CHAPTER THREE

We had just returned to the pack house when the atmosphere shifted—an invisible current that rolled through the rooms and settled like a weight on my shoulders.

Kourtney was there. She stood in the main hall with a small boy clinging to her hand, eyes wide and practiced with sorrow. The sight should have been ordinary, but every head turned toward us as if the motion had been choreographed to humiliate me. Jackson smirked, Madam Rose’s posture tightened into pleased hauteur, and the other wolves murmured with that soft, condescending pity that had become a second language in this house.

The boy’s small body wracked into sudden sobs and he doubled against Kourtney’s leg. All faces pivoted to me immediately, as though the noise demanded a scapegoat.

“It seems the Luna isn’t happy with that decision, Damian,” Kourtney said sweetly, very loud for the hall. “Maybe I should just stay with my parents instead.”

Damian’s response came like a blade. “Not a chance,” he snapped, his eyes striking me with a cold, bright heat. “You’ll move in tonight. As a single mother, I won’t let you be ridiculed. I’ll protect you and your son.”

Madam Rose stepped forward with that silk-smooth voice that always carried a sting. “Selena dear,” she intoned, hand on my shoulder in the most practiced show of maternal concern, “your husband is protecting the family. What would people say if the Hernandez daughter were abandoned? We wouldn’t want shame on the family, would we?”

Their words landed like blows. Jackson’s mocking laughter followed, soft and sharp. “Surely, Sel. Everyone knows how humble our Luna is. You wouldn’t let a child suffer, would you?”

I looked at Damian. He still held Kourtney at his side, an absurdly intimate image for a man who was supposed to be my husband. He looked… protective, yes—but the way his thumb stroked the small boy’s back was not the same as a leader’s duty. There was a softness there that belonged to remembrance, not obligation.

“I’ll have the help arrange your bags,” he said, as if delivering a verdict.

My chest constricted. Something fundamental was shifting, and it was moving away from me.

Later, after the servants had gone about their motions and the chatter thinned, I found him in a quiet corridor—the castle’s stone cool under my palms. “Damian,” I said, voice thin. “Kourtney’s child… is he yours?”

He looked at me for a breath too long. For a moment I saw something that might have been guilt, or memory. Then he deflected. “She’s part of our pack, Selena. Her son is part of it too.”

Not a denial. The words sat in the air like smoke. I felt the room tilt and the air go brittle. The ground seemed to drop from under me.

I didn’t make it back to the sitting room. The world narrowed to that sickening, rolling nausea. I stumbled into the guest bathroom, the cold tile shocking under my bare feet, and emptied my stomach into the sink. Each retch wrenched a little more of me out—years of patience, nights I had kept vigil at his bedside, the tiny, stubborn hope that had been the last thing holding me to this life.

When I rinsed my face, the woman in the mirror startled me—thinner, pale at the temples, the soft contours of my face gone hard. How had three years drained me into this stranger?

Ever since I was adopted by the Beta, I came to live in this pack, but I know I belong to the forest, not here. 

I cupped my stomach. The child stirred faintly, a small, impossible life moving beneath my hand, and a fresh fear cut through the fog: how could I protect this baby if the man who should be its father already had another place in his heart?

I opened the bathroom door to steady myself on the corridor—and Kourtney was there, leaning against the wall with the same predatory patience she’d always worn.

“I thought you were planning to make a room for yourself, dear sister,” she said, sarcasm smooth. “I almost got bored waiting.”

I lifted my chin, trying to pass by. She stepped into my path, halting me with a single, deliberate question. “Did you get my text last night?”

My blood went cold. Of course she had sent it. Her lips twitched into a smile as she watched me absorb the reality.

“Was it you who sent that message?” I asked.

She closed the distance, words whispered into the shell of my ear like a promise. “Of course. I told you before: what I want, I take. Including Damian. Sit tight and wait for your divorce.”

Divorce. The word felt obscene, as if someone had poured cold water over everything I’d believed.

I forced a smile that tasted of metal. “No matter what, Kourtney, I am his wife. I am his Luna.”

She laughed, the sound a thin veil. “Is that so? We’ll see who he cares for more, sister. You won’t like the answer.”

And then she shoved me.

It was small, a cruel, theatrical push timed for maximum effect. I twisted instinctively to save my balance and landed awkwardly—my ankle turning sharply beneath me. Kourtney, with an exaggerated flail, went tumbling down the short flight of guest-stairs, limbs splaying in a curiously practiced way.

Silence fell; then the hall erupted. Kourtney’s cry pierced the noise—pitiful, perfectly placed. Damian’s face lost color and he rushed forward, concern immediate and fierce.

The room had already decided. Hands reached for Kourtney, voices cooed and fussed; Madam Rose hovered like a vulture.

“How could you?” Damian accused, voice raw with wounded disbelief. “I didn’t know you had such tricks, Selena.”

My chest clenched. The words were knives—sharp and incredulous. In three years, he had never said that tone to me.

“I didn’t push her!” I protested, voice breaking.

Madam Rose’s voice rose. “Did she just fall by herself?” she demanded, as if my mere presence might conjure cruelty.

“I swear I didn’t—” I tried, but the words sounded thin.

They all looked at me as if they were seeing the villain of some bad play. Kourtney clutched her son and let the tears come, perfectly timed. Antonio hovered, concerned. Jackson’s expression was unreadable, satisfied.

Damian stepped back, eyes still stinging with a wounded trust I could not reach. “Go to your room and reflect,” he said then, as if the words would be balm. “We’ll talk when I get back.”

No one looked at my twisted ankle or the way my throat tightened. No one noticed the way my fingers trembled as I straightened. I turned without a sound and walked out of the hall.

I walked until they blurred behind me, until I could no longer hear the faint echo of Damian’s words.

By the time I reached my own room, the resolve had begun to form like something hard and bright. I sat on the edge of the bed, eyes fixed on the door, waiting. Any moment now, I told myself, Damian would walk in. He had to.

But the minutes dragged into hours, and the house remained silent. Every tick of the clock was another reminder—he wasn’t coming back. 

Enough, I told myself. I wasn’t going to be their victim anymore. I wasn’t going to let them hurt me—or my child.

My phone buzzed. I startled, then answered quickly when I saw the name.