Death Sentence

MAELIS

“Your baby has one month to live,” Sera my doctor and friend announced.

I blinked rapidly, inching closer to him, wanting to be sure my ears had not heard wrong.

“What… what did you just say?” My voice barely above a whisper.

Sera didn’t respond immediately and that told me everything before she opened her mouth to speak again.

“You are two months pregnant, Mae,” she said gently. “And because the alpha hasn’t marked you, the bond is unstable. The baby is drawing energy directly from your body to survive.”

“Your body can’t sustain it for long. You have one month, so does the baby.”

One month.

The words echoed in my head until they stopped feeling like words and started sounding like a death sentence.

I exhaled slowly, but the air felt stuck halfway in my chest.

A baby.

Theron’s baby.

For a second, just one second, a warm feeling spread through my chest, and a glimmer of hope sprouted in me.

Maybe, this would finally make him look at me differently.

My fingers subconsciously found their way to the side of my bare neck, the side that Theron’s mark should be resting peacefully.

Five years. Five years of being mated to Theron and he never marked me, had never even attempted to.

I directed my gaze back to Sera, my eyes searching hers.

“If he marks me,” I began slowly. “The baby will be fine?”

“Yes. The bond will stabilize and the baby will also stabilize with it,” Sera explained, holding my gaze. “Does he know?”

A dry smile formed on my lips. “I came in because I couldn’t keep my food down. I just thought it was stress.”

I looked at the result on the table and swallowed hard. I thought about Theron and the way he always made me feel unreasonable for needing his help with anything at all. I thought about the five years I had spent learning the very being of the man who never cared to learn mine.

But this was his child and that should change things right?

I placed my hand on my flat stomach and exhaled heavily.

Shutting my eyes briefly, I immediately mind linked him before my nerves would fail me.

‘Theron, I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.’

The connection opened, and I felt him on the other side, distracted, his attention clearly elsewhere.

‘Whatever it is can wait. Don’t interrupt my day with something so silly.’

With that, the link closed.

Silly?

I stared at the wall for a long time, upset at his tone of voice and his choice of words.

Without another word, I rose to my feet, slipping the result into my bag.

“I’m going to him.”

Concern flickered in Sera’s eyes. “Mae——“

“It’s okay. I’m fine,” I smiled tightly. “I’ll be back.”

I left the clinic with the result in my bag and my heart racing frantically in hope. Maybe this is what we need to fix things. Maybe he’d finally see as his mate and Luna.

I got into the car and as I drove back home, I couldn’t help the tears that gathered at the corner of my eyes.

For five years, I had secretly loved a man who was my chosen mate. A love I couldn’t spell out but had to keep hidden just as we had agreed from the start.

Five years ago, the Council of Elders had looked at me and declared I was the Luna the Moon Goddess had chosen for the pack SilverCrest. Me. An Omega. A stray the Hawthorne family—the beta of the pack— had taken in out of obligation, a girl with no rank, no bloodline worth speaking of, nothing to her name but the clothes on her back.

The pack had not taken it well. They had objected strongly.

But Theron had taken it worse.

He had already chosen Nerine, the Hawthorne's real daughter, his childhood sweetheart, the woman the entire pack had spent years assuming would stand beside their Alpha as his queen.

When the Council made their decree, Nerine had left in fury and disappeared, and the pack grieved her like a loss. Due to the council’s persistence, Theron agreed to make me his Luna but not without drafting a contract.

“We are to stay mated for five years,” he had said. “And after that, we go our separate ways.”

“Most importantly, do not make the mistake of ever thinking we are a family, and also, do not ever fall in love with me.”

But I had been foolish enough to fall in love with him anyway.

Five years. No mark nor warmth. Nothing that resembled a real marriage except the title I carried and the duties I fulfilled as Luna so the pack would never falls apart while also silently hoping, he forgets about Mireya and finally sees me as his mate.

I pulled into the pack house and sat in the car for a few seconds, trying to calm my raging nerves.

“One month Maelis,” I whispered to myself, my hands resting gently on my stomach.

One month for my baby to survive.

And also, six month left on the contract too.

Theron had been counting down to when he could finally walk away from this marriage.

I exhaled slowly, got out of the car, and made my way toward the house.

The pack house was busy at this hour, wolves moving in and out and conversations cutting off the moment I appeared at the door. On the surface, I was their Luna. But in reality, I was someone they had never actually accepted and never rejected, just tolerated for the sake of the moon goddess.

I made my way toward the east wing.

The Alpha floor.

In five years I had gone up there exactly twice. Both times with pack documents that couldn't wait. Both times I had knocked like a visitor and left as quickly as I came because being up there felt like I was one second away from being yelled at to leave.

I raised my hand and knocked once and without waiting for an invitation, I stepped in.

He didn’t look up. He was behind his desk, scribbling something on a document.

“I told you not to interrupt me.”

“I know.” I stepped inside and closed the door. “I just need to ask you something.”

The pen kept moving. “Then ask and leave,” he said, his irritation clear as day.

“I need you to mark me.”

The pen stopped.

He looked up, and his expression moved from impatience to something colder. He set the pen down and leaned into his chair.

“Don’t get too greedy,” he said. “You know exactly why this marriage happened in the first place.”

The words landed exactly the way they always did—cold and hard, designed to remind me of my status.

My throat tightened with emotions but I swallowed hard, pushing everything down. I touched my stomach gently, reminding myself that I had to do this for my baby to survive.

I stepped closer, holding his gaze but just as I opened my mouth to tell him about the pregnancy, the door pushed open suddenly.

A guard rushed in, dropping to his knees immediately with his head touching the floor.

“Forgive me your highness,” he said breathlessly. “I come bearing urgent news.”

Theron’s gaze didn’t leave me.

“Speak.”

“Alpha… Our Luna, Nerine has returned.”