Chapter 1

"Leo, I want to end our mate bond."

This time, Leo Hartwood was finally the one who called me.

"Enough, Aurora. First you used our pup's life as an excuse, and now you're threatening to reject me. This is all just another attempt to get my attention, isn't it?

"I've told you over and over again. You're not just my mate. You're the Luna of this entire pack. Can you stop being so selfish?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Yesterday, the pup I was carrying had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. The pack doctor told me there was only one thing that could save him—Moondew, a rare potion brewed by witches.

I had one vial.

It was the last lifesaving potion my father, the Alpha of the Frosthaven Pack, had given me before I married Leo.

I rushed home and tore through my belongings, desperate to find the Moondew and save my pup. That was when I learned someone had taken it just ten minutes earlier.

It was none other than Leo Hartwood.

My own mate had taken it for Lilian Garner, who only had a temperature.

Leo had sacrificed our pup's only chance of survival over something so trivial.

I called him again and again. When that didn't work, I flooded his phone with messages, desperate to explain what was happening. Our pup was dying. Leo needed to know.

After countless rejected calls, he finally picked up. I didn't even get a chance to speak.

"This has gone too far, Aurora. You're seriously using our pup's life to manipulate me now? Lilian needs peace and quiet while she recovers. Stop making up excuses to call me."

"I'm not making anything up!" I blurted out before he could hang up again. "I have the medical report from the pack doctor!

"Our pup is getting weaker. The Moondew can still save him. He's our first pup, Leo. You don't want anything to happen to him either, do you?"

"Enough!" His voice turned icy. "Are you threatening me now? I thought you were just jealous of Lilian, but this? Bribing a doctor to falsify a medical report just so you can take her medicine away from her? I'm disappointed in you, Aurora."

"I didn't! Please, Leo!" I screamed his name, but the line went dead.

At that exact moment, the monitor beside me sounded an alarm.

Then the heartbeat disappeared.

Our pup was gone, and there was nothing I could do to save him.

When the pack doctors rushed in, I curled my arms protectively around my stomach and refused to let any of them near me.

It wasn't until I'd cried myself weak that everything went black.

Just before I lost consciousness, my thoughts drifted to Leo.

Ever since Lilian returned to the pack, she'd become the center of his world.

Lilian was in poor health, he said. So when I fell ill, the herbs meant for my treatment somehow ended up with her instead.

Lilian needed help settling back into the pack, he said. So at every pack gathering, it was Lilian who stood beside the Alpha instead of me, his Luna.

He was the Alpha, he said. It was his duty to look after every pack member.

It had taken me far too long to realize the truth. There was only one person Leo ever seemed to care about—Lilian.

And when he spoke about protecting his pack, apparently neither his mate nor his own pup counted.

In the end, even our pup's life had mattered less to him than Lilian's fever.

Leo sighed, and when he spoke again, some of the irritation had left his voice.

"I know you don't like her, but she's sick. She needs the Moondew more than you do. I'll make it up to you. You can have anything you want from the pack hospital's supply of herbs. Will that make you happy?

"But don't lie to me about our pup again, Aurora. It hurts me when you do that."

He probably expected me to react the way I always had.

To argue with him, demand that he send Lilian away, and make him swear before the Moon Goddess that I was the only mate he would ever be loyal to.

But I didn't.

"Fine," I said, and ended the call.

It was the first time I'd ever hung up on him.

He could give me every herb in the pack hospital, and it wouldn't bring our pup back.

And Leo still had no idea that soon, I wouldn't be here either.

After the call, I went to the Council of Elders alone and filed a petition to have our mate bond dissolved without his consent.