Chapter 1: Expensive Cages

The blow landed across my cheek with a crack that split through my skull.

I hit the floor hard, and my body folded in on itself. My mouth wouldn’t give room for any screams. My hands wouldn’t lift to fight. I had learned to become his silent punching bag a long time ago. 

My cheek throbbed against the hardwood. Copper flooded my mouth, and yet I didn’t move. I could only focus on my breathing.

As long as I continued breathing, I would be fine.

Lucan stood over me for a second. Maybe two, I couldn’t tell what was what anymore.

He didn’t offer me any words; he had stopped doing that a long time ago. He straightened the cuff of his shirt, exhaled once through his nose like I was an inconvenience finally handled, and turned away. 

The door clicked shut quietly behind him. 

My body still refused to move.

The pain started slowly at first and then festered until I could feel it everywhere. I lifted a finger to my face. The heat from the contact made me hiss, and the familiar swelling made me swallow a thick lump down my throat. 

The ceiling above me came into focus. I couldn’t help but notice the high, ornate, crystal chandelier catching dying afternoon light, the heavy velvet drapes, and the four-poster bed I hated sleeping in. This was the price I had to pay for a life of comfort.

Stay.

The thought echoed in my mind. I should get up. Wash the blood. Ice the bruise. Hide it before anyone sees. Pretend I was still the Luna of the Ironclaw Pack, not the woman who lived like this. But my body still wouldn’t listen. It knew the routine. It knew the silence that followed was worse.

The room stayed quiet, but I could hear his footsteps fade down the hall. 

I muttered a small prayer of thanks to the moon goddess. It looked like there would be no second round tonight.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

I stared at it. Four rings. Five. Xena’s name glowed on the screen. I reached up with my heavy arm and answered.

My mouth refused to make any sounds.

The line was silent for a long time before Xena spoke. “Again?”

A sob tore from my throat, and then the tears came. My shoulders shook, and I pressed my free hand over my eyes, breathing through it, but it kept coming.

Xena stayed on the line like she always did.

After a moment, she pushed. “You can’t keep doing this, Raven. He’s not going to stop. You’re the Luna, and you’re on the fucking floor again. No one in this pack is coming to help you, especially when you’re playing the role of happy mate.”

I swallowed blood. “You know why.”

She waited.

I tried to find the words, but they still came out fractured. “It’s not just him. The mating… it was an arranged mating, and you know this. It’s politics, Xena. If I run, the alliance cracks. Ironclaw won’t let that happen. They’ll hunt me. Make me an enemy and call me a traitor. My family… they won’t take me in. They can’t. The cost is too high. I’d be alone.”

Xena remained silent for even longer this time.

“I have nowhere,” I whispered, my voice cracking.  “Nowhere that he, or the pack, won’t reach.”

Still, she said nothing. Then, when I thought she had completely resigned the topic, she said, “I’m coming over.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“No. Xena, don’t. It’ll make it worse. He will not like that.”

She had already hung up.

I pressed the phone to my chest and prayed to the goddess, hoping that I hadn’t just made things worse.

Forcing myself up with shaky legs, I went to the bathroom. I splashed cold water on my face, although it stung like fire. I brushed my hair forward, hiding what I could. In the mirror, my brown eyes appeared dead. 

I turned away fast.

Downstairs, I moved as slowly as I could, because each step ached. The house felt too big, and yet it felt as though no matter how much I moved, I could not outrun what had just happened in our bedroom. My feet moved anyway.

I rounded the corner, and the world stopped.

Two intimate voices met my ears.

Lucan stood too close to my sister, Riley. His hands cupped her face in a way he had never cupped mine. He tilted her chin and kissed her as though he were savoring each moment.

My stomach dropped.

My heart twisted in my chest.

This could not be real. I was seeing things. I had to be seeing things.

Lucan moved his mouth to her ear and whispered something I could not make out. My sister smiled and leaned deeper into his embrace.

I couldn’t take this anymore.

“Riley?!” The name tore out of me, my voice broken and barely audible. 

Riley pulled back, her eyes finding mine. Her cheeks were flushed. One hand still rested on Lucan’s chest, fingers curled into his shirt as she belonged there. She didn’t even speak or apologize. She just watched me with narrowed eyes as though she were silently challenging me.

Lucan slowly turned his head for one heartbeat, then looked back at Riley. 

He did the unthinkable and kissed her again, eyes flicking to me while he did it. 

This was real. My eyes filled with unshed tears and it had nothing to do with the beating I had just received.

He released her and walked toward me.

On instinct, I took a step back.

He closed the gap between us, and the scent of my sister on him made my stomach drop once more. “Every day I wake up beside you feels like another reminder that my life was stolen. The day they mated us was the worst day of my life.”

The words shook me to my core.

Then his hand cracked across my face again.

Harder this time.

I went down. White exploded behind my eyes. My ears rang with the impact, and pain bloomed in my chest once again. I tasted more blood. My body curled in on itself. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe or think.

Chest heaving, I rolled to my hands and knees. Tears burned, but I forced the words out anyway. “This union is bigger than us. The alliance… it holds the pack together. You know that. Rejecting me… will cost everything.”

He stared down at me, and I could see the contempt flicker in his cold eyes.

“Stop!”

I kept going. 

On my hands and knees in my own living room, bruised and shaking. “Think about the pack. The balance. Please—”

“I said stop.”

“We can fix this. The alliance—”

“Enough!” The shout ripped out of him, cracking the air like thunder. “You are nothing to me. I reject you. The bond is severed. Divorce papers will be filed.”

The words tore my world in two.

Tears spilled hot down my cheeks. I stayed kneeling, hands pressed to the tiles. My body would not stop shaking. I knew what this meant. A rejected Luna was worse than dead. The pack would turn against me. My family wouldn’t shield me. I would be nothing.

“Please,” I choked out. “Reconsider. Don’t do this tonight. Let me—”

He wasn’t listening.

My hand moved without permission and settled over my stomach. The secret I had carried alone for weeks ate me up from the inside. 

I looked down at my hand and calculated through the tears and the pain. If I told him now—

The front door opened.

Xena walked in.

She took one look at me on the floor, hand on my stomach, tears streaming, Lucan standing over me, Riley frozen behind him, and crossed the room in three strides. She put herself between us like a shield.

She crouched, gripped me by the arm, and pulled me up. My legs barely held, but she held me anyway.

Then she turned on Lucan, eyes narrowed, and eyebrows furrowed.

“You worthless bastard. You hit her like it’s your right. You fuck her sister in the house you share with her. You call yourself Alpha while you break the only good thing this pack has left. I hope the Goddess makes you choke on every ounce of power you stole from her.”

Lucan’s face twisted. He raised his hand to strike her.

Xena was faster. She snatched a heavy crystal vase from the side table and hurled it. It shattered against the wall inches from his head.

She didn’t wait.

She wrapped her arm around me, tucked me tight against her side, and moved. We walked out fast. The night air hit my swollen face, which made the pain worse. The door shut behind us with an impact that made my knees buckle.

Xena got me to the car and pushed me into the passenger seat. She climbed in after and started the engine, but didn’t drive. Her hands gripped the wheel until her knuckles went white.

I sat there. Hands in my lap. Everything felt far away. Numb. Raw.

Xena turned to me, about to speak.

I spoke first.

“I’m pregnant.”