Chapter 3

Easton's POV

The doors of the packhouse slammed shut, cutting off the distant roar of the celebration outside. My father didn't even wait for the latch to click before he turned on me, his face twisted in a dangerous sneer.

“What is the meaning of this nonsense, Easton?” he barked, slamming his fist onto the desk.

“Dragging that girl off the altar like a common rogue in front of the entire IronVale Clan?”

I didn't blink and kept my posture straight, my expression controlled. “It was the only way to handle it cleanly, Father. A public rejection leaves no room for her to contest the title.”

To be fair, I hadn't wanted things to happen quite like this. The scene she made was messy, and I hate mess. But I felt no regret because a pack cannot be run on sentimentality, and it certainly cannot be run by a Luna who possesses no wolf.

I looked over at Brenda, who was sitting quietly, her small hand resting over her stomach. I loved Brenda. She gave me everything I actually needed to secure my position, she gave me strength, a prominent lineage, and a legacy.

The pregnancy hadn't been planned, of course. It was a miscalculation in timing, but a logical one to utilize. She was pregnant with the next Alpha heir and she had to be my Luna. It was the only sequence of events that made sense for the future of IronVale.

Then there was Rosalie. Just thinking about her made me recoil. She was all soft, quiet, and pitiful, always looking at me with those wide eyes like she was waiting to break.

It annoyed me and looking back, I honestly wondered how I had even fallen for her in the first place. It must have been a temporary lapse in judgment, a youthful distraction before I understood what real power required.

Why would I ever waste time on a liability when a perfect, capable woman like Brenda was standing right here?

Brenda caught me looking and offered a soft smile. She stood up, walking over to press a quick, sweet kiss against my lips. “Don't let him get to you, Easton,” she murmured.

“We won.”

But before I could answer, her smile completely vanished and her face contorted into a mask of agony, all the color draining from her cheeks in a fraction of a second. She gasped, her fingers digging violently into her dress as she clutched her stomach.

Panic, pierced right through my chest. “Brenda? What is it? What happened?”

She couldn't even speak, instead a loud, piercing scream tore from her throat as her knees buckled entirely, sending her crashing onto the floorboards. She curled into a tight ball, sobbing and clutching her abdomen.

“Help!” I roared, the sound vibrating the walls as I dropped to my knees beside her, my hands shaking as I tried to hold her up. “Get the medical team in here now! My baby—Brenda, look at me!”

My father went absolutely mad with rage as he kicked the door open, his voice booming down the hallway with terrifying Alpha authority.

“Protect my grandchild!” He screamed at the guards and the rushing pack doctors.

“If that child dies, you die with them!”

I looked down at her dress and recoiled in horror upon seeing the red dark stain spreading on her dress, leaking out and trickling down her bare legs onto the floorboards.

“My baby!” Brenda shrieked, the sound terrified as she convulsed in my arms.

“Easton, my baby!”

The medical team swarmed the room, lifting her up onto a gurney and rushing her down the hall toward the infirmary in a blur of shouting and footsteps. I started to follow, my heart hammering against my ribs, but my father’s arm slammed against my chest, blocking the doorway.

“Stay here,” he ordered, “You cannot help her in there.”

And that made me pause. I couldn't in fact help her there.

“This is all Rosalie's fault,” he started, “that wolfless brat brought a curse into this house with her pathetic screaming. Something needs to be done about her, Easton and now.”

He turned and stormed down the hall after the doctors, leaving me standing in the corridor. My hands were covered in Brenda's blood, my mind spinning and calculating the sheer damage of losing my heir, and a blinding rage began to take over.

I looked down the hallway and there she was. Rosalie was still on the floor where the guards had dropped her, curled up and staring blankly at nothing.

I didn't think as I walked straight over to her, reached down and grabbed a fistful of her hair, violently pulled her up until she was forced to look at me, her small face twisting in pain.

“Are you happy now?” I hissed, my voice vibrating with pure venom right in her face. “Is this what you wanted? You just couldn't walk away quietly, could you? You had to make your pathetic little scene.”

“Easton—” she whimpered, her hands instantly flying up to grasp at my wrist, trying to ease the pull on her scalp.

“You'd regret this—”

“Brenda is bleeding out because of you,” I snarled, tightening my grip until she gasped.

“Your bitter, useless presence ruined everything the second you stepped onto that altar. Don't think yourself a victim Rosalie, you're a parasite.”

She just looked at me through her tears, her lips trembling. She didn't even have the strength to argue back.

Disgusted by the sight of her, I used all my force to shove her back down to the ground. She hit the floor hard, sliding a few inches away. I wiped my bloody hands on my trousers, looking down at her like she was nothing more than dirt.

“Listen to me very carefully,” I said, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “If Brenda loses that baby, you won't live to see another day. I will personally make sure of it.”

×××

The hours stretched on until the clock on the wall didn't even make sense anymore. When the doors of the infirmary finally swung open, the lead nurse stepped out, her face pale. She didn't have to say a single word because the look in her eyes said everything.

They lost the baby.

My heart and my mind completely shattered in that exact second. All the logical planning, the carefully constructed future of my lineage, the heir I needed to secure my position was just…gone.

A hollow void opened up in my chest, replacing the panic with an anger I couldn't name.

Almost immediately, before I could even process the weight of the loss, I was hauled out of the corridor and thrown straight into the packhouse council room.

My father and the senior council members were already seated around the long table. I dropped into my chair, my hands still faintly stained with dried blood, just sitting there reeling while their voices bounced off the walls.

“An absolute tragedy,” Elder Thomas muttered, shaking his graying head. “The future of the IronVale Clan, taken before he could even draw breath.”

“It wasn't a tragedy, Thomas. It was malice,” my father, Alpha King Magnus, growled from the head of the table. He slammed both palms down onto the wood, “Let us look at the facts. Brenda was perfectly healthy, then that wolfless bitch interrupted the sacred ceremony, screaming her bitter curses, and within minutes, my grandchild was dead.”

“The timing is undeniable,” another councilman agreed, nodding solemnly. “A wolfless pack member brings nothing but bad luck and dark energy. Her jealousy poisoned the air.”

I just sat there, listening to them piece it together. My mind was too broken to care about looking for details or evidence. They were right. Everything was fine until Rosalie showed up. Her pathetic, crying face had ruined my life, and now it had cost me my child.

“We need a full investigation to see if she used any rogue herbs—” Elder Thomas started, but my father cut him off with a vicious snap of his jaws.

“There will be no investigation,” Magnus roared, his eyes flashing red, “There will be no trial for a parasite who brings misfortune upon the future Alpha's bloodline. I am the Alpha King, and my word is law. Rosalie is condemned.”

He stood up, towering over the council table, his voice leaving absolutely no room for negotiation.

“By order of the Alpha King, she is to be cast into the Abyss,” Magnus declared, his face hardening into stone. “Let the darkness have her. Cast her into the place from which no wolf has ever returned.”