaped birthmark just below my ear—something I’d always thought was meaningless.

She gasped. Her knees wobbled. “That mark… only the daughters of our bloodline bear it.”

My world tilted again.The Vargans. The ancient bloodline. Royal werewolves. One of the oldest Houses tied to the Moon Council.

“I thought you died during the rogue siege,” the woman whispered. “But you were taken, weren’t you? Hidden. Stolen.”

I stepped back, stunned.

“You are a Vargan,” she whispered, tears spilling. “And you’re finally home.”

Chapter Three

The she-wolf had to be mad.

That was all I could think as I stood frozen at the healer’s hall, where pack members came to treat wounds and birth their young. The firelight flickered off polished stone floors, casting shadows across the high-vaulted ceiling carved with runes. She looked out of place—too regal, too still—dressed in twilight-gray furs, her silver eyes sharp with recognition.

“You're one of the Lindwynn bloodline,” she whispered, as if she'd stumbled upon a prophecy long buried.

My spine stiffened. “You’re mistaken.”

But she didn’t even flinch. Her hands moved with shocking speed, plucking a single silver strand from my shoulder as if it were a relic. I gasped, more at the boldness than the pain.

“I’ll take it to the seer,” she said with eerie calm. “Don’t disappear, child. The moon has chosen you.”

Before I could demand what in the goddess’s name she meant, she vanished into the misty courtyard like a ghost.

I didn’t chase her. I didn’t care.Not now.

I had my own chains to shatter.

The Pack Lawkeeper’s den was colder than the mountain wind. Scrolls lined the stone shelves behind his desk, old tomes crackling with enchantments, bound by blood and oath. I placed my request on the table, the parchment trembling only slightly in my grip.

“I want a severance,” I said.

The Lawkeeper blinked behind his reading lenses. “On what grounds?”

I could have named a dozen. But I didn’t come for war or retribution.

“On the grounds that I choose myself.”

He inclined his head, stamping the scroll with a drop of his own blood. “It will be processed by moonfall.”

As I stepped into the crisp night, the wind didn’t bite like before. For the first time in a long while, it tasted clean. Free.

I wasn’t prepared to find her waiting.

Suzanne.Perched on the high-backed chair in my den like a crowned Luna, one leg draped over the other, her scarlet velvet cloak spilling over the stone floor like blood. Her ruby-red lips curled into a smirk I wanted to claw off her face.

“Well, well,” she purred. “The mute wolfless She-Wolf returns.”

Ronan stood beside her, arms folded, his face unreadable. He raised his hands in signs as smooth as ever. “Ciliawanted to surprise you. She’ll be staying at the Alpha’s Hold for a while.”

I swallowed the growl rising in my throat, forcing a smile that didn’t reach my eyes.

They still thought I was voiceless. Powerless. Easy.

Suzanne’s eyes glittered like sharp-cut garnets. “You’ll come to my Moonrise Gala, won’t you? It’s the event of the season.”

Ronan translated with mechanical obedience. “It would mean a great deal to her.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

She clapped once, delighted. “Perfect.”

That night, I packed.Quietly. Carefully. I had a secret passage mapped to the edge of the Moonveil Forest and a riderless mare waiting three nights from now. Enough time for them to enjoy their little bonding trip to the Elder Glade, and for me to vanish from their lives before the lie unraveled.

But then—came the sounds.I wasn’t even trying to listen. But the stone walls of the Hold were old and thin. And their moans—raw, carnal, unmistakable—bled through like poison.

I froze, hands gripping the edge of my trunk, the moonlight flickering across the blades in my ceremonial dagger chest. No tears came this time. Just silence.

I rose, picked up my scrying orb, and walked to the corridor. Their chamber door was ajar, wide enough to paint a full picture.

Ronan . Wrapped around her. Suzanne. Gasping.Their limbs entwined. Their lies too loud to ignore.

“I’ll give you everything,” he murmured, kissing her throat.

“I love you,” she replied, laughing softly.

I whispered a spell under my breath—one I hadn’t used in moons. The orb pulsed once, then stored the scene.Click. Bind. Save.Done.I returned to my packing.

The night of the Moonrise Gala arrived with the bitterness of poisoned honey.

Skipping it would raise suspicion. And I wasn’t about to let them sniff out my departure before I was halfway to the Highland passes.

The gathering was grand—golden lanterns swaying from ancient trees, tables laden with glimmerroot wine and fire-kissed meats. The pack nobles mingled beneath enchanted starlight. Laughter rang like bells from every corner of the sacred grove.

I walked through them like a shadow.

“She’s radiant tonight,” someone whispered.

“Did you see the moonstone collar Ronan gave her? Custom made by the artisans of Duskholt.”

My fingers brushed my own throat—the matching collar Ronan had slipped on me just yesterday, whispering promises I now knew were hollow.

Without hesitation, I unclasped it and dropped it into the sacred fire pit as I passed. It hissed, then vanished into ash.

And then—there she was.Suzanne. Draped in crimson silk, her hair pinned with opals, her body pressed against Ronan ’s like they were already mated.

She floated toward me on cruel grace.Her perfume hit first—jasmine and venom.

“Since you’re so useless,” she hissed, voice low enough only I could hear, “why don’t you do the pack a favor and die?”

Then—her hands struck.A hard shove to my chest.

My feet slipped on the polished stone of the moonpool’s edge. The crowd gasped—but too slow. I fell, the cold catching me like a vice.

Water closed around me.It was freezing—like biting silver. My limbs thrashed, but my gown weighed me down like iron chains. The surface blurred above, shapes dancing like ghosts through the ripples.

And then—his face.Ronan .Looking down, his golden eyes calm. Distant.Ciliastood beside him, not a hair out of place.

He shrugged. “She always was too fragile.”

They turned away.The last of my breath escaped in a trail of silver bubbles.

And then—only darkness.