The Grand Tutor's Replacement Bride

Elara's POV

"I'm sorry, Ms. Vance."

Dr. Landon set the chart down, avoiding my eyes. "The bone marrow match has been reassigned. There's nothing more we can do."

"But we've been on the waiting list for a year. Who? Who took my daughter's donor?"

My daughter, Mia, has Bloodwither Syndrome.

A bone-marrow transplant is her only shot at survival. For an entire year, I'd pulled every string. Today was supposed to be the turning point, my daughter has finally waited to a suitable bone marrow.

However, we're back to square one now.

Dr. Landon with a look that bordered on pity. "You might still want to reach out to the child's father for a compatibility test. If he's a match…"

Mia's father. My husband. Alpha Orion.

The memory of the first time I'd gone to ask him blow. He'd been sitting behind that massive desk, looking up at me for half a second before saying he was too busy. The second time, he had a meeting. The third time, he shoved me back with barely contained contempt.

"Begging me is literally all you know how to do, isn't it? Stop bothering me over something this trivial."

Three times. Not a single yes. After that, I stopped asking.

But now, I had nowhere else to go. I pulled out my phone and dialed Orion's number. One ring. Then silence—declined.

A few seconds later, a text flashed across the screen: In a meeting.

As a human, I had no other way to reach him. No mind-link, no mate bond. So I brought Mia home and I waited.

By ten o'clock that night, he still hadn't returned. I called again. It took two tries before he finally picked up.

"What happen?" Background noise bled through the line, his voice sharp with his signature impatience.

I raised mine so he could hear me over the din. "Could you come in tomorrow for Mia's compatibility test? We need you, Orion—"

"I'm busy."

"But Mia is your daughter! You can't just stand by and watch her die."

He let out a slow, heavy breath. "That's enough, Elara. Stop exaggerating Mia's condition just to get my attention."

"I'm not exaggerating. This is serious. The doctor said—"

"Mia looks fine to me. Quit being so dramatic."

He was about to hang up. And then, I heard it. A small, bright voice on the other end of the line: "Daddy, come over here!"

Orion murmured something back to her. His voice was warm. Easy. A version of him I hadn't seen in years.

The call went dead.

My phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor. I sat on the couch, paralyzed. That single word—Daddy—echoed in my skull, sinking through bone, pinning me in place.

Who was that little girl? Had I misheard? Why was she calling my husband Daddy?

Then my screen lit up with a F******k notification. Celeste has posted a new photo.

I reached down with trembling fingers and tapped the notification.

Fireworks bloomed across a night sky. Orion was holding a little girl in his arms the way you hold a child who belongs to you—head dipped, lips pressed to her cheek. Celeste stood beside them, her arm hooked through his, her face tilted against his shoulder. She was radiant.

A birthday party at Bayfront Park. The three of them, together, looking exactly like a family.

My fingers froze. Those fireworks were brilliant and blinding, falling out of the sky like a hundred knives, one after another, straight into my chest.

"So he wouldn't take my calls because he was celebrating Celeste's daughter's birthday…" I whispered to the empty, dark living room. "Does he even know our daughter is running out of time? That without that marrow, she's going to die?"

Tears slid down my face and splashed onto the back of my hand. Cold.

I don't know how long I sat there in the dark before I heard his key turn in the lock.

He came home just before dawn.

Seeing the light still on, he walked over and leaned down to kiss me. "Sorry. Work ran late."

He always did this. He gave me just enough warmth to keep the illusion alive.

But then I caught the scent.

It was heavy and unmistakable. The signature of another she-wolf—wild white roses with a sharp, metallic edge underneath. A sweetness with teeth.

My stomach clenched.

Orion didn't seem to notice, or didn't care to. His long fingers slipped beneath the silk of my nightgown, his touch already demanding. He shrugged off his jacket, loosened his tie, and started working his way through his buttons.

In bed, he was always dominant. He never needed to ask if I was willing; he had always known, better than anyone, how completely I'd given myself to him. Body and soul, year after year, with nothing held back.

But right now, all I can call back is him accompanying Celeste and another child set off fireworks.

I pressed my hand flat against his chest.

"Don't. Stay away from me!"

He went still.

"Elara—"

"I can smell her on you." My voice didn't shake.

His jaw tightened. He didn't deny it.

He just stayed where he was for a moment, his hand still resting against the sheet where I'd pushed him back, and something moved behind his eyes that I couldn't name.

"You're imagining things again," he said. Flat. Final.

I didn't answer. There wasn't anything left to say tonight that hadn't already been said a hundred different ways, in a hundred different rooms, over five years.

"The title of Luna," I said calmly, "You can give it to whoever you actually want it to go to."