Chapter 1

I gritted my teeth through a violent contraction and snapped at my personal healer. “Give me the last dose of moonsleep suppressant. I’m putting this birth on hold.”

The healer’s face drained of color, rushing forward to beg.

“Luna! You’re full term, those pups could come any second. Another dose will wreck your wolf, and the pups’ too. It could kill you both.”

“I know the risks. This shot is non-negotiable.”

The healer couldn’t talk me down and finally administered the injection with trembling hands.

No one knew of this but the two of us.

Yet barely an hour later, the stone door of my birthing den was slammed open.

Damien’s personal guards marched in, brushed off the healer’s protests, and hauled me out, half-dragging me down the halls.

They said only that they were acting on the Alpha’s direct orders, to bring me to the council hall.

When they threw me into the room, I found it packed with Omegas, every woman Damien had taken outside our bond in his rabid hunt for an heir. Their faces tight with naked terror.

Two Omegas already lay crumpled on the floor, blood pooling beneath them, writhing and wailing in agony.

My stomach dropped. I saw Victoria’s game clear as day.

By dawn, Damien was meant to present Victoria and her so-called firstborn before the elders. Any pregnant she-wolf still carrying his blood tonight was a threat she had to erase before sunrise.

Before I could speak, two guards stepped forward with bowls of bitter herbs.

Despite my kicking and screaming, they forced half the bowl down my throat.

“They faked the Alpha’s orders! Victoria wants all our pups dead!”

My scream of pain sent a wave of panic ripping through the other Omegas.

Just then, Victoria glided in, draped in a flowing moon-white gown. One hand rested lightly on her stomach, her face pale and delicate, but her breathing steady as can be, not a single hint of the weakness that comes with impending labor.

Moments later, Damien stepped through the door. The second he saw the carnage, smelled the thick stench of blood hanging in the air, his face turned to stone.

Victoria clapped a hand over her mouth, her body trembling.

“Oh my God, Damien, what’s happened to them? Luna, how could you…”

As she spoke, she held out a comm stone, her voice cracking with crocodile tears. “I just heard from my most trusted guards… They say Luna ordered the herbs. She’s jealous the other girls are carrying your pups. Here’s her voice giving the order, and the guards’ sworn testimony.”

The stone played a recording, the voice warped with mimicry herbs to sound exactly like mine.

Then the bribed guards’ voices followed, swearing under oath they’d acted on my command.

Damien’s gaze locked onto me like a vice. He stormed over, his hand clamping around my arm, and wrenched me to my feet.

Damien’s gaze landed on me with naked disgust.

He strode over, seized my arm, and hauled me upright so violently my vision blurred.

“So it really was you.” His voice was low and vicious. “I should have known you would never accept Victoria carrying before you.”

He leaned in, his voice a low, furious snarl right in my ear.

“In my last life, I gave you chance after chance, and you still couldn’t learn your place.” His eyes were cold, merciless. “Do you really think I’ll let you ruin Victoria and her child again?”

My whole body jolted. I stared up at him, my breath catching in my throat.

He’d been reborn too.

That’s why he’d looked at me with that cold, unyielding wariness from the second we’d woken up in this timeline.

“I didn’t do this, Damien.”

I shook with searing pain, forcing each word out through gritted teeth.

“Victoria forged your orders. Every Omega in this room watched her guards administer the herbs. Check the guards’ ranks, check who they answer to, and you’ll see the truth.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than Victoria let out a sharp cry of pain, doubling over. Damien caught her in an instant, every last shred of his attention leaving me completely.

“Damien, my stomach… it hurts so bad…”

Tears streamed down her face as she clutched his arm.

“Don’t fight with Luna, please. Maybe… maybe she just made a mistake. I don’t blame her. Just promise me she won’t take her anger out on my baby…”

With that, her eyes rolled back, and she fainted dead away in his arms.

Damien lost his mind. He held her tight, barking at his guards.

“Get every last healer in the pack to Riverside Den! Now!”

He glanced down at Victoria, then turned his ice-cold glare back to me.

“If anything happens to Victoria or that child, I will make sure you pay for it with your own blood.”

His gaze swept over the blood beneath me, dismissive, contemptuous.

“And don’t think lying there like this will earn you mercy.”

He turned and carried her out, never giving me another chance to explain myself.

I collapsed to the floor, blood pouring heavier between my legs.

It wasn’t until Damien’s mother, Serena, burst through the door that anything changed.

“Get the hell out of my way!” she screamed at the guards.

“Take them to the healing den! If a single thing happens to my grandbabies, I’ll skin every last one of you alive!”

I was rushed to the healing den, where my servant pumped me full of hemostatics and stabilizing herbs.

We barely managed to steady my condition, and that of the pups inside me.

But we waited, and waited.

Not a single healer showed up.

Serena shook with rage, grabbing my servant by the scruff.

“Where the hell are all the healers?!”

The servant’s head hung low, his voice tight with dread.

“Serena, every healer in Black Moon territory was summoned to Riverside Den by the Alpha. He’s terrified something will happen to Miss Victoria. Ordered them to stand by around the clock, no exceptions.”

Serena slammed her fist on the stone table, fumbling with her comm stone.

“He’s lost his damn mind! His fated mate is hanging on by a thread here, and he moved every healer for a mistress?!”

It was a full half hour before Damien finally answered. His voice was thick with impatience.

“Mother, what is it? Is Luna throwing another fit, sent you to beg for her? Victoria’s condition is still unstable. I don’t have time for her games.”

Serena shrieked into the stone.

“Damien! Luna is hemorrhaging! You moved every last healer! Do you want your wife and children dead?!”

There was a pause. Then Victoria’s weak, sweet voice cut through the line, and Damien’s tone turned cold again in an instant.

“Is this Luna’s latest stunt? She ordered those herbs, killed those unborn pups, and now she’s faking a crisis for sympathy. Victoria already warned me Luna had been using forbidden herbs to distort her condition. The healers who examined her said something about her pregnancy felt wrong. If she were truly in labor, I would have known.”

“Mother, I’m with Victoria. I’ll send a healer when I can. And with all due respect, I am the Alpha now. You would do well not to undermine my decisions.”

“Mother, enough.I know exactly what Luna is doing. She has always known how to use weakness to make people turn against me.”

He paused, then added with icy finality, “Victoria and my heir come first tonight. As for Luna, if she is truly as innocent and fragile as she claims, then let her prove it by surviving until I am done here.”

“And do not forget who leads Black Moon now. I will not have my authority challenged for the sake of one hysterical woman.”

The line went dead. Serena squeezed my hand, her voice soft but fierce.

“Don’t be scared, my girl. The healer will be here. You have to hold on.”

I pressed my hands to my stomach, feeling the faint, flickering spirits of my pups.

In my past life, this was exactly how they died. Their tiny heartbeats fading away inside me, one by one.

I grabbed Serena’s hand, my voice barely a whisper.

“Serena, please. I’ll never fight for the heir’s title. I only want my pups to be born safe.”

Tears filled Serena’s eyes.

“I know, my sweet girl. I know. My gut tells me there’s something rotten about that Victoria, and I will get to the bottom of it. I’ll clear your name, I promise.”

The pain came in crashing waves, and I gritted my teeth to bear it.

Finally, footsteps sounded at the door.

But it wasn’t a healer. It was a lowly pack servant.

He glanced at the blood staining the stone floor, and passed me a leather pouch. Inside was nothing but the most basic clotting herbs and ragged bandages.

“Madam, the Alpha says it’s just pregnancy spotting, nothing life-threatening. So you have to tend to it yourself. Miss Victoria’s condition is unstable; he can’t get away. He doesn’t want to be bothered with this anymore.”

My mouth opened, but before a sound could escape, the world went black, and I passed out completely.