Chapter 5

Third-Person's POV

What could possibly be wrong with her?

The messenger, a scrawny wolf with trembling hands and a nervous scent, stood in front of me, barely managing to meet Nolan's eyes. “Alpha,” he said, voice taut, “the Healer insists it’s urgent. He said it concerns… your wife’s medical results.”

Nolan let out a short, humorless breath.

My wife.

It felt strange, the word. Heavier now. But he shoved that thought aside.

“She was perfectly fine earlier,” Nolan muttered. “Lively, throwing her little tantrum, storming around like she owned the place. If anything, she looked healthier than ever. Yet you think she's illed?”

The worker didn’t answer, of course. He simply nodded and backed away, disappearing the second he stopped acknowledging his existence.

Nolan started pacing, his thoughts still spinning around Ellie’s outburst like flies around fire.

She said she wanted a divorce.

And she meant it.

He could still hear the way she said it, not the sobbing little girl he used to know, the one who wilted under pressure and curled up at his feet with hope in her eyes. No, this version of her was wild and loud and sure. Nothing like her past acts, this character felt far to… real.

And it got under his skin.

Nolan clenched his jaw. His footsteps echoed under the high ceilings, but even that sound couldn’t drown out his thoughts.

“Alpha,” the Beta said quietly, stepping up beside me, “sir, excuse my words, but…why are you so angry?”

He didn’t answer.

He tilted his head. “You’re not usually like this. Cold, yes. Focused. Controlled. But this? You’re… upset.”

Nolan stopped walking.

The worst part was, he wasn’t wrong.

He’d always prided himself on being unmoved. Strategic. He handled war councils and border threats with less heat than he’d felt knowing Ellie was packing her things like she’d never cared for him at all.

Nolan ran a hand through his hair, denied, “No, I am not. It's because she’s acting out. ”

“Tell the Healer he can leave the results in my office." He spoke coldly, impatiently, "I’ll look at them when I have time.”

The Beta hesitated, then nodded, clearly sensing this wasn’t a battle worth pushing.

As Nolan turned to leave, his jaw tightened.

Medical results.

How could there possibly be something wrong with her?

She was too loud. Too bold. Too alive.

Ellie's POV

The next day, I was double-checking my bag, folding each piece of clothing over again, not because I was sentimental, but because it gave my hands something to do while the rest of me burned. I refused to leave in a flurry. No storming out. No slammed doors. If I was leaving, I’d do it calm. Composed. On my own two feet.

“Too bad,” one of the maids whispered nearby, her voice not nearly quiet enough. “Nolan’s been Alpha for so long. He really needs an heir. Poor man. Maybe things will finally settle down once Felicity takes over. She can definitely give him children unlike Ellie.”

I closed the lid of my suitcase and let the soft click of the latch answer for me.

I can have children. That’s not the problem.

What scares me is the thought of raising them in this place. This house isn’t a home, it’s a pedestal I was meant to stand on, silent and pretty, until I cracked under the weight. If someone wants to stay here and be worshipped and walked over, that’s on them.

A soft chime echoed through the packhouse’s intercom system. It was a message from the Beta, formal and direct to my room alone.

“The rejection ceremony has been prepared. Please report to the Alpha’s office, Ellie.”

I stood up, brushing invisible dust from my sleeves. My shoes clicked with purpose as I left the room behind. One step, then another, down the long hallway I’d once memorized with the desperation of someone trying to belong.

I rounded the corner and nearly froze.

Voices. Familiar, but from a dream I hadn’t let myself remember until now.

Two men stood at the end of the corridor.

The first was tall and broad-shouldered, his hair a tousled chestnut brown that curled slightly at the ends, like he’d always been too impatient to brush it. He wore a dark military-style jacket over a fitted shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing faint scars along sun-kissed skin. His stance was alert, a protective tension in his frame like he was ready to step in front of anything that moved too fast. His sharp eyes locked onto mine the second I rounded the corner.

The second man stood just behind him, older, leaner, with silver threaded through his cold-brew brown hair, slicked neatly back. He was dressed in a long ash-gray coat trimmed with gold, regal in posture but unreadable in expression. Still and sharp like a drawn blade, one that hadn’t dulled in the slightest with time. His gaze was colder, quieter, but no less piercing.

Those must have been the visitors from the Moonstone Pack Nolan had mentioned.

The air seemed to bend between us, the younger one turned, his eyes narrowing the second they landed on me. A look flashed across his face so fast I nearly missed it. He nodded to one of the guards, asking low, “Who is she?”

My brows furrowed, I ducked my head, and my legs carried me past them toward the office door.

I was almost in Nolan’s office when I heard one of the guards answering his question.

“She’s our Alpha’s rogue wife.”

Rogue.

The word slapped me, not because it hurt anymore, but because I’d heard it so many times it had nearly become my name. Not Ellie. Not mate. Not woman. Just… rogue. Something less-than.

The doors shut behind me, and I let myself focus on the trail ahead.

Nolan stood behind his desk, arms crossed, looking at me like I was late, even though I wasn’t.

“You’re early,” he muttered.

“Your Beta said now,” I said. “So I’m here now.”

He studied me, trying to read the cracks in my face like always, but I didn’t give him any.

“Last chance to change your mind,” he said, smirking slightly, trying to make it sound like a joke. But his eyes weren’t laughing.

I tilted my head sarcastically. “You sure you want to give up your dramatic rogue wife? Apparently, she was always good for a bit of gossip.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line.

“Let’s get it over with,” I said.

Something in his expression shifted. Annoyance, maybe. Or disbelief. As if the script in his head was finally starting to unravel.

Suddenly, the doors slammed open.

The Beta burst in, breathless and holding a folder in his hand.

“Alpha! Wait—Please, these are important!”

We both turned.

He rushed forward, gripping a folder like it were burning his fingers. His eyes flicked to me, wide and uncertain, then back to Nolan.

I frowned, watching as Nolan for the papers.

“What could it possibly be, Beta.”

I saw it before the folder even touched Nolan's hand. My name was printed across the top of the document. The official stamp of the pack’s medical division. I knew what was printed with in it:

Pregnancy confirmed. Estimated gestation: five weeks.

Nolan frowned and as he took it, "What is this...?"