Chapter One: Nicole pain

Nicole's POV

"Move aside!"

Maid Mara stepped directly into my path as I rounded the corner, her shoulder cutting across mine hard enough to make me catch myself against the wall.

"Luna," she said, then added under her breath, "or trash."

I pretended not to hear. Straightened up and started to walk away—but the next second, I went down hard.

"Sorry," a voice came from behind me. "I didn't realize your skirt was that long."

I looked back over my shoulder. They were all staring down at me, faces full of smug satisfaction.

I acted like I didn't care. After so many times, I really didn't.

"Look at her," Mara said. "Still acting like she's too good for everyone."

I got up and left their sneers and taunts behind me.

Tate's Morning necessity was ordered and confirmed. I carried the tray from the kitchen myself because the maids had made it clear that helping an omega was beneath them.

The corridor outside Tate's bedroom was already busy at five-fifty in the morning, maids moving between rooms with fresh linens and breakfast trays, and not one of them looked at me as I passed.

I am Luna. Luna of the South River Pack, in name only. In every other way that matters, I am the lowest, most despicable servant in this house, and all of it traces back to one morning years ago, when my father stood up in a packed auditorium and put a bullet in Alpha Caesar's chest at the exact moment Tate was being crowned his successor. The Moon Goddess, in what I can only describe as her cruelest joke, chose that same breath to confirm that Tate and I were fated mates. Two things happened at once, both of them destroying me.

Tate didn't kill me, instead married me, gave me the title, and then stepped back and allowed his pack to bully and despise me. I am atoning for my father's sins that I have understood from the beginning.

I knocked twice on his bedroom door, the way I had been told to, and when no answer came I pressed the handle and stepped inside.

The smell hit me before anything else. I had known about Sophia for over two years and had learned to live with it. What I had not known, what I had not been prepared for, was this. He had never brought her here before, not into the house, not into his bed. Not into the room I entered every morning.

They were in the middle of the bed, facing the door. A sharp pain tore through my chest. The mate bond twisted inside me like a knife. I felt helpless, my heart breaking into pieces right there. Even my body hurt from the bond, a deep ache that made it hard to breathe.

Sophia lay on her back, legs hooked high over Tate’s forearms, knees pushed toward her shoulders in a position that folded her open and exposed. Her dark hair fanned across the white sheets, mouth parted in lazy pleasure.

Tate was braced above her on straight arms, hips rolling in slow, punishing strokes. Every thrust was deep and measured he sank fully inside her, held for a second, then withdrew almost completely before driving back in again.

The wet, obscene sound of it echoed in the quiet room: slick withdrawal, heavy re-entry, the soft slap of his balls against her with every deliberate plunge.

His eyes were already on me. From the moment I crossed the threshold, Tate’s gaze locked onto mine

He didn’t flinch, simply kept fucking her with the same unhurried rhythm while staring straight at me over the top of her head, watching every flicker across my face. Making sure I saw exactly what he was doing, how easily he gave her what he withheld from me.

Sophia noticed me a few seconds later. Her head lolled toward the door, lips curling into a slow, vicious smile. “Give me a baby, Tate,” she purred, voice breathy but sharp. “I want to give you your heir."

Tate didn’t speak, he simply tilted his hips slightly changing the angle so the next deep thrust dragged a sharper cry from Sophia all while holding my gaze without wavering.

I stood frozen, breakfast tray trembling in my hands. Sophia’s hand darted to the nightstand again. She snatched the heavy crystal vase still half-full of white roses and hurled it at me.

I could barely dodge as it struck me square above the right eye as fresh blood ran down my lashes, dripping onto the floor in thick red drops.

“Get the fuck out,” Tate said, voice low and rough, as his hips never faltered instead he drove into Sophia again, harder this time, making her gasp and clutch at his shoulders. His eyes stayed locked on mine the entire time. “Your disgusting blood is staining my precious floor bitch.”

Sophia laughed — breathy, broken by moans and wrapped her legs tighter around him, heels digging into his ass.

“Harder, Alpha,” she demanded, loud and cruel. “Make sure she remembers what she’ll never get.”

He obeyed without hesitation as the mate bond twisted like a blade slowly turning in my chest raw, humiliated, furious.

I set the tray down on the dresser with care as my voice came hollow. “The assembly starts at eight. You’ll want time to shower.”

Without waiting for a reply I turned and walked to the door, I refused to break down.

The cut was still seeping when I reached Tracy's room. Her bell had rung twice while I was in the corridor — three short, impatient pulls the first time, then four harder ones, the rhythm of someone offended by the delay.

She was at her vanity, still in last night's dress, a half-empty brandy bottle on the nightstand and a second open on the dresser, sitting among her jewellery like it belonged there.

The room had that particular smell that I associated exclusively with her — alcohol layered over old perfume. She had been this way since Caesar died. The mate bond severing had done something to her neurologically that was the clinical explanation, the one I had read about in textbooks but the practical reality was a woman who started drinking before breakfast and got sharper and meaner as the day wore on.

"You're late," she said to my reflection.

"Good morning, Luna Tracy." I picked up the glass on the floor beside her stool, retrieved the empty bottle from under the dresser where it had rolled, and reached for the one on the nightstand.

Her hand shot out and closed around it, fast and decisive, pulling it against her chest like I'd tried to take something vital. "Leave it."

"You've had enough. Alpha Tate will be downstairs in five minutes."

"How dare you." Her eyes found mine in the mirror, red-rimmed. "How dare you say my son's name. Three years, three years married and not one child. You can't even do the single thing your body was built for." She turned on her stool, swaying slightly, the bottle still clutched to her chest. "A hen that won't lay, the daughter of a murderer sitting in my house giving my son nothing, what kind of sick joke is that? What kind of Moon Goddess does this?"

I sorted her medications by the label, the way I did every morning. Blood pressure first, the blue ones with food. I had heard these words so many times, that I got so used to it at one point.

"Your blood pressure medication first," I said. "Then the blue ones with breakfast."

Tracy made a sound of pure contempt, unscrewed the brandy bottle, and poured herself a drink.

Breakfast was the usual theater. Tracy arrived at the table already fortified with drinks on her arm. Tate sat at the head chair, phone in hand, coffee going cold while I stood at the sideboard while serving.

"The heir situation needs to be addressed," Tracy said, twenty minutes in.

"It doesn't," Tate said.

"Three years, Tate. Your father built this pack on continuation and strength"

"My father is dead" He set his phone down and looked at his mother with the patience that was also a warning. "I said enough."

Tracy took her coffee with shaky hands as the table went silent. I refilled the juice and stared at a distance and waited for it to end.

She went upstairs eventually as I began working cleaning up.

"Nicole."

I stopped.

He looked at me across the table, his voice dropping low enough that only I could hear it. "I want to be clear about something." He held my gaze until I stopped moving. "I will never love you, I have no intention of giving you children, whatever you have been telling yourself about time, or patience, or what the bond means stop."