Chapter 1

AVA

”I am really sorry. The insemination did not work again."

The doctor's voice sounded far away like she was talking to me from a different room as I stared at the paper in her hand without being able to understand what it said.

Failed? Again?

I did not even remember how many times I had heard that word before but it kept happening for seven long years repeating itself until it did not even feel like a warning. Just something that always happened.

I had been married to Lucas Dan, the leader of the Nightfall Pack for seven years and I still had not given him a baby.

A Luna who cannot have a baby is often looked down on, perhaps seen as a curse too. In the pack, a Luna's worth was tied to the strength of the bloodline she carried, and whispers had already begun to spread among the elders.

I tried everything I could think of and everything others suggested. 

I tried to get pregnant at the time, took medicine from the pack healers, got hormone injections that made my body weak and hurt and even did secret rituals that people in the pack talked about but nothing worked.

My body was still empty. Even my wolf had grown quiet over the years, as if she no longer recognized me as worthy of standing beside an Alpha because he had rejected me.

It wasn’t always like this. Once, when the bond between me and Lucas first formed, my wolf had howled for him like he was the only thing anchoring us to this world. We were mates and he had marked me on our wedding night.

But that night, seven months after our wedding, he rejected me. 

Not with rage, but with cold indifference, “I, Lucas Dan, reject you as my mate.” The words had fallen quietly… but they shattered something inside me. I had felt it then, the bond snapping, my wolf screaming, something tearing through my chest like I was being ripped apart from the inside.

And yet… it had not disappeared completely, it lingered. And something inside me had been silenced ever since.

The mate mark on my neck had dulled over time, no longer warm… just a faint reminder of something that had already died.

“Can we try again?" My voice was weak as I held on to the bit of hope.

The doctor was quiet for a moment. That short silence hurt more than anything she could have said because it made me think about what I was afraid to admit.

Without waiting for her to answer I turned away. I walked to the office door, my hand already lifting to knock when I heard voices from the hallway.

"She is pushing herself hard. Her body is not ready, if she keeps trying she will hurt herself before anything happens."

"What is the point of all this anyway? Lucas does not want kids."

My hand stopped moving.

The world felt like it was spinning beneath my feet as those words sank in.

"What if she tries a hundred times? It still would not matter. It is pointless."

My fingers curled into a fist as something cold spread through my chest.

Does Lucas not want kids? A sharp, restless unease stirred deep inside me, my wolf shifting for the first time in months, as if reacting to something I had refused to see.

****

I did not remember how I got home. One moment I was standing in that hospital hallway and the next I was curled up on my bed feeling broken and unable to understand how the world kept moving without me.

The sunlight came through the windows nicely, but I was freezing, shaking so hard that my teeth almost chattered.

I did not hear the door open.

I only felt the bed move behind me, then I felt Lucas.

I perceived whiskey, smoke, and pine on him. The same smell that had always been his, the smell that used to make me feel safe.

His arms wrapped around me from behind as his hand slipped under my nightdress easily.

"Did you miss me?" he asked. His voice was low and rough from drinking. It sounded like he was in charge like he used to.

Before, his touch made my heart beat fast. Now... It just hurt.

He knew I went to the hospital that day, an Alpha always knew the condition of his Luna, especially when it concerned the future of the pack yet he said nothing. He knew what the results meant. He did not ask me about it.

"The baby..." I whispered, my voice breaking. "It did not work."

His hand stopped moving for a second before he breathed out slowly, as if it was no deal.

"I see, " he said calmly. "You must be tired."

That was all he said.

No comfort, no sadness, no anger, nothing.

"I will be leaving tomorrow, " he said later. "Pack business. I will be gone for two months."

Two months???

"Take care of yourself, " he added. "I will have the housekeeper make your medicine."

My stomach turned at that word, medicine.

Before I could think he kissed me, hot and insistent like he always did, and even though I did not want it my body still reacted out of habit out of years of loving him out of love I did not know how to stop.

So I let him, like I always did. But my wolf did not respond the way she used to, no warmth, no instinctive pull, only a strange, distant silence. The bond between us still existed, faint, fragile like something half-broken. A rejected mate bond never truly disappears. It just… hurts less when it dies slowly.

Lucas was always gentle. He has never hurt me, never forced me beyond what I could handle and afterward he would carry me to the bathroom, clean me carefully like I was something, and then bring me back to bed holding me until he fell asleep.

Anyone watching would have thought I was perfect as his Luna, deeply in love and inseparable.

A love others were jealous of, a lie I lived for seven years.

His breathing became slow and steady beside me. I should have fallen asleep but I did not.

My eyes kept looking at the briefcase he threw onto the sofa earlier.

In seven years I never touched his things, not once because that was my rule. To respect his space, to trust him completely, to be Luna.

But now...

That rule felt like a joke.

I got out of bed quietly each step toward the briefcase feeling heavier like my body was warning me not to continue.

My hand trembled as I opened it. Inside were papers and contracts, nothing until I saw a small white box.

My breath caught as I pulled it out, pills.

I did not even need to read the label to know what they were, birth control.

For a moment my mind went blank. A Luna denied an heir was more than just a wife being rejected, it was a future being erased.

I never took anything like this before, I never needed to. My friends used to tease me telling me I would get pregnant quickly because Lucas loved me very much.

Now I almost laughed at the memory because I understood that the "medicine" he made me take had birth control in them. He made sure I took the medicine after we tried to have a baby, saying they were hormone boosters.

My stomach turned violently.

My hands shook badly, and the box slipped from my grip, knocking against something else in the briefcase.

A photograph fell out.

It was old and worn, its edges faded from being handled many times. I picked it up slowly.

In it, a younger Lucas was smiling. Bright, open, and not like the man he became. Beside him stood a girl, Vera. She leaned against him naturally. Vera was a family friend's daughter, who died in a fire outbreak. 

The faint scent clinging to the paper hit me a second later, soft, floral… and unmistakably not mine.

"What are you doing?"

The photo was suddenly taken from my hands. I looked up.

Lucas was standing there, his face cold and his eyes sharp.

"You went through my things?" he said, his voice low and cutting.” Ava, when did you become so unreasonable?"

Unreasonable?

For a moment I only stared at him, then I laughed.

It started softly then grew until it turned almost crazy, my chest hurting as I laughed through tears I could not stop.

"Unreasonable?" I repeated, my voice trembling, I could feel my wolf getting pissed.

"No... I have been too reasonable, too obedient, too trusting, and too blind as to why you'd have Vera’s photo with you. When were you guys even this close to take a picture together?” I let out a laugh.

The laughter continued as something sharp and painful twisted in my lower abdomen, stealing my breath and forcing my knees to weaken beneath me.

The last thing I saw before everything went dark was Lucas's face and for the time… He looked scared.

***

I woke up to the sound of coughing.

Smoke filled my lungs as I choked violently, my eyes snapping open while heat and chaos slammed into me.

"Fire! Get out!" "Help! Someone help!"

Screams echoed everywhere as the room descended into chaos, broken bottles scattered across the floor and flashing lights flickered through the smoke.

Then I saw the couch, and my heart stopped.

The girl from the photograph, Vera. She was there, unconscious and lying beside me.

Seven years ago... She died in this fire. My heart pounded violently.

I grabbed a phone with shaking hands. The screen lit up. May 18th, 2019. 22:50.

My breath caught sharply as I realized that this was the night.

The night everything started, the night she died, and the night I….

My ankle screamed in pain as I tried to move. I collapsed with a gasp, the agony shooting up my leg and pinning me in place. My wolf panicked inside me, clawing weakly against the bond that should have anchored me to my Alpha… but felt frighteningly distant.

I could not run, the flames were rising higher consuming everything. Then….. BANG!

The door was kicked open violently. A figure stepped through the smoke.

Broad shoulders and a powerful presence, my heart skipped as my wolf recognized the scent, Lucas.

Now he is seven years younger. Hope surged inside me, and my hand lifted instinctively.

"Lucas... Save…”

"I've got you. Don't be afraid." He said.

His eyes looked at mine for a second, one second then he turned away from me.

Lucas walked right past me and he went to Vera.

He picked her up in his arms without waiting, holding her tight against his chest like she was the thing that mattered to him, like I was not there.

Lucas walked past me without stopping, without slowing down or looking at me again.

My hand was still stuck in the air, and my body would not move at all. I felt the betrayal cut through me.

My ankle hurt a lot beneath me as I slowly realized what was happening. In this life, Lucas had chosen her, I finally saw something I couldn't see for seven years.

I died, even before the fire got to me.