Chapter 1

Kelly

“Don't worry, Tetra. You're the only one that matters. Once you get pregnant, we'll have a reason to get rid of Kelly. I won't just strip her of the Luna title, I'll send rogues after her to finish the job. You'll become my Luna and bear the heir to the Pack, like it always should have been.”

My Alpha husband, Bryan, groaned as he thrust into Tetra, my adoptive sister.

I stood frozen at the doorway of our bedroom, the hospital envelope still clutched in my hand, watching in horror as the man I thought loved me lost himself inside her. My heart banged so loudly against my ribs I thought it might split open. My lips trembled, but no sound escaped me. The air was thick with the stench of sweat and betrayal, and I felt like I was suffocating.

Barely an hour ago, I had walked out of the hospital, my eyes swollen from crying the entire drive home. I had just picked up the fertility test results. Bryan and I had been married for five years with no child, and every year without an heir had been another lash across my back. The pack had turned me into a spectacle, a cursed joke, a Luna who couldn’t fulfill her most sacred duty.

They called me barren Luna to my face. They laughed as if my womb was nothing but dead soil. Some even nicknamed me beautiful firewood—useless except to be burned, admired from afar but worthless up close. I lost count of the nights I sat awake in our cold bed, my body aching from endless tears, pressing my hands against my stomach, begging the Moon Goddess to grant me just one child. Just one. But every month, my womb betrayed me. Every month, my period reminded me of my failure.

We had done every test possible—blood work, scans, invasive prodding that left me broken and humiliated. Each result was the same: I was perfectly healthy. My body was capable of bearing life. So why was I empty? Why was I shamed? I told myself it must be punishment; either for losing my wolf or perhaps the death of that innocent child. Maybe the Moon Goddess despised me. Maybe she wanted me to suffer.

Jessica, my best friend, was the only one who dared speak against that idea. “What if it’s not you, Kelly?” She whispered one afternoon as I sobbed into her lap. “It takes two to make a baby. What if it’s him? What if Bryan is the problem?”

Her words had made me snap. I couldn’t let her say that. “Never say that again, Jess,” I had scolded, my chest tightening in panic. “Don’t ever insult him like that.”

Because Bryan Shamrock wasn’t just anyone—he was the man who stood by me when the whole pack turned their backs. He defended me when I was accused. He accepted me even though I lost my wolf. He married me when no one else would dare touch me. He was the kindest, strongest man I knew. Infertile? Impossible.

So I carried the shame, convinced it was mine alone.

But Jessica's words burrowed deep, and eventually I couldn’t stop thinking about it. One night, trembling with guilt, I secretly collected a semen sample after we’d made love. Today, the results confirmed what I had feared: Bryan was sterile. Utterly, irrevocably sterile. The doctor said not even the best treatments could change it. If Bryan ever had a child, it would be a miracle.

I cried the whole way back. How could the Moon Goddess punish someone like him this way? How could she be so cruel?

But now I knew why.

The bastard was cheating on me with the vile woman who had stolen my life before I even knew what life was.

A fresh wave of bile surged up my throat as I realized the truth. Bryan had never been my protector, never my safe place. He had been lying all along. Every embrace, every kiss, every whispered promise in the dark had all been pretend. He’d been so good at it too. He held me like I mattered, kissed me like I was his last breath, fucked me like I was his only light.

But I wasn’t.

I was a placeholder. A stand-in. A substitute until he could finally crown Tetra as his queen.

He chose her. Just like everyone else in my cursed life always had.

Why was I always the one pushed aside? Switched at birth, rejected by my mother, despised by my own pack, stripped of my wolf, condemned as a murderer, tortured for crimes I didn’t commit. Every time, Tetra came out shining, and I came out bleeding. And now, even in my marriage—my one piece of happiness—he chose her.

“Why did you even marry that bitch in the first place? The idiot has tainted my spot with her barrenness.” Tetra moaned beneath him, writhing as Bryan hiked her leg higher.

“You know better than anyone that it was to protect you,” Bryan grunted. “If I hadn’t married her to shut her up, she would have found out you were the one who framed her, and I wouldn’t have been able to save you.”

The words pierced me like claws to the chest. My knees buckled. I slapped both hands over my mouth to silence the scream clawing its way out. Tears burned my eyes as I stumbled backward, heart pounding like a war drum.

Tetra framed me.

I knew I was innocent. I knew it. But never once did I imagine the culprit was her.

10 years ago, the truth came out that I had been switched at birth. I was born during the time of war, and a maid who gave birth the same time as my mother switched her daughter with me, the Alpha and Luna’s child. She wanted to make sure her own daughter would be safe, because no matter what, the royal family would protect the heir.

So I grew up in her place, under the roof of a woman who was never really my mother. She was abusive, cruel, and cold. I always wondered why she seemed to hate me, why she treated me like a burden. Later, I realized it was because we were not blood. I wasn’t hers, and she knew it.

When I turned fifteen, the Gamma came for me. He brought me to the Palace, and I met my real parents for the first time. The Alpha and Luna. My true mother and father. They weren’t unkind, but they weren’t warm either. How could they be? They barely knew me. They tried, yes, but it was never enough.

And even then, it was clear that Tetra had their heart. The maid’s daughter, who had lived as me, had been loved as their child. She still had their devotion, their trust, their affection. I was the stranger.

I tried to fix it. I tried to earn what should have been mine. I pushed myself to be perfect. I bested Tetra at everything—studies, skills, training. But it always backfired. No matter what I achieved, she twisted it. She painted herself as the poor victim and me as the jealous bully. And people believed her every time.

I was born into a powerful Alpha bloodline where every child was blessed with a gift. Mine was medicine. I could make cures for any sickness, remedies that brought people back from the brink of death. My gift made me useful, admired even. The pack began to love me for what I could do.

But my light only deepened Tetra’s jealousy.

Seven years ago, a child died after taking medicine I had made. The truth was that someone had slipped wolfsbane into the concoction, but because the medicine came from me, I was blamed. Accused and condemned.

I swore I was innocent. I begged them to believe me. But no one did. They refused to investigate. They refused to see the truth.

Instead, they tortured me. They demanded I confess to killing the child. When I still refused, when I clung to the only thing I had left—my innocence—they forced wolfsbane down my throat. It nearly killed me. I lost my wolf that day.

I thought my life was over.

But Bryan stepped forward. Bryan Shamrock, the Gamma’s son. He argued for my release, saying maybe I had made a mistake in preparing the medicine, but that I had suffered enough already. His voice mattered. No one could argue against him. And because of him, I was spared.

I had seen him before, training with the warriors. I had carried a small crush, too shy to ever speak to him but after that day, he sought me out. He comforted me. He made me feel seen.

Not long after, he told me he loved me. He asked me to marry him.

I was the disgraced princess, wolfless, scorned. Unworthy of anyone’s attention. And yet he chose me. He wanted me as I was. I was so happy, so grateful, I thought I was the luckiest woman alive.

If only I had known his true motives back then.

My father decided to step down as Alpha, to travel the world with my mother. Bryan was crowned Alpha in his place and I became his Luna.

He literally only became Alpha because of me. Because of my bloodline, my title, my place beside him.

And how is he repaying me now?

By cheating on me and plotting to have me killed.

He thought he could strip me of my title. He thought he could send rogues to slaughter me in the dark. He thought I would go quietly.

He was wrong.

Right there, standing outside the doorway of my own bedroom, I swore to myself that I would take back my pack. That I would make them all pay.

For every tear.

For every scar.

For every betrayal.

I would burn them with the fire they never knew existed. This is a Luna's promise.