Second Chance for the Discarded Luna

The war horn sounded twice before I let myself believe it was real.I stood at the top of the stone steps, my hands pressed flat against my stomach to keep them from shaking. Behind me, the great hall of Blackthorn Pack had been scrubbed and polished until the floors threw back the torchlight like water. Garlands of white lilies wound around every pillar. I had chosen them myself, three days ago, standing on a ladder while the pack tailor pinned the hem of my ceremonial gown an inch higher so I wouldn't trip walking down to meet him.Tonight was supposed to be the night I told Marcus the truth.Three years I had kept it buried. Three years of letting him believe he had married a powerless omega plucked from a border village, some quiet girl with no pack and no name worth mentioning. I let the other Lunas whisper about me at gatherings. I let his mother look through me like glass. I said nothing, because my father had taught me that power revealed too early gets you killed, and power r

I stayed at the guest house, tucked at the far edge of pack land where the torches burned dimmer and the halls stayed quiet. Invisible. That was exactly what he wanted, wasn't it. The Luna who existed only in name, who signed no ledgers and gave no orders, who could be folded away into a small stone building and forgotten until someone needed a reminder that she still technically belonged to him."He has no right," Nessa said, tugging the comb through my hair harder than she needed to.She was the only maid who had followed me out here without being asked, the same one who had braided my hair before my bonding ceremony three years ago, back when I still believed the man I was marrying would never let anyone speak over me. I could see the anger sitting behind her eyes even now, tightly controlled, the kind of anger a servant learns to keep folded small so it doesn't cost her anything."Don't worry," I told her, watching my own reflection in the small cracked mirror propped against the

"Marcus, please, help our baby," Lyra sobbed, curling tighter around her stomach on the kitchen floor."What did you do to her?" Marcus turned on me before I had even set the kettle down."I swear I didn't do anything." My hands were shaking now, and I hated that they were, hated that fear had crept into my voice when I had done nothing wrong.He crossed to her side, knelt, checked her over with a gentleness that made my chest ache, then rose and came back to stand directly in front of me. For one breath I thought he might actually listen."How would she hurt herself," he said instead, "just to make herself look wicked and frame you?""Smell me, Marcus." I lifted my wrists toward him, voice cracking on the words. "Do you scent any wolf on my body? Any struggle? I never touched her."He didn't answer that either. He simply turned and called for two guards, and they lifted Lyra between them and carried her toward the healer's chambers. I followed, because whatever I had or hadn't done,