Chapter 2

When I walked out of the Healing Hall, the healer’s words were still echoing in my head.

“You were four weeks pregnant. But the fetus has stopped developing.”

“The silver taint has damaged your Moonborn Core. Your body could not sustain a black-core pregnancy in this condition.”

“If you begin treatment now, there may still be a chance.”

“But if you delay any longer, your Moonborn Core may collapse completely.”

“After that, you may never complete a mate bond again.”

“Or carry another child.”

Tears fell without warning.

The child I had waited five years for had come without my knowing.

And left without my knowing.

I never even had the chance to protect it.

Ten years ago, assassins came for the last Blackthorne heir.

My parents died protecting Ronan.

Not because he was Ronan.

Because if he died, Blackthorne’s black-core bloodline would end with him.

And Nightvale’s ancient vow would die too.

Long before I was born, our Moonborn bloodline had been promised to Blackthorne.

My mother once told me our core was not a blessing.

It was a key.

The only key strong enough to stabilize Blackthorne blood.

That was why Blackthorne took me in after Nightvale fell.

Not mercy.

Not kindness.

A vow had to be fulfilled.

For years, I told myself that once Ronan and I completed the mate bond, all of it would mean something.

Now I knew better.

I had never been anything more than a debt he meant to settle.

A bloodline he needed.

Even so, I still went to his company.

The moment I pushed open his office door, I caught the scent first.

Ronan.

Selene.

Their scents were tangled together so tightly it made my chest go cold.

This was Alpha territory, and she had left herself all over it.

Selene stood by his desk, adjusting the vase of purple irises. Ronan watched her with a softness I had almost never seen from him.

He did not even like flowers.

Apparently, he did when they came from her.

The warmth vanished from his face the second he saw me.

“What are you doing here?”

“I need money,” I said. “I’ll pay you back.”

I wanted to live.

That mattered more than pride.

Selene smiled before Ronan could answer.

“Miss Elara, after the Nightvale Pack fell, Blackthorne took you in, didn’t they?”

Her voice was light. Her eyes were not.

“They fed you. Clothed you. Paid for everything. And now you’re here asking for more.”

She tilted her head.

“I thought Nightvale’s Moonborn blood was supposed to be priceless.”

“Or is it only priceless when you need to remind Ronan that Blackthorne owes you?”

I did not look at her.I looked at Ronan.

One word from him would have been enough.

Just one.

But he would not meet my eyes.

“Selene is right.”

His voice turned colder with every word.

“You can solve your own money problem.”

“When the mate bond is complete, your parents’ debt will be repaid in full.”

For a second, I could not breathe.

So that was all my parents’ sacrifice meant to him.

A debt.

Nothing more.

I lowered my gaze and saw their hands beneath the desk.

His fingers were laced with hers.

And on his wrist was the family signet bracelet my father had given him before he died.

Something in me went still.

“You won’t have to wait for the mate bond,” I said.

My voice came out rough.

Ronan frowned at me, then his expression darkened.

“Is that all you know how to do? Hold that over my head?”

He looked at me as if his last bit of patience had finally snapped.

“Your parents saved me. So what?”

“Does that mean I’m supposed to owe you forever?”

The room tightened under his Alpha pressure.

Not anger.

Disgust.

The kind that made it clear I was something he no longer wanted near him.

I went cold all over.

So this was the truth.

He did not hate the debt.

He hated being reminded of it.

A second later, he told the pack enforcers to throw me out.

As they dragged me from the office, I heard him tell his beta aide to buy Selene the eighty-million yacht she wanted.

“Consider it an early gift,” he said.

“For her and the child.”

Eighty million.

Enough to cover all my treatment.

Enough to buy me time.

But in Ronan’s eyes, my life was worth less than her passing whim.

I stood in the hallway and laughed.

Then my vision blurred.

Good.

At least now I finally understood.

I was never the one he wanted to keep.

And this mate bond should have ended long ago.