Chapter 2 Pregnancy

Scarlett's POV

The silence stretched for nearly ten seconds.

The pack elders present exchanged glances, none daring to speak first.

I knew what they were calculating—nearly half the people in this ballroom were Winter Wolf veterans, those who had fought alongside my father for years and watched me grow up.

No one dared to choose sides before they'd figured out where they stood.

Alexander understood this better than anyone, which is why he could only lower his voice:

"Scarlett! Do you know what you're saying? Faye came back alone with nowhere to go. If you make her leave, where can she go? She's someone I grew up with—"

"Really? I thought you'd forgotten about the past," I interrupted him. "Grew up together, and then she decided you weren't good enough for her and walked away without a backward glance."

I slowly turned toward Faye, who stood behind Alexander, her emerald eyes fixed on me.

For the first time, that carefully maintained innocent expression showed a visible crack.

"You were the one who left without hesitation back then," I said, my voice not loud but every word crystal clear, "and now you're the one crying about having nowhere to go."

I paused for a moment, a cold curve forming at the corner of my mouth.

"The Goddess truly is fair—you're both experts at betrayal. One abandons old love, the other betrays his wife. You really are a match made in heaven. Since that's the case, why don't you abandon everything here and go be rogues together?"

Alexander's face turned ashen.

He wanted to argue back, his Adam's apple bobbing, but no sound emerged.

Someone in the crowd couldn't help but draw in a sharp breath.

I remained where I stood, my spine straight, my expression calm as still water.

But my heart held no sense of victory.

I forced myself to suppress that ache, burying all the complex emotions deep within, maintaining only a mask of composed control on the surface.

Just then, someone in the crowd spoke up.

The voice wasn't loud, but in such dead silence it was unnaturally clear:

"But... we can't be without an Alpha... The pack has no heir, and just like this... it's ultimately unsustainable."

Another voice immediately followed, like a spark falling into dry kindling:

"Indeed, a woman can't really be Alpha..."

Alexander's eyes instantly darkened. He clenched his fists, his chest heaving violently, his lips trembling as he tried to defend—

Thud.

Everyone heard the sound from the floor simultaneously and turned their heads in unison.

Faye had collapsed to her knees.

Her hands clutched desperately at my calves, her delicate makeup already ruined, mascara streaming down her pale cheeks.

She lifted her face, her eyes red and swollen, her voice trembling as if something was gripping her throat tightly.

After choking back a sob, she finally forced out those earth-shattering words:

"Luna, please! I need Alexander! I... I'm pregnant!"

In the ballroom, all sound vanished instantly.

I looked down, staring at those trembling hands clutching my legs, watching Faye's tear-streaked face gazing up at me, and suddenly felt the mate mark on my neck burning like a red-hot brand against my skin—

That searing pain, those countless sleepless nights I had attributed to overwork, stress, or inexplicable physical weakness—everything suddenly had a rational explanation in that single second.

Every time my body suddenly gave out, every time that burning pain jolted me awake from nightmares—

It was all because of this.

Because they had been carrying on their affair for so long. Because he had long ago betrayed our mate bond.

I stood frozen in place, staring at those clutching hands and that rain-soaked face, motionless.

I could feel countless complex gazes falling on me like needles and thorns from all directions, as if everything familiar was being stripped away from me piece by piece.

The respect, status, and future that had once belonged to me—all crumbling at this woman's single sentence.

The pack needed an heir. This was an iron law, an unspoken expectation in everyone's hearts.

And I, the Luna who had been married for three years without conceiving, had become the greatest obstacle at this crucial moment.

Alexander only briefly avoided my gaze—one second, no more than two—then bent down to gently pull Faye up from the floor, his movements careful as if he were helping a precious, fragile piece of porcelain.

Then he straightened up, faced the roomful of guests, his voice steady and carrying that Alpha authority I knew all too well:

"This child is the heir to the Crescent Moon Pack. I will not let Faye leave."

Discussion erupted like a surging tide.

"The Luna's inability to conceive is a well-known fact..."

"The pack always needs succession, this is unavoidable..."

"Miss Faye is, after all, the one the Alpha truly loves..."

"Now that there's an heir, the situation is different..."

Those whispers pressed in from all directions, like mud and sand gradually rising past my ankles, submerging my knees.

Kara let out an extremely low whimper deep in my consciousness—not an angry snarl, but the sound of something much heavier falling—muffled, dull, carrying a kind of complete despair I had never experienced.

But I could not collapse here.

Absolutely not!

I repeated this phrase in my mind, then turned around and walked out of the ballroom with firm, decisive steps.

No one called out to stop me. Not even Alexander.

I felt countless complex gazes behind me—some sympathetic, some gleefully schadenfreude, others coldly calculating.

But I didn't look back, maintaining my straight spine and composed gait until I completely disappeared from their sight.