Chapter 3

Skye 

My hands tremble and my legs shake as I make the climb up the cliff to my secret hideaway, but I keep going until I reach the top. I found this place when I was fourteen, after one of the numerous times Cassandra humiliated me in front of the entire pack and I've been coming here ever since.

It's beautiful up here. Peaceful. Everything my life isn't.

I wrap my arms around my knees and let myself cry—really cry, the kind of gasping, ugly sobs I'd never allow anyone to see. My carefully applied makeup is probably running down my face in dark streaks. The blue dress Jaxon supposedly liked is creased and dirty from the climb up here.

I don't care.

Let it all fall apart. It was an illusion anyway.

"I knew I'd find you here."

I jerk my head up, my wolf surging with alarm before I catch the familiar scent. Warm brown sugar. Safe. Known.

Noah.

He's standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets, his dark hair slightly windswept. Those warm brown eyes that used to crinkle with laughter when we'd sneak away together are filled with concern now.

"Go away," I tell him, my voice raw.

"Can't do that." He moves closer, settling onto the rock beside me with the easy comfort of someone who's done this a hundred times before. "You're upset."

"Brilliant observation." I swipe at my face, hating that he's seeing me like this. "Shouldn't you be with your Alpha? I'm sure he needs his Beta to help manage the fallout from his dramatic wife."

Noah doesn't rise to the bait. He just sits there, solid and steady, the way he always has.

We used to do this all the time back when we were still best friends. I even wondered if we might be fated mates, though I was too busy crushing on Jaxon to give it much thought. Ridiculous, considering he was dating my sister and I’d never been brave enough to do more than admire him from afar. 

But that was before everything went wrong. Before the night of my eighteenth birthday when Jaxon's scent hit me and I realized my best friend wasn't my mate after all. Before Noah pulled away from me, leaving me to navigate a loveless marriage and my new role as Luna alone. 

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

"For what? You didn't knock up my sister."

"Skye—"

"He still loves her.” I blurt out, the words spilling over before I can stop them. “Maybe he always has. And he ended up stuck with me. The pathetic girl who'd been crushing on him since she was fifteen, so desperate to be chosen that she'd accept any scraps he threw her way."

"Stop." Noah's voice is firm now, edged with something almost like anger. "Don't talk about yourself like that. You're not pathetic, Skye. You're the best Luna this pack has had in generations."

The praise makes my throat tight. "That won't matter when he divorces me."

"He can't." Noah's hand finds mine, warm and solid. "Even if he wanted to—which I don't think he does, not really—unbonding from a fated mate isn't something easily done. Especially not to replace you with someone who isn't even his true mate."

"He has a son with her." The words feel heavy. Final. "An heir. That changes everything."

"It changes the political landscape," Noah concedes. "But it doesn't change what you are to him. What you've been to this pack. You've been a better Luna than Cassandra could ever be—more compassionate, more dedicated, more—"

"More foolish." I pull my hand away. "I thought loving him would be enough to win his heart eventually. But I've wasted three years trying to make him love me, Noah. Three years of pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasn't. And all that time, he's been pining for my sister."

"You don't know that."

"I saw the way he looked at her today." My voice breaks. "Like she was the answer to a question he'd been asking for years. And I saw the way he looked at that boy. His son. There was... tenderness there. Something I've never seen directed at me."

Noah is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is careful. "I was in the meeting room after you left. I saw how crushed you were. Hell, everyone saw it. And for what it's worth, Jaxon looked pretty shaken too."

"Shaken because his dirty secret got exposed."

"Maybe. Or maybe because he realized what he's about to lose."

I want to believe him. God, I want to believe that some part of Jaxon actually cares. But I've spent three years reading meaning into empty gestures, and I can't do it anymore.

"The elders won't let him cast you aside," Noah continues. "You've earned their respect. More than that—you've earned their loyalty. They won't support him stripping your title just because his ex-girlfriend came back with a convenient sob story."

His words spark something in me—a tiny flame of hope that I immediately try to smother. Because hope is what got me into this mess. Hope that Jaxon would see me. Love me. Choose me.

"You really think they'd stand with me?" I ask quietly.

"I know they would." Noah's voice is fierce now, protective in a way that reminds me of the boy who used to defend me from pack bullies. "And I'll stand with you too, Skye. I should have been a better friend these past few years. I let the distance between us grow because it was easier than watching you hurt yourself trying to please someone who couldn't see what he had."

The kindness in his words threatens to undo me all over again. "Noah—"

"I mean it. Whatever you need, whatever you decide to do—I'm on your side. Not Jaxon's. Not the pack's. Yours."

Something in my chest cracks open. It's been so long since someone chose me first. Since someone saw me as more than just the Luna, or Jaxon's reluctant mate, or Cassandra's inferior replacement.

"Thank you," I whisper.

We sit in silence for a while, watching the sun sink lower. Somewhere down there, Jaxon is probably planning his next move. And I'm up here, trying to figure out how to survive what comes next.

"You should come back," Noah says eventually. "Face this head-on. Show them you're not running scared."

He's right. I know he's right. The old Skye—the one who accepted everything without question—would already be on her way back, ready to apologize for making a scene.

But that Skye got her heart broken today.

That Skye discovered she's pregnant with a child her husband might not even want, now that he has a ready-made heir.

That Skye watched her husband hold her sister and realized she'd been living a lie.

"They'll expect me at dinner," I say, more to myself than to Noah. "And at the meeting. Jaxon will want me presentable and compliant, ready to stand beside him while he announces his bastard son to the pack."

"Skye—"

"He thinks I'll stay." The realization settles over me like a shroud. "He thinks I'll be so desperate to keep my title, so afraid of losing my place in the pack, that I'll accept whatever scraps he offers. A Luna in name only, while he builds a real family with Cassandra."

"You don't have to accept anything you don't want," Noah says carefully. "You have power here, Skye. More than you realize. The pack loves you. The elders respect you. Even if Jaxon can't see your worth, everyone else can."

His words should comfort me. And maybe a week ago, they would have. A week ago, keeping my title and my place in the pack would have been enough.

But that was before I felt the flutter of new life inside me. Before I realized that staying means raising my child in the shadow of Jaxon's son with Cassandra. Before I understood that I have something worth protecting now—something more important than a title or a bond or a marriage that was broken from the start.

Noah's watching me, waiting for a response. Waiting for me to agree to go back and fight for what's mine.

But what if it's not mine anymore?

What if it never was?

What if the real question isn't whether Jaxon can take my title away—but whether I even want it in the first place?