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.
ELLARIA.“Tate!”He didn’t stop.He was fast when he wanted to be and right now he wanted to be and he was weaving around everything on the path without slowing once. I went after him calling his name and he kept going like he couldn’t hear me or had decided not to.“Tatum!”Nothing.He ducked around the corner of the nearest house and I pushed myself faster and came around after him and he was already halfway down the next stretch of path putting more distance between us with every second.A hand closed around my elbow and pulled me to a stop.I spun around.Arren.“Wait here,” he said. Gently. “Let me go after him.”I knocked his hand off my elbow. “I don’t need your help.”I turned and went the other direction, scanning everything in front of me. Every gap between houses. Every possible place a small boy who didn’t want to be found could disappear into.“Tate.” I kept calling even though he wasn’t answering. “Tatum please.”Nothing came back.I made it back to the house after anoth
ELLARIAI wiped my face as I walked and hated myself for every tear.I asked myself the question I'd been avoiding since the moment I agreed to come back here.Was this a mistake?Coming back. Agreeing to help him. Did my need to save lives mean I shouldn't save myself?I knew I was strong. I'd been forced to be. It hadn't happened overnight either. It took time and hard work and effort and a hundred sleepless nights where I turned in bed tormented by every memory. Every time I'd cried over him. Every time I'd missed my mother. Every time I'd wished I'd never followed Arren to that refugee camp after he saved me in that forest.Was it dramatic? Maybe.But that was the truth about heartbreak. Overcoming it took work. It took years. And I had done those years. I had put in every single one of them.And I let myself exist in the same space as him again for what?A good cause?His people were still dying. I was barely making progress. And I'd already lost about a year of my new self just
ELLARIA.Katerina’s hand flew to her cheek.She stared at the ground for a moment. Then she lifted her eyes to mine and her voice came out low and vicious.“You bitch.”I turned to Tatum.He was looking up at me with wide eyes that had gone a little frightened around the edges and it took everything in me to soften my face when I looked at him.I touched his cheek with my palm. “Go back to the house,” I said. Quietly. Firmly. “Go straight there. I’ll be right behind you.”He looked between me and Katerina.“Tate.” I held his gaze. “Go.”He pulled away from my hand and nodded once. A small shaky movement. Then he turned and started back the way we’d come without another word.I watched him go until he’d rounded the corner.Then I turned back to Katerina.She’d dropped her hand from her cheek and was standing straight with her eyes on me and something burning behind them.“I will gouge your eyes out if you take one step closer to me.” Her voice was tight. Controlled. “I said nothing but
85.ELLARIA.My chest tightened the moment Katerina’s eyes met mine.Tatum’s new friend was Katerina’s son.The freaking irony of it sat in my chest like something I couldn’t dislodge.I watched Tate bound up the porch steps and throw himself against Katerina’s side in a hug like he’d known her for years. He pointed back at me with his whole arm.“That’s my mom! She’s been working at the hospital like I told you but she’s here now!”Katerina laughed and ruffled his hair with a gentleness that looked effortless and warm and maternal and everything I knew she wasn’t. “I do know your mother,” she said, letting her words carry loud enough to reach me. “I’ve known her for a very long time.”Dalor came down the steps toward me.He stopped in front of me and looked up with a small uncertain smile. “I think I remember you.” He tilted his head. “You’re that lady who used to follow my dad around a lot.”I kept my expression exactly where it was and smiled at him.He wasn’t wrong.I had followed
81.ELLARIA.The morning had started with four deaths before seven AM.I’d been on the ward since five thirty, moving between beds, checking vitals, adjusting dosages on medications I was increasingly certain weren’t doing anything useful. The contamination meeting wasn’t until tomorrow and until t
ARREN.She sat down without a word."That happens often." I gestured toward Dalor's room. "And you never told me.""I don't understand it." Her voice was quieter now, coming out worn. "When he was little it wasn't so bad. He'd wander around the house for a few minutes or hours, and then come back t
ELLARIA.I closed the door behind him and stood in the hallway.The house was quiet.Not the kind of quiet that felt empty. The kind that felt full of something that had just been here and wasn’t anymore. His scent was still in the air. All him. All pine and cedar, and maleness. Faint but present
ARREN.Fuck. I followed her in and she closed the door behind us. And suddenly I was standing in her house.I hadn’t thought that far ahead when I got out of the car. I’d been operating on pure reflex since the moment her umbrella nearly went airborne and somewhere between grabbing it from her and
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