chapter 3

POV: Elara

"What?!"

"What?!"

Silas’s voice didn't just fill the Healer’s Hall; it shook the very stones of the foundation. He took a predatory step toward my bed, his shadow towering over me like a dark mountain. "What did you just say to me?"

I didn't flinch. I didn't pull the furs up to hide. I simply looked at him with a calm, detached curiosity.

"I asked who you are," I repeated, my voice steady and cold. "You’re standing in my space, shouting at me while I’m injured, and you’re acting as if I owe you something. I don’t recognize you. So, I’ll ask one more time—who are you?"

Silas’s face contorted, his jaw tightening so hard I heard the bone click. He let out a sharp, mocking bark of laughter that held zero humor.

"Enough! Stop acting, Elara!" he roared, his eyes flashing a dangerous, molten gold. "I am Silas Silverfang. Your Alpha. Your husband. I know you’re still smarting from the party at the lounge, and I know you want my attention, but this 'amnesia' routine is pathetic. It’s beneath you. Stop making a scene and face your reality."

I tilted my head, looking at Nora. "Is he always this loud?"

Nora was trembling, her hands gripped tightly together. "Elara... he... he really is the Alpha."

I turned my gaze back to Silas. "If you are my husband, you are a very poor one. A husband should bring comfort, not a headache. And a husband would know that his wife isn't 'acting' when she looks at him and feels nothing but annoyance."

Silas leaned down, his face inches from mine. I could smell the cedar and rain on his skin, a scent that felt like it should mean something to me, but the connection was severed. There was no spark. No warmth. Just the irritating presence of a man with too much ego.

"Listen to me carefully," Silas hissed, his voice dropping to a low, lethal warning. "The Moonstone Pack is arriving at the borders within the hour for the summit. You will cease this public display of attention-seeking immediately. I will not have my guests greeted by a wife who is faking her way out of her duties to punish me. Get up, get dressed, and be at the longhouse by sunset."

Before I could even open my mouth to tell him to go to hell, Silas stood up straight and closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.

“Do not make me repeat myself, Elara,” his voice boomed inside my skull, the Mindlink feeling like a physical slap. “The act is over. Return home, or I will have the guards carry you there like the rogue you are.”

And just like that, the link snapped shut. He didn't wait for my response. He didn't check my pulse. He simply turned on his heel and strode out of the Hall, the heavy oak door slamming behind him with a boom that rattled the herb bundles hanging from the rafters.

Silence followed, thick and heavy.

Nora rushed to my side, her face white with fury. "That... that monster! You were hit by a truck, Elara! Your body was shattered on the forest road, and he has the nerve to tell you to 'stop acting'?"

I sat back against the wooden headboard, my breath coming in short, sharp bursts. "He didn't even ask if I was in pain," I whispered. "He didn't even look at my bandages."

"He never does," Nora spat, her eyes filling with tears of rage. "He treats you like a piece of furniture he’s tired of looking at. He stayed at the bar with Genevieve while the Healer was stitching you back together, and now he uses that tone to tell you to 'get to work'?"

I looked at my hands. They were pale, but they were steady. The "old" Elara the one who would have wept and apologized for being a burden was gone. In her place was someone who felt a cold, simmering fire in her veins.

"Married?" I asked, looking at Nora. "To a man who hates me? How did I live like this, Nora? How did I let myself be treated like this for three years?"

Nora sat on the edge of the bed, her voice trembling as she began to tell me. She told me about the nights I spent waiting by the fire for a man who never came home. She told me about the insults from the pack members that I just smiled through. She told me about Genevieve the ex-girlfriend he flaunted in public while I was hidden away like a shameful secret.

"You devoted yourself to him, Elara," Nora whispered. "You changed your hair, your clothes, your personality... you became a 'people-pleaser' just to get a single crumb of his love. But he ignored you. He belittled you in public. He told everyone you weren't worthy to be his Luna."

I felt a sharp pang in my abdomen not of pain, but of a strange, rhythmic pulsing.

"The Healer!" Nora remembered, jumping up. "He needs to check you again. He was so confused when you were brought in."

Healer Aris stepped out from the back room, his shadow long against the stone floor. He was an older man, his face etched with the same habitual contempt the rest of the pack showed me. He approached the bed with a scoff, his movements rough as he reached for my wrist.

"The Alpha wants you gone, so you’re gone," Aris muttered, not even looking at me. "I don't have time for rogue theatrics. If you can insult the Alpha, you can"

He stopped. His fingers, pressed against my pulse point, began to shake.

Aris’s eyes went wide, the dark pupils shrinking to pinpricks. He moved his hand to my chest, then down to my abdomen, his breath hitching in his throat.

"This... this is impossible," Aris breathed. He grabbed a small Moon-Stone pendant from his belt and held it over my heart.

The stone didn't just glow; it erupted in a fierce, blinding violet light. It was the aura of a wolf a powerful, ancient wolf.

"You have a wolf," Aris gasped, stumbling back as if I had burned him. "But you’re a rogue! You’ve been wolfless since you arrived! And your recovery... you had internal hemorrhaging two days ago, but your body has healed itself at a royal rate. How?"

I looked at the glowing stone. I didn't feel like a wolfless rogue. I felt... full. Like a storm was brewing under my skin.

Aris didn't wait for an answer. He moved the stone down to my womb. The violet light began to pulse a steady, thrumming beat that matched my own.

"By the Moon Mother," Aris whispered, dropping the stone. It clattered against the stone floor. "You’re pregnant. And the pup... the pup’s aura is pure Alpha. It’s stronger than anything I’ve ever felt."

A memory a sharp, jagged fragment flashed in my mind. A positive test. A bar. Silas’s voice: She is not worthy to be the mother of my child.

"Pregnant," I whispered, my hand instinctively protecting my stomach.

"She has a wolf and she’s carrying the Alpha's heir?" Nora’s voice was a mix of triumph and horror. "Aris, we have to tell Silas! If he knows he has an heir, he’ll have to treat her like a Queen!"

"No!" I snapped.

The word carried a weight that made the dried herbs hanging from the rafters sway. I looked at Aris, my silver eyes flashing with a cold, predatory light that made the old Healer flinch.

"You will not tell him. Not a word."

"Elara, he’s the father," Aris stammered, his arrogance completely gone. "If the Alpha knows"

"He doesn't deserve to know," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous hiss. "He didn't want a wife. He wanted a 'biological tool.' He mocked me in front of the whole pack. He left me to die in the rain because he thought I was a 'useless rogue'. He wants an heir? He can wait for one from Genevieve."

I stood up from the bed, the furs sliding to the floor. I felt the life inside me, a tiny, flickering flame of pure power.

"He told me to recognize my identity," I said, a bitter, cold smirk touching my lips. "Well, I’m starting to. And my identity doesn't include being the incubator for a man who treats me like garbage."

I looked at the stone walls of the Healer’s Hall. Three years of devotion. Three years of pleasing. Three years of being a slave to a bond that Silas used as a leash.

"It’s unbelievable," I whispered, clutching my stomach. "How did I live like that? How did I let him break me?"

"Because you loved him more than yourself," Nora said softly.