Chapter 3

At the sight of me, everyone stared in shock.

Faye found her voice first. "Bella? Aren't you confined to quarters? How are you even here?"

Then Mina put on a concerned voice. "Yes, Bella. We've already forgiven you for poisoning Faye.

"Keeping you confined wasn't meant as punishment. We just wanted you to admit you were wrong.

"And now you come barging into our home without a care? After everything the Alpha and Mark have done for your sake?"

Disgust spread across Lucas's face as he listened.

Before he could speak, Mark cut in with a scowl. "Bella, you poisoned Faye with wolfsbane, and you still have the nerve to show up? You even brought a fake corpse here just to put on an act?"

He grabbed the body off the bed and threw it down at my feet.

"Faye's barely recovered, and you come here to scare her? That's vicious!"

I stared at him.

He was nothing like the man I'd met five years ago.

He'd been a rogue. Ten years ago, he'd collapsed outside our borders, badly wounded. Bella had found him and brought him home.

I still remembered how Lucas had refused to take him in because no one knew where he'd come from. Bella had begged him to let Mark stay, then spent a long time nursing him back to health.

Once he was well, Mark took her hands and swore an oath to the Moon Goddess. "Bella, I'll never forget what you did for me. Not as long as I live.

"I swear to the Moon Goddess that I'll protect you, take care of you, and love you with everything I have!

"If I ever break this oath, may I meet a terrible end."

Bella was deeply moved.

I believed him too.

So I dealt with the wolves who'd hurt him.

I got him into the pack and found him work.

Later, Lucas recognized his abilities and brought him into his inner circle.

And now the man who'd sworn to protect, care for, and love Bella was protecting another woman.

He couldn't even tell me from her.

It was... funny, really.

"Babe, maybe we should just let it go.

"You and Bella are the ones who are truly mates. I'm already lucky enough to be carrying your pup. That's more than I deserve. I could never ask you to make me your mate too.

"It's just a shame about our pup. He'll have to grow up a bastard, and it breaks my heart every time I think about it."

Mark's scowl deepened.

He went to the bed and ruffled Faye's hair.

When he spoke to me again, his voice was even colder. "You can't carry a pup yourself. Now that Faye's finally pregnant, can't you stop being jealous?

"You're already my mate. Faye's been with me without so much as being acknowledged. Do you know how many people look down on her because of that?

"If you hadn't refused to break the mate bond, Faye and I would never have lost our first pup!"

From what the guards had said, I already knew Faye had been carrying Mark's pup two years ago.

Back then, Mark was set on breaking the bond with Bella.

Peter stopped it by threatening to take his own life.

But the next day, word went around that Faye had miscarried.

And they blamed Bella for all of it.

They said Bella had to be punished for Faye's loss. She certainly shouldn't be allowed to have a pup of her own.

So they locked her in the water cell and tormented her day and night.

That was when she lost her second pup.

They only let her out later, when unrest broke out in the pack and they needed the power of her white-wolf bloodline to restore order.

As long as she was useful, they treated her a little better.

That didn't last. Faye started complaining of headaches, and Mark felt so sorry for her that he searched through every old text he could find.

He discovered a ritual that used blood drawn from the heart of someone with the white-wolf bloodline to ease her symptoms.

They performed it over and over until the wound over Bella's heart stopped healing.

As a white wolf, Bella could heal herself better than any of us. Now she couldn't heal at all.

I couldn't imagine how much pain she'd been in.

"Apologize to Faye right now and step aside so she can become my mate. After five years together, I'm willing to forgive what you did to her.

"Otherwise, I'll destroy your wolf and leave you unable to shift ever again.

"Then you'll never set foot on Moon Goddess Mountain again. Alive or dead, you'll never see your mother!"

I looked up at him. Nothing in his dark expression reminded me of the young wolf who'd held my daughter's hands and made that vow.

He used to know exactly which words would move her.

Now he knew exactly which words would cut her.

Except I wasn't Bella.

My claws went straight for his eyes.

"Bella doesn't need to go to Moon Goddess Mountain. I came down myself.

"But none of you will ever set foot there. You're dying here today."