CHAPTER 1: THE KICK

He smelled another woman's perfume on Silas.

Valentina stood in the doorway of their bedroom, their bedroom, her hand on the doorframe where she'd paused mid-step. The sheets were all awry. The window stood open. And the Omega from the border patrol, the one with the flaxen hair, the laugh that tinkled like broken glass, was pulling her dress over her head with the casual ease of one who'd done it many times before.

“Valentina.” Silas didn’t bother to look surprised. He leaned against the headboard, shirtless, hair dark and tousled in a way she'd once found charming. "This isn't—"

"Don't." The word scraped out of her throat like gravel. "Don't you DARE say it's not what it looks like.

The Omega. Nora, that was her name, Valentina recalled now. She had the gall to smirk as she slipped past. “Alpha.” She said to Silas, the goodbye a slap on the face.

The door clicked closed.

Silence. Thick. Suffocating.

Valentina's wolf was under her skin, her chest filling with a restless growl. She put her hand to her stomach, flat still, hiding the secret she had carried for three weeks. The secret she was so scared and excited to tell.

No longer.

"Say it," said Valentina. Her voice was even. She didn't know how to.

Silas sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "You weren't supposed to find out like this.

"So then how was I supposed to find out? At the pack meeting? When you announce your new Luna?"

He winced. Good job.

“You know what the pack needs, Valentina-

“An heir. Yes. “I’ve heard the spiel. She entered the room, her boots silent on the hardwood. But what I don’t understand, Silas, is this. I’m your friend. Your mate. We were bound by the Moon Goddess herself. And you're saying that's not enough?"

His jaw clenched. "You be too strong.

The words hung in the air between them, ugly and raw and real.

"What?

"You be too strong. He repeated it, this time louder. Maybe repeating it would make it make sense. “The pack is afraid of you. I'm scared of you. You don't need anyone, Valentina. You never did. And a Luna is meant to—"

"Supposed to what? To bow? To submit? To be grateful for whatever scraps you throw her?"

“Supposed to make the Alpha feel like an alpha. Silas's eyes flashed and his wolf leaped to meet her wolf. "Every time I look at you I see someone that could take my place without breaking a sweat. You're too bossy. Too strong. Too much.

Something shattered in her chest. Not her heart, which had shattered the moment she walked through the door. Something more. Something that had been keeping her together for years.

And that's it," she whispered. "Five years. Five years of me standing by you, fighting for you, bleeding for you. "and you throw it away because I make you feel small?"

“I’m not throwing anything away.” Silas rose and pulled on his shirt. I'm doing this for the good of the pack. Nora’s . . . she’s doable. “She’ll give me young.” “She’ll be the one.”

"And me?

“Someone else will come along. Someone who can deal with you.” He spoke as if he almost believed it. The rejection will be official. I will announce it tonight at the gathering."

Valentina chuckled. It was a broken, hollow sound. You’ve already made plans.”

I’ve been thinking about this for months.

Months.

Three weeks ago she had been clutching a little stick in her trembling hands, and weeping for joy. Two weeks ago, she'd rehearsed telling him, imagined his expression. It had taken her a week to get up the nerve.

And now this.

"Silas. Her voice broke. Just once. "I'm gonna have a baby.

And then silence. The silence lived. It got into her lungs and it was impossible to breathe.

Silas's face turned pale, then red, then pale again. His hands tightened at his sides. For one dizzying moment Valentina thought, hoped, she saw something soften in his eyes.

Then he spoke.

Is it mine?

The earth stopped.

“Did you say that to me?

I said--" Silas' voice was cold. Mine? And because I know you've been hanging out with the warriors. Training with them. Alone.

Valentina’s wolf surged forward and she felt her claws lengthen, the familiar burn of the shift against her skin. That would be so easy. So satisfying. Tear his throat out and watch him choke on his own blood.

But the baby!

Little one.

She pushed her claws down. “Forced down the wolf. She made herself breathe.

"I, Valentina Cross, Beta of the Silvermoon Pack," she said, each word a shard of glass, "hereby reject you, Silas Kane, Alpha of the Silvermoon Pack, as my mate and my Alpha.

The words were a rite. Old. contractual.

Silas's face contorted. "You can't—"

“I just did.” She turned to face the door, her eyes blurred with tears she would not cry. Congratulations on your new Luna. “Hope she gives you what you deserve.”

Her legs turned to jello as she stumbled into the hallway.

Her knees hit the floor with a crack that echoed down the empty corridor. The pain was far away, lost in the roaring in her ears. A mournful, furious sound that threatened to rip her apart from within. Her wolf howled within her.

Mating bond.

She felt it shatter. The golden threads that had fastened her soul to Silas from the day they had first touched started to fray, one by one. Each tearing thread sent another wave of agony through her chest. It was like being skinned alive. It was like having a rusty blade cut out of her heart.

But she didn't scream out.

She bit her lip 'till she tasted blood, and didn't make a sound.

Somewhere in the pack house Silas was already moving on. Already plotting his announcement. He could see his future with Nora by his side already.

And Valentina wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing her crack.

She knelt for hours it seemed. Minutes 4. Seconds. Time meant nothing anymore. All that was left was the pain, and the slow, terrible unraveling of the bond that had once been her whole world.

When she finally stood, her legs trembled. She shook her hands. But her eyes, her eyes were dry.

She walked to her room. Not their room. Her room. The cramped little space she had claimed as her office, lined with books and maps and the quiet remains of the woman she had been before Silas.

She shut the door. Locked it in. She slid back against the wood until she was sitting on the cold floor.

And then she allowed herself to cry.

Not Silas. Not for the mating bond. Not for the five years she had wasted loving a man who had never deserved her.

She wept for the baby.

The tiny, fragile life that moved within her. The child who would never know his father. The child that was to be born into a world where its mother was a reject, an outcast, a nobody.

"What am I going to do?" she whispered to the vacant room. What am I going to do?”

Her wolf shifted. Weak. Injured. But not gone.

Not yet.

We live, her wolf whispered. We endure. Always.

Valentina put a hand on her belly. The tears kept coming, but something else was rising inside her. Something cool. Something solid. Something that was almost like resolve.

Now she had nothing. Nah mate. No pack. No tomorrows

But she had herself.

And she had her baby.

And she had a long, long memory.

She stood up. Moved to the small desk in the corner. She opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a worn leather journal, the one she had kept since she was a girl, filled with dreams and hopes and plans for a future that no longer existed.

She turned to a blank page. Grabbed a pen.

And she penned:

Things I will never forget.

1. The way he looked at me and said, "Is it mine"

2. The sound of her laughter.

3. The smell of another woman on his skin.

4. When I saw that I was nothing to him.

5. This evening.

She stared at the words until they swam.

And then she shut the journal. She put it in her bag. And started packing.

She didn't know where she was headed. She didn't know how she was going to make it. But one thing she was sure of:

She would never let anyone make her feel small again.

Tonight the rejection will be announced. By morning everyone in the pack would know. Tomorrow she’d be a specter.

But ghosts always had a way of coming back.

And when Valentina Cross came back, she wouldn't be the woman they'd thrown away.

She would be the woman they hated.