CHAPTER 1

Nora’s POV

Two pink lines.

I stared at the pregnancy test for so long my vision went blurry. My fingers were shaking. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I could hear it bouncing off the bathroom tiles.

Three years. Three long, cold, miserable years of loving a man who treated me like air. Three years of sleeping next to someone who never once reached for me in the dark. Three years of smiling at pack events while his eyes searched the room for a woman who wasn't even there anymore.

And now this. A baby. Our baby.

I pressed both hands against my stomach and let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. Something warm spread through my whole chest, soft and golden, like sunlight hitting your face after a long winter.

Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the thing that would finally crack through Damien's walls. He married me because he needed a Luna. He kept me because the pack expected it. But he never loved me. Not once. Not even close.

But a baby changes things. A baby is blood. A baby is pack. Even Damien couldn't ignore that.

I spent the entire afternoon in the kitchen. His favorite steak, medium rare, the way his mother used to make it before she passed. Roasted vegetables with garlic butter. Fresh bread from scratch. A bottle of red wine I wouldn't be drinking anymore. I set the table with the good plates, the white ones with gold edges that I bought on our first anniversary. He never noticed them back then. Maybe tonight he would.

I lit two candles. I changed into the soft blue dress he once said looked nice on me. That was fourteen months ago and it was the only compliment he ever gave me, so I remembered it like scripture.

By the time I heard his car pull into the driveway, my palms were soaking wet. I wiped them on my dress twice and tried to steady my breathing.

The front door opened. His footsteps were heavy on the hardwood. I smiled when he appeared in the hallway, tall and broad shouldered, his dark hair still damp from the rain outside.

"Damien, I made dinner. Can we talk? I have something important to tell you."

He didn't look at the table. He didn't look at the candles. He didn't even look at the dress. He just stood there in the hallway with his jaw clenched tight and his eyes so cold they could freeze the blood in my veins.

"We do need to talk." His voice was flat. No warmth. No hesitation. Like he had rehearsed this in the car. "I want a divorce, Nora."

The words didn't hit me right away. They floated in the air between us for a second, just hanging there, and then they crashed into my chest like a freight train.

I blinked. Then blinked again. My lips parted but no sound came out. The candles flickered on the table behind me and the whole room suddenly felt too bright and too quiet at the same time.

"Rachel is back."

Rachel.

Rachel Davis. His first love. The woman who threw herself in front of a car to save his life three years ago and ended up in a wheelchair. The woman who left the country for treatment the same month he married me. The woman whose ghost slept between us in that big cold bed every single night for three straight years.

Of course. Of course it was Rachel.

I grabbed the edge of the dining table because my knees were turning to water. My fingers pressed into the wood so hard my knuckles went white.

"She's back? When? How long have you known?"

"She arrived this morning. She called me last week." He said it like he was reading a grocery list. Like my whole world wasn't splitting open right in front of him. "She's been through enough, Nora. She gave up her legs for me. I owe her more than I can ever repay. She deserves to be here. She deserves to be with me."

"And what about me?" My voice cracked on the last word. I hated it. I hated that he could still do that to me. "What about three years, Damien? What about everything I gave you?"

"I never asked you to give me anything."

That one landed right between my ribs. Clean. Precise. Like a knife he had sharpened just for this moment.

He loosened his tie like this conversation was already over. Like I was just a loose end he needed to tie up before bed. "I need you to sign the divorce papers tomorrow morning. Elder Morrison will have them ready."

My throat was burning. My eyes were burning. Everything inside me was on fire but I shoved it down, all of it, because if I cried now I would never stop.

"Damien, I'm pregnant."

He stopped moving. His hand froze on his tie. For one second, just one, something flickered across his face. Surprise. Maybe even fear. And then it was gone, snuffed out like a match.

"Don't do this, Nora."

"I'm not doing anything. I took a test today. It's positive. I'm pregnant with your child."

He stared at me for a long, hard moment. Then he laughed. It was short and ugly and hollow. The kind of laugh that isn't really a laugh at all.

"You're lying."

"Why would I lie about this?"

"Because you've spent three years trying to make this marriage work and now you're desperate. You'll say anything to stop me from leaving." He shook his head, his lip curling. "A fake pregnancy. That's low, even for you."

The tears were right there, right behind my eyes, pushing hard. But I clenched my teeth and held them back.

"I am not lying to you."

"Sign the papers tomorrow, Nora. First thing in the morning. That's the end of this conversation." He turned toward the stairs without looking back. "Rachel is moving in tonight."

Tonight.

Not next week. Not after some transition period. Not after I had even one single night to fall apart in peace. Tonight. Like I was a lamp being unplugged and tossed in the closet so the new one could take its spot.

I heard them an hour later. Her soft, musical laugh floating through the ceiling. His low voice, warm and gentle, the way it never, ever was with me. Not once. Not in three years. The bedroom door closing. Our bedroom door. The one I had stopped calling mine a long time ago but still, hearing it shut with her on the other side felt like getting my chest cracked open with bare hands.

I sat on the hallway floor with my back against the cold wall and my palm flat on my stomach. The candles on the dining table were still burning. The steak was cold. The bread was untouched. The nice plates with the gold edges sat there perfectly arranged for a dinner that would never happen.

I used to dream about the day Damien would finally see me. Really see me. I used to believe with my whole stupid heart that if I just loved him hard enough, long enough, loud enough, he would turn around one morning and love me back.

What a fool I was.

I pressed my lips together until they hurt and stared at the closed bedroom door above me.

I was done hoping. I was done begging. I was done being the woman who sat at a pretty table waiting for a man who was never going to come.

If Damien wanted me gone, then I would go. But I would go on my own terms. And I would take my baby with me.