Chapter 6: What she carried

Asher POV

Two days later…

It has been two full days since Lyra rejected me in front of the entire pack, and I still hadn't done a damn thing about it.

Not because I didn't care, but because I didn't believe it.

Lyra was throwing a tantrum. That was all. She had done this before, not the rejection, or the public spectacle, but the pulling away. The quiet withdrawal that lasted a day, maybe two, before she swallowed whatever had hurt her and came back to her duties like nothing had happened. That was who Lyra was. She always came back.

Besides, where would she go? She was an Omega with no bloodline, no connections, and no family that actually wanted her. The pack was the only life she had.

My wolf disagreed. He had been clawing at the inside of my skull since the moment the words I reject you left her mouth, pacing and snarling and flooding me with a restless, gnawing agitation I couldn't shake. I shoved him down. I had more important things to deal with.

The Alpha King Summit was less than three weeks away. Every major pack in the region would be sending representatives, and in recent years, the Alpha King had made it increasingly clear that he valued internal stability above all else. Alphas whose mate situations disrupted the pack were viewed as weak, unreliable, and unfit for alliance.

Lyra had always been a liability in that regard.

Three years of whispers behind my back. Three years of pack members questioning whether an Omega truly deserved to stand beside the future Alpha. Vivienne, by contrast, was everything the pack expected a Luna to be — born into the Beta family, raised within the pack, known and loved from childhood. Formally announcing my engagement to Vivienne before the Summit would present us as a unified, stable, and strong front.

In my mind, marriage to Vivienne had always been inevitable. She was the woman I had chosen before the Council of Elders overruled me. Before the Moon Goddess interfered and before Lyra.

And yet.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had never truly intended to let Lyra go. She was my mate, whether I had marked her or not. She was the Luna recognized by the Elders. She was the only person who had genuinely helped me carry the weight of this pack for three years.

I had assumed she would stay even after the contract ended, even after I married Vivienne. I had assumed, without ever saying it aloud, that Lyra would simply remain. That she would continue running the pack the way she always had, quietly, efficiently, from the margins.

I never once considered if it was something she was willing to bear.

By the third day, everything began to fall apart.

My Beta, Jared, walked into my office with a stack of documents and a look on his face as if he were about to deliver a death notice. "Alpha, these require Luna's authorization. Supply allocation for the western border outpost. The trade renewal with Mooncrest Pack and the quarterly medical audit."

I stared at him, scratching my head, confused. "Handle it."

"I can't. They require Luna's sign-off specifically. Pack law. Lyra always—" He stopped and swallowed hard. She managed all of this personally."

“Then transfer the responsibilities to Vivienne. I’m sure she’ll be more efficient in dealing with it.

Within forty-eight hours, I regretted my decision.

I woke up to several calls and mindlinks from my Beta. Mooncrest Pack had sent word this morning, expressing disappointment at the unanswered trade renewal and giving us an ultimatum. The western border outpost had sent a delegate directly. We were already a week late.

Vivienne had no interest in supply chains. She had no patience for border logistics. The trade documents sat untouched on her desk while she pored over wedding gown catalogs and banquet seating charts.

When Jared brought her the medical audit, she waved him off with a laugh, saying she had only just resumed her office and was still settling in. When a dispute erupted between two lower-ranking families over territory allocation — the kind of thing Lyra resolved in an afternoon — Vivienne suggested they "work it out amongst themselves."

The pack's efficiency didn't just decline. It unraveled.

Patrol schedules fell behind. Supply shipments arrived at the wrong outposts. Two alliance partners sent formal inquiries about delayed correspondence. Problems I had never even known existed surfaced one after another, and each time, the answer was the same: Lyra handled that.

Lyra handled the food stores. Lyra managed the clinic rotations. Lyra maintained the relationship with the Elders' Council. Lyra personally tracked every pack member who went through a heat cycle, pregnancy, or injury and ensured their needs were met.

For three years, I had looked at her and seen an Omega holding a title she didn't earn. I never once looked at the title and realized she was the one giving it meaning.

But I still wouldn't admit I was wrong.

Lyra's rejection was emotional. Impulsive. A reaction to Vivienne's return, nothing more. She had always been fixated on me. She would come to her senses. She would come back.

What I couldn't explain was the confidence. The Lyra I knew — quiet, enduring, careful — would never have slapped Vivienne in front of the pack. She would never have spoken to me the way she did in the courtyard. Something had changed in her that I couldn't identify, and that unsettled me more than the rejection itself.

My thoughts kept circling back to Elliot. Her doctor and her friend.  The man she had been alone with in the clinic, the door closed, her hand clutching that bag like it held something she didn't want me to see.

I ordered a quiet investigation into Elliot's movements. His communications. His connection to Lyra. If someone had given her the courage to walk away, I would find out who.

A week after her departure, Vivienne appeared in my office, bright-eyed, a wedding proposal in one hand and fabric swatches in the other. She perched on the edge of my desk and started talking about ceremony dates, venue options, and the Alpha King's attendance.

I listened. Or tried to. But her voice kept blurring, replaced by Lyra’s words.

You marry Vivienne, and I stay? You hold a wedding with the woman you actually want while keeping me chained to a bond you refused to honor for three years?

What exactly is it you want from me, Asher?

The door burst open.

Jared stood in the doorway, face drained of color, breathing as he had sprinted from the other end of the compound. His eyes flicked to Vivienne, then back to me. He hesitated.

"Speak," I said.

He swallowed. "We cracked the encrypted section of the clinic records. The files Elliot had locked under a secondary authorization. Another pause before he continued. "Alpha, Lyra had a prenatal examination the day before she left."

The room went silent.

I stared at him. The words reached my ears, but I couldn’t make sense of it. They hovered somewhere outside my comprehension, circling, waiting for me to let them in.

"A prenatal examination," I repeated.

"Yes, Alpha." Jared's voice was barely above a whisper. "She was pregnant."

The wedding proposal crumpled in my fist. I didn't remember closing my hand around it. I didn't even remember standing up or Vivienne's voice, sharp and startled, asking what was wrong.

Lyra was pregnant.

Lyra was pregnant, and she hid it from me. Was that why she had come to the office the other day and asked me to mark her? Why didn’t she mention the pup in her womb? 

Instead, she kept it secret and planned around it. When she couldn't get what she needed, she took my heir and ran.

My chest burned hot with fury.

She had no right to do that. Had she forgotten the contract terms? 

Whatever had happened between us. The rejection, the contract, Vivienne’s return — none of it gave her the right to take an Alpha's child out of his pack without a word. That child carried my bloodline and has now become the future of everything I had spent my life building. 

I crushed the wedding proposal in my fist and said coldly.

"Cancel the wedding."

Vivienne's face went white. "What?"

"Cancel it. Now." I turned to Jared. "Mobilize every available unit. I want every road, port, and border crossing in a hundred-mile radius sealed. No one leaves, and no one enters without being checked."

"Alpha, what—"

"Find her." My tone was cold, devoid of emotion. "Find Lyra at all costs!"