Chapter 3

Elara's POV

"The title of Luna—you can give it to whoever you actually want it to go to."

I was still gasping for air. I turned my head away, letting my tears soak into the pillow.

Orion gripped my chin, forcing me to look at him. "What the hell are you talking about?" There was no shock in his eyes. Just displeasure.

I closed mine. I let the scent of white roses clinging to his skin wash over me—sharp, floral, and humiliating. It had been there the whole time. All night.

I was done.

"That smell," I whispered. "I know who it belongs to."

When I opened my eyes again, I didn't bother hiding the wreckage inside them. "Orion. How do you come home smelling like her and still have the nerve to touch me? Where do I even rank in your life?"

The tears spilled over before I could stop them. The flash of hatred I felt—at him, at myself, at the whole world—lasted only a second before it collapsed into something hollow. Grief always won.

If I couldn't stop loving him, the least I could do was salvage a shred of dignity.

He exhaled and sat back, absently wiping his damp skin as if this conversation were an inconvenience he didn't have time for.

"I helped her with something. That's how the scent got on me." He knit his brows, his tone dismissive. "Celeste and I are friends, Elara. Don't make this into something it isn't."

I stared at him. At those deep blue eyes. This man, whom I had loved for ten years, was lying to my face with effortless grace. Like I was the one who was making things up.

"If you're just friends," I said, my voice stripped bare, "would you ignore your own daughter's life to go play house with her kid? Stop lying to me, Orion. You love her. I get it. I'm stepping aside."

We both needed to be let off the hook. This was the cleanest exit we were ever going to get.

He climbed off the bed, his expression darkening. "You're a mother, Elara. Stop weaponizing Mia's illness just to get a rise out of me. I'm asking you—for the last time." He reached for a tissue, barely glancing at me. "If you keep this up, I'm going to seriously question whether you're fit to raise her."

My heart stopped.

He had never once shown up for Mia. Not for a single treatment. And now he was threatening to take her away?

Anger hit before anything else did—hot and fast, overtaking the sadness. "I have never exaggerated a single thing! You're the one who checked out, Orion! You've been so buried in Celeste and Lily's lives that you don't even know what's happening to your own flesh and blood. If I'm not a fit mother, then what does that make you? A man who won't even show up for a compatibility test? Do you even have the right to call yourself her father?"

"Didn't they already find a match for Mia?" He frowned, like he was pulling up old news.

I went quiet. His knowledge of Mia's condition was frozen somewhere around last month.

This was my husband. My daughter's biological father.

I pressed my back against the headboard and swallowed the wave of grief trying to break through. He didn't deserve to see me fall apart in front of him.

"The marrow is gone, Orion." Even saying it out loud hurt. "Dr. Landon told me today—someone had it pulled."

I steadied my breathing. Kept my voice flat. "There are only two options now. Either you outbid whoever took it, or you come in for the compatibility test yourself. That's it. There is no third option."

Something flickered in his eyes. Actual surprise, for once.

I couldn't tell if he didn't believe anyone could outspend him, or if—for one rare moment—he actually felt something for Mia.

"If you're willing to save her, I'll sign the divorce papers right now. No fight, no conditions. You'll be free to be with Celeste."

He opened his mouth to answer.

Then his phone rang.

The sound of a little girl crying pierced the quiet of the room, followed by Celeste's panicked voice over the speaker. I couldn't make out the words, but I watched Orion's face transform. Real, immediate terror flashed in his eyes—the kind of concern that moved his entire body. It was more emotion than he'd shown during the entire conversation about our dying daughter.

An icy weight settled in my chest.

He hung up. Before I could say a word, he was already pulling on his shirt, grabbing his jacket, and heading for the door.

"Something came up. We'll talk about Mia later."

His footsteps hammered down the stairs. Urgent. Certain. The front door clicked shut, and he was gone.

I sat in the silence of our bedroom. That kind of urgency. That kind of care. I had never once seen it aimed at me. Or at Mia.

It was over.

I was done waiting on him.

I picked up my phone and dialed a number I'd been sitting on for a long time.

Victoria. The leading geneticist in the field, and the one person who had been telling me for years that she wanted to work with me.

"My little genius." Her excitement bled through the line before I'd said three words. "You finally called."

I thanked her for her patience, then got straight to the point. "I'm ready to accept your collaboration offer. But I need an advance on the payment."

"Of course," she said without a second of hesitation. "Anything else? Anything at all?"

I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath.

Victoria—a woman I had met twice in my life—showed more genuine concern for me than the man I had spent five years married to. There was something deeply absurd about that.

"The money is enough for now. Thank you, Victoria."

She made me promise to reach out if anything changed.

I hung up.

Sometimes I wished I wasn't a world-class geneticist. Ignorance might have let me hold on to some hope for Mia. But I knew—better than almost anyone—that there was no workaround, no alternative therapy, no experimental shortcut. A marrow transplant was the only way.

Three minutes later, five million dollars hit my account.

I stared at the digits and made a silent vow: This is where it ends.

From this moment on, I am no longer the mate of Alpha Orion.

No longer the Luna of the White Moon Pack.

I am only what I was before any of this—the geneticist the scientific world used to know as E.

Tears ran down my face without sound. I opened my laptop and drafted a formal petition for forced dissolution of mate bond, then sent it to the Lycan Council.

The Lycan Council—seated high in the mountains of Bloodfang Peak—was the governing body of the werewolf world. The highest authority. Given my human status, and everything I had contributed to the White Moon Pack over the years, I believed I would receive a fair ruling.

By morning, the reply was in my inbox: Your petition has entered the review process. A decision will be rendered within seven days.

Seven days.

And then Mia and I would be gone forever.