LOGINEllaria Bravemoon loved her husband despite all the reasons she knew she shouldn’t. She gave him five years, her loyalty, and her whole heart. He gave her a contract, a title, and nothing else. Arren Pierce was the Alpha of one of the most powerful Sectors in the werewolf realm, and his wife… was nothing but a placeholder at his side. When Ellaria discovers she’s pregnant with Arren’s twins, she thinks it might finally change things between them. Instead he accuses her of an affair, puts her under house arrest, and walks away with his true fated mate. She loses everything. And when she finally decides to leave, she discovers that the man she has loved in silence for five years isn’t as indifferent as he always pretended to be. But some things, once broken, cannot simply be undone.
View MoreELLARIA.
My Alpha forced me to sign a marriage contract: no love, no children.
He didn’t know I had fallen in love with him at first sight. And now, with only three months left until our contract expired, I was pregnant.
***
“Luna! You’re having twins!” the doctor exclaimed.
The two tiny, beating hearts on the ultrasound screen left my mind completely blank.
“Should I call the Alpha now?” she asked.
“No!” I blurted, the word coming out as a sharp, sudden cry.
The doctor’s smile froze.
My voice unsteady, I tried to explain, “We’ve been wanting this for so long. I want to surprise him myself.”
Her expression softened at once. “Oh, how lovely!”
I fled the hospital almost in a run. I had lied to her. My husband, Arren, the Alpha, had never wanted a baby. He had made me sign a contract to ensure it.
Arren was the Alpha King of the entire Eastern Sector, a man wholly devoted to his duty. Four years ago, his father had died suddenly under mysterious circumstances, and an Alpha could only be officially crowned as Alpha King after he took a Luna. He chose me, a mere servant. In return, he gave me a roof over my head and promised to help me find my mother, whom I hadn’t seen for as long as I could remember.
Our arrangement was strictly temporary and only 90 days left.
Now two babies grew inside me. How was I supposed to tell my husband that I had failed him in every way he had expected of this marriage?
I stood in front of my car and stared at my reflection in the window.
My cheeks were flushed, my eyes red and puffy from crying.
I glanced down at my stomach.
Two little lives lived inside me. I imagined tiny fingers curling around mine, and a soft, sweet voice calling me “Mama.”
Maybe the babies could change everything. Maybe they could turn this fake marriage into something real.
As soon as I got home, I lay down on the sofa and drifted off to sleep, replaying every possible future scenario in my head.
What felt like hours later, his scent woke me. Pine and cedar, with something warm beneath it, filled my lungs before I even opened my eyes.
I whispered, “Alpha Arren.”
He sank into the seat across from me, his gray eyes blazing with intensity as he ran a hand through his dark hair.
He looked exhausted. Then, without a word, he leaned forward, his large hand reaching out to cup my nape, pulling me toward him.
He didn't wait for permission. He claimed my lips in a kiss that was both weary and possessive.
I stopped thinking and simply let myself feel, my fingers curling into his shirt, pulling him closer. His tongue parted my lips, and he sucked gently at my lower lip, sending a shiver through me.
His other hand slid down my waist, gripping me as if to ensure I wasn't going anywhere. But as his lips lingered near my neck, his breath hitting my skin in ragged bursts, he suddenly stiffened.
He stayed there, buried in the crook of my neck, breathing me in with a sudden, sharp focus.
“You smell different,” he muttered.
Every muscle in my body locked up.
The babies, I thought.
Before his wolf could sense the truth, I pressed my hand to his chest and put distance between us.
I wanted to lie, but as I looked into his eyes, the words caught in my throat and wouldn’t come out.
What if he would accept it...
“I feel a little sick,” I whispered weakly, that was a part of turth.
“You should see a healer.”
He pulled back, pushed himself to his feet, and turned toward the bathroom.
“Wait.” I grabbed the pregnancy report from under the cushion where I’d hidden it. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
He stopped and turned around. “What is it?”
This was it.
Goddess.
Okay.
The moment that would change everything.
I stepped forward, but his entire body went stiff before I could utter a single word. His eyes darkened as he stared into the void.
Someone was contacting him through a mind link.
He turned away from me abruptly, cupping a hand around his ear as if amplifying the voice on the other end.
“Are you okay?” He sounded genuinely worried.
Gentle… and loving. He would never use such a soft tone for pack business.
The warmth I’d clung to turned to ice in my chest.
Only a handful of wolves could reach an Alpha through a private link like that.
And I knew exactly who he was speaking to the second I heard the soft, feminine voice reply in a sorrowful tone.
His ex-girlfriend.
His fated mate.
Katerina Mikaelson.
TEN YEARS AGOELLARIAThe silence after my nod stretched longer than I expected.Arren didn’t move toward me. He stayed where he was near the wall, studying my face with that same direct attention he’d given me in the boardroom the day he offered the contract. The weight of it made my pulse climb higher.“I need you to be certain,” he said. His voice was quiet but firm. “I have no intention of pressuring you into anything you don’t want simply because you think you have some duty to fill tonight. The ceremony is over. The vows are done. Nothing about this arrangement requires you to share a bed with me.”I swallowed. The honesty in his tone settled something and unsettled something else at the same time. My fingers twisted together in front of me.“Do you… not want to sleep with me?” I asked. The question came out smaller than I meant it to, nervous around the edges.Arren’s gaze sharpened. He studied me for a long moment, then closed the distance between us with slow, deliberate step
ELLARIA. By the time the vows were done I was fully and formally named Luna of the Eastern Sector in front of several hundred people.I sat with that through the entire reception.The hall had transformed from ceremony to celebration the way that only significant amounts of money and staff could manage. Food on every table. Drinks appearing in glasses that kept emptying. The dance floor packed from the first song and the music loud enough that you felt it in your chest before your ears caught up.Arren and I sat at the center of all of it.Guest after guest came to offer congratulations. Alpha families and council members and people whose names I tried to hold onto and lost immediately. I smiled and said the right things and let Arren handle the political dimensions of each conversation because he knew these people and I didn't and we both understood that without having to say it.His hand was in mine the entire time.He kept me close. Not as a performance. Just consistently. His bod
ELLARIA.The dress weighed more than I expected.Heavy white fabric that pooled at my feet and required two people to arrange every time I moved. The tailors had been at it since before sunrise, adjusting things I couldn't see and conferring in low voices about things I didn't understand. I stood in the middle of it all and focused on breathing at a normal rate.Some of the women I used to work with were here.That was the strangest part. Women I'd cleaned corridors beside and eaten breakfast with in the staff kitchen were now pinning fabric and handing things to the tailors and not quite meeting my eyes. I didn't blame them. I didn't know how to meet their eyes either.Mirela was the exception.Arren had introduced me to his cousin a week ago. She'd looked me over once and then pulled me into a hug I wasn't prepared for and said she was so glad someone was finally making him do this. I'd liked her immediately in the way you liked people who didn't leave you any choice.She was still
ELLARIA.I stood there and heard the words land and my brain did absolutely nothing useful with them.I want you to be my wife.He was still looking at me. Waiting. Like he'd said something reasonable. Like he'd asked me to pass him a document or confirm a time and was simply waiting for the practical response."I'm sorry," I said. "Could you say that again.""You heard me," he said.I had heard him. That was the problem. I'd heard him perfectly clearly and my brain was refusing to process it because processing it meant accepting that I was standing in a palace boardroom being asked to marry the heir to the eastern sector by the heir to the eastern sector and that was not something that happened to maids from refugee camps who still didn't know where their mothers were."I'm a maid," I said."I'm aware.""You're a prince.""Also aware."I looked at him. He looked back at me with the patience of someone who had anticipated this part and was prepared to wait it out."Why?" I said.He le
ELLARIA.He told me to stop making a fuss and walked away.Katerina at his side and the little boy trotting along between them, and the three of them moved down their path together like a unit, like something complete, like something that had existed long before I came into the picture and would ex
ARREN.Kade came in and dropped into the chair across from my desk with the energy of a man who'd aged five years in the last two hours."Katerina's taken the boy in," he said. "He's down for the night.""Good."He looked like he had more to say about the evening's events. After something like the
ELLARIA.“Then you can say goodbye to your job.” His jaw tightened.I'd given my all to this hospital, and he knew it.I had no wolf and none of the healing abilities the other doctors possessed. All I had was myself, and the skills I had forced into my bones over the years, once I realized the wor
ELLARIA.My heart slammed against my ribs. But Arren barely glanced at it before tossing it onto the side table."Don't bring patient files home, Ellaria. You know the rules."The paper slipped off the table and scattered across the floor.The front door closed behind him and a few seconds later I
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