Chapter 2

Two days later, I reached the Blood Moon pack.

Rowan’s mother was waiting outside the pack house. She hurried toward me as I climbed down from the truck.

“You went north?”

“You know about Mara and the child?”

I took my suitcase upstairs without answering.

She followed me into my room. When I continued to ignore her, her voice hardened.

“Well, there’s no point keeping it from you now.”

“After you lost your pup, the healers said you might never conceive again. Rowan is an Alpha. Blood Moon cannot go without an heir forever.”

“Mara saved his life and gave him a son. Is that so terrible?”

“She won’t take your position. She’ll live here as a maid. Once Noah is registered under your name, everyone will still honor you as his mother.”

I finally looked at her.

She didn’t seem to notice what it cost me to listen.

“Yes, we kept you from going north these past three years. But the poisoning was real. The ambush was real. Your grandmother really was dying. No one lied about any of that.”

“You chose to stay. Who can you blame for that?”

Apparently, concealing the truth and using my responsibilities against me didn’t count as deceit, provided the emergencies were genuine.

I shut the door.

Her voice followed me through it.

“Rowan will be home soon. Don’t make this uglier than it needs to be.”

“You couldn’t give him a child. Mara gave him an heir. You haven’t lost anything.”

“And without your title, how many people do you think would still respect you?”

Her footsteps faded.

Only then did I cry.

They thought one baby could replace another. A woman could give birth, put my name on a form, and I should be grateful.

My child had never been an empty position to fill.

Neither was I.

That evening, I went to the study.

For years, I had handled pack accounts, healing-center records, and medical supplies for the patrols at that desk. Now I gathered only what belonged to me: my research notebooks, my personal account documents, and the moonstone brooch my mother had left me.

In the lowest cabinet, I found a locked wooden box.

Three years ago, Rowan’s mother had told me it held the late Alpha’s private letters.

This time, I broke the clasp.

Inside was a stack of letters from the border.

The first was in Rowan’s handwriting, dated the day Noah was born.

Noah is here. Don’t tell Elena yet. She has only just lost our pup. She can’t bear another shock.

If she tries to come north, find a reason for her to stay. Once Noah is old enough for the journey, I’ll bring them home myself.

Elena has a soft heart. I’ll explain. I’ll make things right with her.

He had started planning how to keep me away the day his son was born.

The healers had told me another pregnancy was unlikely. That was why this baby had felt like a miracle. Why I had traveled north carrying a report in a gold box, eager to tell him in person.

When I had needed him most, he had been deciding what I would be allowed to know.

I put my mother’s brooch in my pocket and the gold box in my suitcase.

My father arrived as I returned to my room.

“How long do you intend to keep this up?” he demanded from the doorway. “Do you want both packs hearing about this disgrace?”

I kept packing.

“Rowan had just become Alpha. Rogues were attacking the border. We couldn’t risk the alliance.”

“If you had confronted Mara and rejected Rowan, our patrol agreements, trade, and military support would all have been in danger. Did you consider what your impulsiveness could have cost?”

I had believed I was Rowan’s partner.

To my father, I was also a treaty neither side could afford to lose.

He lowered his voice.

“Rowan’s position is secure now. You’ve kept his pack together for three years. As long as this stays private, you remain Luna and the alliance survives.”

“Don’t throw away your future over a woman with no standing. Don’t destroy the peace we worked for.”

He left without waiting for an answer.

Four years earlier, I had graduated first in my class from the Royal Academy of Healing. My revised wolfsbane antidote had reduced deaths among poisoned wolves by ninety percent.

The Alpha King had personally invited me to join the Royal Infirmary.

But Rowan was about to inherit his pack, and we were about to become mates. Blood Moon’s healing center needed me.

I turned down the court.

At the time, I thought we were building a life together. Now everything I had given was being used to make room for someone else’s child.

Two weeks earlier, the royal chief healer had retired.

The Alpha King had written again, this time offering me her position.

I had not answered.

Now I called Nina and handed her a letter.

“Take this to the royal court. Give it directly to the King’s chief attendant.”

“Tell His Majesty I accept.”

“And ask the Royal Chancery to prepare a permanent transfer of my pack membership, along with everything needed to dissolve my mating.”