Chapter 2

Months prior, Alpha Malcolm had presented me with a prestigious opportunity: to serve as an agricultural strategist at Black Widow Pack’s academy farm. The same academy where I had once been a prodigy—where I’d first crossed paths with Nathaniel, and where I’d mastered critical techniques in communal survival and sustainable leadership.

My affinity for agriculture had bloomed early. As a child, I’d nurtured an unrelenting fascination for livestock husbandry and crop cultivation—a passion that hardened into academic obsession. By sixteen, I’d drafted pioneering methodologies to optimise harvest yields; by twenty, my research licences with Black Widow Pack had earned me a formal endorsement from their Leader himself. When Nathaniel proposed five years ago, I was being groomed for a coveted role in their Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

Yet love loomed over me like a scythe. In the delicate calculus of devotion, I chose Nathaniel. I forfeited my ambitions, dismantled my laboratory, and vanished into the shadows of Pearl Harbor Pack as its Luna.

Two years later, Alpha Malcolm reached out once more, urging me to reclaim the role. Black Widow Pack’s harvests had failed catastrophically; they needed expertise I could provide. Yet loyalty to Nathaniel anchored me. I declined again—though not without sending crates of our surplus grain to stave off their famine.

How could I, as Luna, abandon Pearl Harbor? My duty, I’d told myself, lay in the soil of these lands, in the pulse of this pack.

But yesterday’s ambush shattered that illusion. As Iona and I bled out on the forest floor, Nathaniel had raced to Yoan’s side first. Not mine. Not ours. My daughter’s death, my own brush with oblivion—they were mere footnotes to him.

A Luna in title. A ghost in practice.

Why linger where my Alpha—my husband—treated my existence as incidental?

The decision crystallised, cold and unyielding. I dialled Alpha Malcolm’s number, voice steady. “I accept your offer. I’m returning to Black Widow Pack.”

“Excellent news, Angie. Our pack’s doors remain open to you,” Alpha Malcolm replied, his voice brimming with a warmth that seemed to transcend the receiver. “I’ll expedite the transfer documentation and forward the requisite files once prepared. Ensure your affairs here are settled—we’ll prioritise a seamless transition.”

“Thank you, Alpha Malcolm,” I said, steadying the tremor in my words. “I’m grateful for this chance. You’ll have no cause to doubt my commitment.”

The call ended. I stood motionless, the weight of finality pressing down. There was no undoing it now, I would leave.

Yet duty lingered.

I assembled Nathaniel’s lunch—roasted pheasant, honeyed oats—and added extra portions for the labourers reconstructing the storm-ravaged eastern barracks. A habitual gesture, but today it felt ceremonial. A quiet farewell to the life I’d clung to for too long.

My thoughts drifted unbidden to my early days in Pearl Harbor Pack. I bore no hatred for this place. The pack members—generous, resilient souls—had shown me nothing but kindness, despite my outsider origins.

But their warmth couldn’t mend the fractures within my own walls. If my marriage had become a hollow pantomime, if my husband’s loyalties frayed at the slightest test… what solace was there in duty without devotion?

A home ought to be a sanctuary, yet for me, it had become nothing more than a vessel of solitude.

Lost in contemplation, I arrived at the Alpha's office and, as was customary, entered without requiring permission. The staff greeted me with their usual warmth as I made my way to the lounge to deposit the snacks I had prepared.

As I stood there, my mobile vibrated. An email from Alpha Malcolm appeared, containing the attached transfer documents. The reality of the situation struck me, and I resolved to print them in Nathaniel's office later.

Yet just as I prepared to leave, I caught wind of hushed gossip. I halted, my heart descending as I recognised the subject of their whispered exchange.

"You simply must have seen it," one pack member whispered with barely contained excitement. "At the clinic, Alpha Nathaniel presented Yoan with flowers and the most expensive chocolates for Hazel. It was absolutely romantic."

"Indeed? He's been terribly sweet to her. With everything Yoan's experiencing with her son after the attack, she must be utterly distraught."

Another voice interjected, "I wonder... if Beta Hazel is their biological child, surely our pack would grow stronger?"

"Perhaps. Some say they're already mates, you know."

A gasp escaped my lips before I could suppress it. Surely they couldn't be serious? My chest constricted as I stood, rooted to the spot.

"What? How could they possibly be mates? Yoan already has one," someone questioned, their voice laden with disbelief.

"Well, I've heard Beta Yoan's husband isn't actually her fated mate. Besides, it's hardly unprecedented for Alphas and Lunas to marry without being true mates, is it?"

They spoke the truth there—Nathaniel and I weren't fated mates.

We'd met at the academy, where Nathaniel had pursued me rather determinedly. Initially, I had resisted, holding fast to my belief that I should wait for my fated mate.

But Nathaniel had been persistent, and eventually, he persuaded me. He made a solemn promise that if neither of us had found our mates by seventeen, we would marry.

And so we did. For five years, we'd shared our lives, believing we'd somehow circumvented the hand of fate.

But now, hearing their words, an overwhelming realisation descended upon me.

What if Nathaniel truly had found his mate? What if that mate was indeed Yoan?

Tears threatened to spill, but I forced them back. I simply couldn't allow them to witness my anguish.

With glacial composure, I interrupted their conversation. "Is that true?"

The packmates recoiled, their whispers dissolving into panicked stammering. “Luna Angeline—we didn’t realise you were there—”

Before I could demand answers, the lounge door crashed open. A breathless voice sliced through the silence, “Beta Hazel’s collapsed—cardiac failure. They’re stabilising him now.”

***

The operating theatre was stifling, the air thick with antiseptic and dread. I leaned against the wall, numb, as Nathaniel cradled Yoan—her body racked with sobs, his hands tender on her shoulders. The scene mirrored my own torment two days prior, alone in a sterile room, absorbing the news of my daughter’s death while my husband buried himself in her bed.

Now, watching them, bitterness coiled in my throat. I forced a thin smile. No theatrics. No scenes.

As I approached, Yoan flinched. Her tear-streaked face contorted with something akin to shame, and she lurched away from Nathaniel’s hold.

“L-Luna Angeline—forgive me,” she choked. “We’ve… been close since we were children. He was only comforting me—”

Nathaniel spoke before I could.

“You’ve nothing to apologise for, Yoan.” His hand remained on her shoulder, his tone soft—too soft, the kind reserved for lovers, not friends. Not in his wife’s presence.

I exhaled sharply, my resolve hardening like frost on glass.

This wasn’t the first time his devotion to her had gouged at me. But today, amidst the pack’s murmurs and the pall of loss, it carved deeper. I heard their words—he’s grown cold toward her; their bond was never true—and still, the question gnawed, Why marry me, then? Why chain us both?

The doubt clung like a parasite. Had Nathaniel wed me as some petty retort when Yoan bonded with her husband weeks before our ceremony? I crushed the thought. Our history spanned years—long before her entanglement. Surely his proposal hadn’t been a blade aimed at her.

Or had it?

I blinked, realising the paramedics had vanished. Only we three remained in that claustrophobic corridor, the fluorescents humming their judgment.

Yoan’s voice punctured the silence. “We must uncover a treatment for Hazel. Properly this time.”

“We’ll secure specialists,” Nathaniel said, decisive. “Whatever’s required.”

The collusion stung anew. I turned sharply, heels clicking toward the exit.

“Angeline—”

I didn’t pause. The corridors blurred as I quickened my pace, then broke into a sprint. The woods swallowed me—ancient oaks and bracken offering crude solace. Shifting mid-stride, my wolf’s paws struck the mud as rain needled the canopy.

Run. Just run.

My wolf roused, her presence a balm. Steady, she murmured. You are not prey.

Yet my human heart fractured. What am I, then?

“Steady, Angie,” Sky murmured, her voice a low thrum in my skull. “Quell this rage. Nathaniel isn’t your destined bond. Remember. Your worth isn’t shackled to his gaze.”

Her counsel cooled the tempest in my chest.

“You’re right,” I panted, halting beneath a cathedral of ancient pines, my breath fogging the damp air. “If Nathaniel’s free to claim his fated mate, then so are we. We deserve that.”

“Undeniably.”

Resolve hardened like frost. I returned to the manor, scrubbed myself raw under the shower’s blistering jets, and stalked to the wardrobe. Suitcase in hand, I began folding blouses with military precision.

“Tomorrow, I depart for the Black Widow Pack,” I vowed aloud.

No more compromises. No more withering in the shadow of a man who’d mistaken my loyalty for frailty.

The door hinges whined. Nathaniel loomed in the threshold, his gaze narrowing on the half-filled suitcase.

“Explain this.” His tone was glacial, detached—the voice of an Alpha assessing a tactical blunder, not a husband confronting his wife’s abandonment.