The Final Severing

 

The nightmare came in waves of suffocating dark.

In the dream, the council chamber loomed vast and cavernous, surrounded by towering wolves whose eyes glowed with venomous mockery. Their fangs dripped with saliva, their sneering voices rising into a deafening roar that shook the earth beneath my feet.

A wolfless Luna. A barren Omega. Useless. Defective. Cast her out!

I tried to scream, but no sound escaped my throat. I fell to my knees, clawing at the dirt, alone in the dark.

Splash.

An icy cascade of water slammed against my face and chest, shocking the breath straight out of my lungs.

I gasped violently, coughing as the freezing liquid burned my nasal passages. My eyes flew open, blinking through wet lashes, trembling from head to toe. I was lying sprawled on the cold floor of the locked master suite, my dress soaked and clinging to my shivering skin.

Sitting casually on the edge of the plush velvet armchair was Vivian.

In her manicured hands, she held an ornate silver washbasin, tipped completely empty. But it wasn’t the basin that made my breath catch in my throat—it was what she wore.

Draped across her shoulders was the ceremonial Luna robe. Woven from white silk and edged with silver wolf fur, it was an heirloom passed down through generations of pack matriarchs. A robe only the Alpha’s true mate had the right to wear.

Vivian set the basin onto the hardwood floor with a sharp clatter and looked down at me, her red lips curving into a look of absolute disgust.

“Look at you,” she drawled, crossing one bare, toned leg over the other. “Splayed on the floor like a drowned rat. After five years of playing Luna, you’ve fallen so low in a single afternoon. Pathetic.”

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, my joints aching, my head throbbing with a dull, nauseating pressure. Even shivering and soaked, a bitter flame flared in my chest.

“Take that robe off,” I rasped, my throat raw from thirst. “You have no right to touch it.”

Vivian tilted her head back and let out a light, tinkling laugh that sounded like shards of broken glass.

“No right? Daciana, darling, look around. The Alpha locked you in here like a disobedient stray. The guards won’t even bring you a cup of water without spitting in it first. You think you still command authority in this house?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Vivian,” I shot back, forcing myself up until I was sitting against the foot of the bed, glaring at her through wet strands of hair. “You are carrying Dominic’s pup, but that is all you will ever be—a surrogate. Once that child is born, Dominic will take it, and you will be sent straight back to the warrior barracks where you belong.”

I expected her to snap. I expected her face to turn red with rage, as it had in the hallway.

Instead, Vivian’s smile only broadened, oozing venomous pity.

“You truly are naive, aren’t you?” She rose from the chair, the heavy white silk rustling against the floorboards as she stepped toward me. “Do you honestly believe the elders will allow the mother of the future Alpha heir to be dismissed like a common whore? I am the daughter of the pack’s Beta. I bled beside Dominic at the border while you hid behind these high stone walls, arranging flower vases and crying over burned dinners.”

She crouched down in front of me, leaning in close until her hot breath brushed my ear.

“The entire pack already views me as their true Luna. The council has despised your presence for five years. They tolerated you only because Dominic held on to his foolish, sentimental guilt. But now? You cannot give him what he needs. You only drag him down. You are an anchor tied around his neck, Daciana, drowning his pack’s future.”

Her words struck deep into the darkest, most terrifying insecurity I had carried since the day Dominic first placed the Luna pendant around my neck.

An orphan with no lineage. A wolfless Omega in a brutal world that respected only tooth and claw. Dominic’s fierce love had been the sole shield protecting me from being ripped apart by this pack.

And now, that shield was gone.

“You’re lying,” I choked out, digging my fingernails into my palms to stop from shaking. “Dominic loves me. He swore to me—”

“Does he?”

Vivian pulled back. She tilted her chin up, deliberately brushing her long chestnut hair over one shoulder to expose the delicate curve of her neck.

The air froze in my lungs.

There, just beneath the angle of her jaw, stamped violently into her pale flesh, was a dark, bruised puncture wound.

An Alpha’s mating mark.

The puncture wounds were fresh, the edges inflamed and swollen, radiating the unmistakable, overwhelming scent of Dominic’s cedar-and-ozone aura.

My vision blackened at the edges. A cold, hollow ache tore through the center of my ribs, shattering the very last thread of hope I had clung to.

“Who... who gave you that?” My voice barely carried across the inches between us, trembling like a dying leaf.

Vivian touched the swollen skin with two fingertips, her eyes gleaming with cruel triumph.

“Who else, Daciana? Dominic did it last night in the clinic. To protect his child from rogue scents and stabilize the pup’s aura, an Alpha mark was necessary. He did it without hesitation. Because unlike you, I am carrying what he values most in this world.”

She stood up, smoothing down the edges of the stolen Luna robe with practiced elegance.

“Dominic will never abandon his flesh and blood. And the elders will never allow an Alpha with a warrior child to keep a barren, wolfless mate. Instead of clinging to a man who has already moved on, you should walk away with whatever shreds of dignity you have left. No one wants you here anymore.”

Vivian turned on her heel and strode toward the doorway.

She pulled the heavy mahogany door wide open, leaving the latch unbolted and the corridor completely empty. Not a single guard stood in sight; the hallway stretched out silent and abandoned, bathed in the gray light of twilight.

I sat on the floorboards, staring at the empty doorway for a long, silent moment.

The sight of that fresh bite mark played over and over behind my eyelids like a branding iron.

He had marked her.

He had buried his fangs into another woman’s flesh while locking me away to starve in the dark. The guards' mockery, the elders' open sneers, Dominic's patronizing excuses—it all crystallized into a terrifying truth.

Without Dominic’s fierce protection, this pack was not my home. It was a den of wolves waiting to tear me and my unborn child to pieces.

My hand dropped slowly, pressing against the gentle swell of my abdomen.

A quiet, desperate warmth fluttered beneath my palm.

My baby.

I had no wolf to fight their claws. I had no army, no titles, and no family to shield me. But as long as breath remained in my body, I would never let Vivian, the elders, or Dominic’s twisted sense of duty touch this child.

I pushed myself up from the cold floor.

My legs shook, but I forced them to hold my weight. I moved quickly to the closet, pulling out a plain, dark traveling cloak and a small canvas satchel. I packed only the barest necessities: a few changes of warm clothes, my identity papers, and what little cash I had saved over the years.

I left behind every diamond necklace, every silk gown, and every expensive gift Dominic had ever bought to appease my grief.

Before turning to the door, my eyes lingered on the master bed one last time. Countless memories of whispers in the dark, gentle kisses, and broken promises seemed to dissolve into ash.

Pulling the hood of my cloak low over my wet hair, I slipped out into the empty corridor.

The packhouse was eerily quiet, the path cleared just as Vivian had promised. I slipped down the servant’s staircase, pushed open the heavy wooden pantry exit, and stepped out into the biting chill of the night.

I didn't run or cry.

Clutching my satchel tightly against my chest, I walked away into the shadows of the forest, turning my back on the Whiteridge Pack forever.