TIME

MAYA

"Are you looking for a child for the Alpha, or are you looking for a vagina to service?"

I dropped the question into the quiet night air like a heavy iron weight. She was almost out of sight, her dark silk dress vanishing around the corner of the corridor, but I was loud enough and she heard.

The sound of her retreating footsteps instantly stopped.

The grandfather clock in the corner ticked loudly in the suffocating stillness—tick, tick, tick. I stood beside the small tea table, my knuckles white as I gripped the edge of the dark mahogany, my chest heaving up and down in shallow, controlled breaths. The Sacred Book of Pack Laws lay wide open on page ten in front of me, but I didn't need to look at the yellowed parchment anymore. The sick, twisted loophole was burned into my mind.

For a long, agonizing moment, Maria didn't move. She stood frozen in the dim torchlight near the stone archway, her back turned to me, her shoulders stiff as a board under her heavy velvet cloak.

Slowly, very slowly, she turned around.

She walked back after a while. Every step she took back toward the sitting room was slow, deliberate, and heavy. Her usual smooth, arrogant glide was completely gone. Her silk skirt rustled loudly against the floorboards, and as she stepped back into the warm, flickering glow of the fireplace, I saw her face clearly.

The color had drained from her skin. The cruel, triumphant smile she had walked away with just seconds ago was completely wiped off her lips.

And facing me, she warned that I should not let anyone hear about that.

"Shut your mouth!" Maria hissed, taking a fast, aggressive step toward me, her hands balled into tight fists at her sides. She leaned over the tea table, her dark eyes flashing with a sharp, desperate panic that she couldn't hide. "Do not ever repeat those words! Do not let a single soul in this palace hear you utter such disgusting nonsense!"

"Why?" I asked, my voice cold, steady, and unyielding as I locked my eyes directly onto hers. "Is the great Luna Maria afraid of what the Pack Council would say if they found out what you've really been doing behind closed doors?"

"I did that when I was feeling bad about Edward!" she snapped defensively, her chest rising and falling in shallow, frantic gasps.

She was loud with the warning and at the same time soft. Her voice bounced off the high stone walls in a strange, choked whisper—a desperate attempt to sound commanding and threatening while simultaneously praying that none of the guards or housemaids down the hallway overheard her confession.

She was trying to cover her tracks. She was trying to pretend that buying surrogates, hiring random men, and manipulating ancient bloodline laws was all just an act of desperation born from a grieving, lonely wife trying to save her husband's legacy.

But in her eyes, I could see she was scared.

The fierce, untouchable monster who had ruled this estate with an iron fist for nineteen years was cracking right in front of me. The mask was slipping, revealing a terrified, desperate woman whose dark secrets were being dragged out into the light one by one.

Slowly, I am breaking the great Maria.

A quiet, powerful realization settled deep inside my chest. She wasn't invincible. The untouchable Luna was crumbling under the weight of her own wickedness. Even the street she cleared shows she is melting slowly.

Every morning, when I looked out the high palace windows, I saw the marks of her breakdown. The arrogant noblewoman who used to order servants to be whipped for a speck of dust on her shoes had spent days on her knees in the dirt. Her hands were blistered and raw, her skin was sunburnt, her fine silk gowns were ruined with mud, and the common villagers had laughed at her expense. The physical humiliation had stripped away her pride, and now, my sharp words were tearing through whatever defense she had left.

Maria took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. She smoothed down the front of her dark gown with trembling, calloused fingers. When she looked up at me again, the sharp, venomous anger in her expression was replaced by something even more shocking: a desperate, pleading soft tone.

"Maya, please," Maria said, her voice dropping into a soft, breathless plea that sounded entirely foreign coming from her lips. "Listen to me for once. Edward needs an heir. The palace needs an heir, and this is a battle the two of us, as his wives, should fight for and not against!"

I scoffed, a cold, bitter laugh bursting from my throat. "Fight together? You tried to have four men drag me out of my bed and break my legs four nights ago, Maria! You tried to force a divorce on my husband! And now you want us to be partners?"

"Because the pack is falling apart!" Maria raised her hands in frustration, her voice trembling with genuine anxiety. "Look at him, Maya! Edward is losing his mind! He paces his study all night, he barely eats, and the elders are growing restless! An Alpha without a bloodline heir is a target! If the neighboring packs sense weakness, they will attack us, and everything we have built will burn to the ground!"

She stepped closer to the edge of the table, her eyes searching my face with a dark, heavy intensity that made the room feel ice-cold.

"You say you love him," Maria whispered, leaning in, her voice thick with emotion. "If you truly love him, then you must understand the weight of the crown he wears. A child is the only thing that can secure his throne. A child is the only thing that can bring peace to his soul!"

"Philomena would have given him an heir if someone had not killed her," I said.

The words left my lips before I could even stop them, clear and sharp in the quiet room.

Maria froze mid-breath. She stopped and looked me straight in the eyes, her dark pupils dilating as a wave of bitter, long-buried venom flashed across her features. The soft, pleading act vanished instantly, replaced by an ancient, ugly hatred that burned deep within her soul.

"She was a problem, and she is still a problem even twenty years after her death," Maria said, her voice dropping into a low, terrifying rasp that vibrated in the cold room.

My heart hammered violently against my ribs, but my body stayed completely still. I leaned forward slightly, resting my palms flat against the dark wood of the table, staring straight into the eyes of the woman who had stolen my past life.

"Was that why they killed her?" I asked.

The quiet room fell into an absolute, breathless silence. The fire crackled softly in the hearth, sending tiny orange sparks up the chimney as Maria stared at me, her mouth slightly parted, her breath hitching in her throat.

Maybe it is time to come clear and have a discussion about Philomena's death, I said under my breath.