Chapter 5

Skye 

Cassandra turns, and if I didn't know better, I'd think the guilt on her face was genuine. "Skye. I'm so sorry, this must look—"

"What is this?" I repeat, louder now.

Jaxon moves past me, his expression hard. "It's temporary. Cassandra and Liam need a place to stay until we can arrange something more permanent."

"More permanent." I stare at him. "You're moving them into our house."

"It's the Alpha's house," he corrects. "And Liam is my son. Where else would they stay?"

"Literally anywhere else?" My hands are shaking. "Guest quarters. A separate residence. Hell, there are empty homes all over pack territory. But you chose here. In our home."

"This is the most practical solution." Jaxon's tone is maddeningly calm. "Liam needs to be close to the pack doctor while he undergoes treatment. And as Alpha, I need to be available to him."

"How convenient." I turn to Cassandra. "And you're okay with this? Moving into your sister's home? Sleeping under the same roof as her husband?"

"It's just until Liam is better," Cassandra says softly. "I know it's awkward, but his health has to come first. Surely you understand that."

The thing is, I do understand. If a child is sick, of course he needs to be near medical care. Of course his father would want him close.

But that doesn't make this any less excruciating.

"How long?" I ask Jaxon.

"The doctor thinks a few months of treatment should—"

"A few months?" The room spins. "You expect me to live here with her for months? To watch you play house with my sister while I'm—"

I cut myself off before I can say it. Before I can tell him about the baby. Because standing here, watching Cassandra's belongings infiltrate my home, I realize with sickening clarity that he doesn't deserve to know.

"While you're what?" Jaxon's eyes narrow. "If you have something to say, Skye, say it."

"While I'm still your wife," I finish. "While we're still mated. Does that mean nothing to you?"

Something flickers across his face—too quick to read. "This isn't about us. It's about Liam."

"Everything is about Liam now, isn't it? Or about Cassandra. But never about me." I'm dangerously close to crying again, and I refuse to break down in front of them. "Fine. Move her in. Hell, give her my room while you're at it. I'm sure she'd prefer the view."

"Don't be dramatic."

"Dramatic?" I laugh, sharp and humorless. "I came home to find my husband moving his ex-girlfriend and their son into our house. But sure, I'm being dramatic."

"Skye—" Cassandra starts.

The sound that comes from upstairs cuts her off.

A wet, rattling gasp. Then nothing.

Cassandra's face goes white. "Liam."

She's running before anyone can react, taking the stairs two at a time. I hear a door slam open, hear her voice rise in panic.

"He can't breathe! Jaxon, he can't breathe!"

Jaxon is moving instantly, his Alpha instincts taking over. He bounds up the stairs, and I'm left standing in the living room surrounded by boxes and the fading scent of jasmine.

From upstairs, I hear Cassandra's voice, frantic and terrified:

"Save him, please! Jaxon, you have to save him!"

Jaxon never came back that night.

Or the next morning. Or the morning after that.

I heard from one of the pack doctors—not from my husband—that Liam had been rushed to the medical wing. Something about his lungs, a complication they hadn't anticipated. Cassandra hadn't left his side.

Neither had Jaxon.

Apparently my sister has always been his priority. He just fooled everyone into believing otherwise. And I fooled myself into thinking I mattered.

By the end of the week, Liam passed the dangerous period. Within hours, Jaxon had them moved back into the Alpha house. Not a word to me about it. I simply came downstairs one morning to find Cassandra's jasmine scent threaded through the kitchen again, and a small pair of shoes lined up neatly by the door.

The Alpha house has always served more than just the Alpha's family. Over the years, it has sheltered the injured, the elderly, the orphaned, the widowed. Anyone the pack deemed in need of care and proximity to leadership. It's tradition. It's duty.

And now, apparently, ex-lovers are part of that esteemed list. 

So when Cassandra and Liam moved back in, no one questioned it.

But everyone noticed. 

The whispers start small. A glance held a beat too long when I walk through the market. Two elders who fall silent the moment I enter a room. A young wolf—barely shifted—who asks me, wide-eyed and innocent, if it's true that the Alpha has found a second Luna.

I smile and tell her no. That Luna is a title, not a relationship. That the pack has only one Luna, and she's standing right in front of her.

The girl nods, unconvinced.

I don't blame her. Even I'm not sure I believe it anymore.

The days blur together after that. I perform my duties. I oversee the welcome ceremony for the visiting pack delegation. I mediate the family dispute. I smile and nod and do everything a Luna is supposed to do, all while my husband sits at the head of the table each night with Cassandra on one side and Liam on the other, and I sit at the far end like a guest in my own home.

At night, I lie in our bed—my bed now, really—and press my hand to my stomach. The baby is still early. Too early for any visible signs. But I can feel the change in my body already. The exhaustion that pulls at me like an undertow. The nausea that creeps in without warning.

I am bound to this pack by my title. Bound to Jaxon by a mate bond I didn't choose. And bound to this tiny life growing inside me—a life I can't tell anyone about. Not Jaxon. Not Noah. Not anyone, not yet.

Because if Jaxon finds out, he'll use it. Not out of love. Out of duty. The same cold sense of obligation that made him marry me in the first place. And I refuse to give him another reason to keep me on a leash.

So I swallow the secret and carry it alone.

I watch my life shatter in front of my eyes, and all I can do is keep my head held high when the world is tearing me apart.