Chapter 3

Over the next two days, Lucas dropped the act completely.

He tried to use his authority as Alpha to seize my assets, but my maternal family's legal team and magical contracts blocked him at every turn.

Meanwhile, Chloe's condition went downhill fast.

Her body had grown used to a steady supply of potent life force and was now reacting violently to its loss. Even the bastard pup grew irritable and quick to lash out.

Desperate for an expensive potion to replace my life force, Chloe grew reckless.

That afternoon, Sarah came running into my study. "Luna, it's bad! Chloe forced her way into the Moonlight Garden with her son!"

The Moonlight Garden!

It was the only thing my mother had left me, and it was filled with rare, fragile moonspirit herbs.

Five years earlier, when I found out I was "pregnant," I'd planted a guardian vine there for my child. Even after losing my child, I'd always treasured that vine.

When I reached the garden, the sight made my blood boil.

The carefully tended flowerbeds had been trampled. Precious moonspirit herbs had been ripped out by the roots and thrown into the mud.

Chloe ordered a few guards Lucas had bought off to dig up the soil, while her five-year-old son, Leo, beat my precious guardian vine with a stick!

"Stop!" I roared. A sliver of my ancient bloodline's aura slipped beyond my control.

The force knocked the guards to their knees. Chloe shrieked, and Leo fell on his backside in the mud.

"Serena, have you lost your mind?!" With an earsplitting howl, Lucas stormed into the garden.

He scooped Leo up off the ground, brushed the mud off him tenderly, then turned and glared at me with murder in his eyes.

"Chloe isn't feeling well. She needs moonspirit herbs to recover! As Luna, you're too stingy to spare a few plants, and you used your aura on a five-year-old? How cruel can you be!"

I looked at the broken guardian vine, my nails digging into my palms. I was so angry I laughed. "She needs to recover, so she gets to destroy what my mother left me? Lucas, have you lost every last shred of decency?"

"Enough! I don't want to hear another one of your ridiculous excuses!" Lucas snapped. He unleashed his full Alpha aura, trying to force me to submit.

The fake mark was still on my neck, and the backlash sent a sharp pain through my chest. But I gritted my teeth and refused to kneel.

"Serena, you've let me down. You no longer deserve the authority of a Luna." Lucas looked down at me, cold calculation in his eyes.

"Hand over the Luna Seal, and I'll let you keep an elder's title for appearances. Otherwise, at tomorrow's pack assembly, I'll strip you of your title for plotting to murder my fated mate and my son!"

"In your dreams." I swallowed the taste of blood and forced out each word.

Lucas's face went completely dark.

He waved to the guards. "Lock her in the isolation cell. No one lets her out without my orders! If she still won't hand over the seal before tomorrow's ceremony, I won't show her any mercy just because she's my wife!"

The heavy iron door slammed shut. In the deathly silence of the cell, the click of the lock was painfully loud.

In the dark, I didn't cry, and I didn't scream in rage.

I sat quietly on the cold floor and drew a silver blade from inside my robe. It had been soaked in pure holy water.

He wants the Luna Seal? He wants to strip me of my title in front of the whole pack?

I touched the fake mark on my neck. It was still trying to drain my power. A cold urge to kill rose in me.

"Lucas, if you want to play, let's raise the stakes." Without hesitation, I raised the silver blade to my neck.

He wants the Luna Seal? Fine. I'll go to the pack assembly myself and throw it in his face.