Chapter 1: Betrayal

Aurelia

"Luna, you are six weeks along."

My eyes filled with tears. For weeks I had been waking to a dull ache low in my belly, and I had come to the clinic braced for bad news. Not this.

"The placenta has not fully attached, so the pregnancy is fragile," the healer went on, his voice turning careful. "You need rest, Luna. And you must avoid stress — all of it."

I barely heard the warning. I pressed a hand to my still-flat stomach and only wanted to be gone, to find Travis, to watch his face when I told him. He would be over the moon. After everything, I was finally going to have my pup.

I had been born into a Beta family in the Glowing Moon pack, and from the time I was small I had worked myself to the bone for a word of praise that never came. To my parents, my younger sister Thalia was the sun and the moon both. I was, somehow, the spoiled one — though no one had ever spoiled me a day in my life.

We were wealthy, but every scrap of that wealth and every ounce of that love went to Thalia. The best rooms, the best clothes, the best of everything. I was the eldest, so I was told to give, and give, and give. And I did. My whole life I handed my sister whatever she reached for. Was she ever grateful? Never. She spent our childhood inventing my cruelties — that I had pushed her, stolen from her, hurt her — and my parents punished me every time without once asking for the truth. I gave up my place at the Royal Academy for her. I buried my own white wolf and her rare healing gift so that Thalia, with her ordinary brown wolf, would never feel small beside me. I even let my share of the family company pass into her hands.

Thalia took everything. Everything but Travis.

Him, I refused to surrender. He had shielded me from her, from all of them, since we were pups trading secrets in the dark, and somewhere along the way friendship had turned to love. We had both begged the Moon Goddess to make us fated, and she had answered. I had wept with joy the day I learned I would be his Luna.

I had worked without rest to deserve the title — charity and warrior training and clinic shifts stacked on top of the pack's accounts, doing the work of a Luna and a Beta female and half of Travis's duties besides. And still, to my parents, it did not add up to half of Thalia's so-called achievements.

Travis had always seen my work, even when no one else did. But since we had mated, his temper had frayed. He picked fights over nothing, then drowned the apology in gifts and warmth until I forgot to ask why he had been angry at all.

None of that mattered now. I was carrying his pup — the heir he had wanted so badly.

I had been due at the arena to train the young females, but I had asked the head warrior to take my place so I could slip to the clinic. I had not told Travis; I had not wanted him to worry. He was in a meeting, so I let myself into his study to wait, to surprise him.

I was floating. I reached for the door, drew a breath to steady my grin — and froze.

"Travis, are you not afraid Aurelia will find out?"

Thalia's voice. Honeyed with false concern.

My heart slammed against my ribs. My mate despised my sister for what she had done to me. What was she doing in his study?

Travis laughed. "Aurelia has worshipped me for years. She eats out of my hand like an obedient pet. She would never leave me."

The words would not fit inside my head. He loved me — did he not? We fought, but he could not think so little of me. I prayed the door would open and he would tell me it was a cruel joke.

Instead, I heard her moan.

It went through me like a blade, and still I could not make myself believe it.

"Slowly, Alpha," Thalia purred. "We have all the time in the world. Why not simply reject her? Am I not worthy of being your Luna?"

I sagged against the door, clinging to one last hope that he would defend me.

"Aurelia is my fated mate," he said, cool and even. "She strengthens my wolf, so I cannot reject her. But you will always be the queen of my heart. Whatever she has, I will give you double."

My knees buckled. Inside me, my wolf Coco keened.

I slid down the wall as my legs gave out. The breath left my lungs; the room tilted and spun. I could not even cry. My body and my soul simply went numb. Every drop of blood and sweat I had poured into being the perfect Luna, the perfect partner — I had thought it an investment in our life together. I understood now that I had only ever been building a kingdom on my own ruin, so that another she-wolf could come and enjoy the spoils. And of all the women in the world, he had chosen Thalia. The one who had always been the source of my deepest pain.

As the sounds beyond the door grew louder, Coco wailed — and then it came: a piercing, violent pain low in my abdomen. The same ache I had carried for weeks. Tears finally spilled down my face as I clutched my stomach and bit my lip to keep from screaming, and the truth landed like a blow. The pain had never been the pregnancy. It was the bond itself, poisoned by his betrayal, beginning to tear.

The hall blurred. A memory rose through the dark: Travis at ten years old, kneeling to kiss the bruises on my hand after my parents had taught me my place, a single tear sliding down his cheek.

"Aurelia, I swear it," that boy had whispered. "I will always love and protect you. You will be my mate, and I will never let anyone hurt you again."

"And now," I breathed, "you are the one hurting me most of all."

I did not let them hear me break.

I pressed my fist to my mouth, swallowed the sob whole, and moved — one step, then another, then faster, until I was running blind with Thalia's moans and the sounds I could never unhear still chasing me down the corridor.

I made it to the east hallway before my legs gave out.

The pain hit all at once — a tearing, vicious cramp low in my abdomen that folded me in half. I caught the wall, then lost it. The marble floor rushed up to meet me, cold against my cheek, and the last coherent thought I had before the darkness swallowed me was not of Travis, not of Thalia, but of the tiny fragile spark inside me.

"Hold on." I begged it. "Please. Just hold on".

Then there was nothing.