Chapter 2

Wasting no time, Victoria dragged me away from Damien’s study and out of the pack house. She bundled me into a chauffeured pack car, and we took off down the winding roads. We drove in silence. Occasionally, the driver would look back at me in the rearview mirror with what appeared to be sympathy. But he was powerless to help me. Maybe it was just my imagination. The only thing that can be confirmed is no one could help me now.

No one but Damien, that is. And he gave his mother his blessing.

The clinic was sterile and smelled of antiseptic and herbs.

Mara, the silver-haired healer, prepared me for an ultrasound as Victoria looked on sternly from the corner. Mara smeared a cold gel across my bare belly. The wand glided over my stomach. For one heartbreaking moment, I saw it - a tiny flickering heartbeat on the grainy screen. So small. So perfect. My baby.

“You’re six weeks along,” Mara confirmed softly. “This early on, the procedure is straightforward. Two pills now, another dose in twenty-four hours if needed. There will be some cramping and bleeding, of course.”

She gave me a small paper cup containing the first dose, and placed a glass of water on the tray beside me. A brief look of sympathy crossed her eyes, but she stayed professional. It was clear to me that she wouldn’t interfere with the Luna-in-waiting’s orders. No matter how wrong those orders felt.

“She’ll take the pills now,” Victoria said, stepping forward. “I want to be certain it’s done.”

I stared down at the pills. They looked harmless. Small, white, ordinary. But they were poison to the fragile life growing inside me.

My mind drifted back to the night this life had begun.

It had been three months ago, the night Damien returned from a particularly difficult Council summit. His uncle, Declan, had been especially vicious that day, sowing doubts about Damien’s readiness to lead the pack, implying that the Neighley line was growing weak. Damien had stormed into our bedroom long after midnight, tie loosened, eyes burning with frustration and something darker. Need.

I’d been reading in bed, waiting for him. He entered and we locked eyes, the Bond flared between us. He didn’t speak. He crossed the room in three strides, pulled me against him, and kissed me deeply. His desperate hands were everywhere. Tugging at my nightgown, gripping my thighs, tangling in my long, thick hair. I’d arched against him, trying to get closer, filled with joy at finally being wanted so fiercely.

“Liora.” He’d whispered my name against my skin like a prayer. Or a curse. When he entered me, there was no pause, no reaching for the bedside drawer where he kept the protection he was always so careful to use. He simply took, claimed, lost himself completely. I’d clung to him, tears of overwhelmed pleasure streaking my cheeks.

Afterward, he hadn’t rolled away as he usually did. He’d stayed inside me, arms wrapped around me, face buried in my neck. For the first time since our wedding, he’d fallen asleep still connected to me, as if letting go might break something fragile between us.

That night, I laid awake until dawn, stroking his hair, dreaming of a future where he looked at me the way I looked at him. A future with laughter, with pups playing in the gardens, with him choosing me - not because the Moon Goddess had forced his hand, but because he wanted to.

That night, I had really believed that his walls had finally crumbled.

I was wrong.

The truth is, he’d never spoken of children. Not once in our two years of marriage. Every other time we’d come together, he’d been meticulous about using protection, even during my Heats when we were both half-mad with desire. I’d told myself it was responsibility, that he was waiting until his position as pack leader was secure, until the election was won and we were past his uncle’s threats.

But deep down, I’d known the truth. He didn’t want a child with me. As an Omega mute of illegitimate blood, I would only weaken his claim. The pack already questioned his judgment for accepting me as his Luna. A pup who might inherit my disability? It would be blood in the water for his uncle and his other enemies.

He should have had a better choice, Seraphina.

I’d always known, deep down, that Damien had wanted Seraphina, my stepsister. She was the golden child, the perfect girl. They’d been together for years before the night of our Bonding. They’d been dating openly, their hands brushing in hallways, their laughter echoing through the pack house，as I could only watched silently from an inconspicuous spot. She was the one Victoria had groomed to be Luna, the one the Council whispered about, the one the pack expected. The one he had chosen first.

That was how things would have gone, if it weren't for the sudden heat.

I was never the plan. I was the accident. The Heat that pulled me to his door, the Bond that snapped into place without warning, the Mark he couldn’t take back.

But even after the Moon Goddess forced us together, even I've tried my best to be a good wife, I could still feel the truth in the way his eyes sometimes drifted toward the door when Seraphina walked by. The way his mother’s voice softened when she spoke her name, the way the pack still looked at her like she was the future they’d been waiting for.

She was the one he’d wanted all along.

I was just the one he got stuck with.

And now he’d proven it. When Victoria called about aborting our baby, he didn’t hesitate, and even thought the matter was a disturbance to his work. He’d agreed without even speaking to me.

“Do as mother says. Don’t disturb me again.” His icy words echoed in my head.

I reached for the paper cup with the little pills, then stopped. My hand hovered, shaking.

Goddess help me, I wanted this baby. Even if Damien could never love me. Even if the pack scorned us both. My mind raced for a way out. I could leave. I could take what little money I had, vanish into human territory or seek sanctuary with another pack. I could work, raise our child alone.

I would love our baby enough for both parents.

I pulled my hand away from the paper cup. I shook my head fiercely, the tears coming.

Victoria’s lips thinned. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Liora. Damien is in the middle of campaign strategy. The election is too close. He can’t afford distractions.”

I tried to tell her I wanted to leave. I gestured frantically toward the door, then to my stomach, then made the walking motion with my fingers. I clasped my hands in a desperate plea.

Victoria’s eyes flashed with irritation. “The pack’s future is at stake. An heir cannot carry defective genes. It would hand his uncle the election on a silver platter. You’re Luna now. Act like it!”

Defective.

The word sliced deeper than any claw.

I tried again, more desperately. I pointed to myself, shaking my head, cradling my arms as if rocking an infant. I don’t want to be Luna. I don’t want the throne for our child. Just let me have my baby.

If I could speak, I could negotiate with her...

My signs were invisible to her. Always had been. Damien had never learned them either, not in all our time together. To them, my frantic head-gestures were nothing more than stubborn defiance from a mute girl who refused to accept reality.

Victoria snatched the cup from the tray. “Enough.”

She grabbed my jaw, her long red nails digging into my cheeks. I clawed at her wrist, but she was stronger. Mara the healer turned away, pretending to busy herself with paperwork, unable to intervene.

The pills were forced between my teeth. They tasted bitter and chalky.

Water followed, poured mercilessly until I either swallowed or drowned in it.

I swallowed.

Victoria crumpled the cup and dropped it back onto the tray.

She released me. “It’s done. Soon, we’ll be able to pretend this mistake never happened.”

I slid off the table and curled onto the cold floor with my arms wrapped around my stomach. As if I could still protect my dying baby.

The first cramp hit moments later. A dull ache that quickly sharpened. I pressed my forehead to the tile floor, silent screams trapped in my throat as wave after wave crashed through me.

Blood came warm and heavy, soaking through my clothes, pooling beneath me.

Victoria watched for a moment, a cold satisfaction in her eyes.

The pain built, each contraction was a goodbye to the future I’d imagined. I saw flashes behind my closed eyes; Damien’s golden gaze fixed on his papers, refusing to meet mine; the tiny heartbeat on the ultrasound; the empty nursery that would never be filled.

As darkness finally claimed me, one last thought pierced the agony: I would have loved you enough for both of us, little one.

I’m so sorry.