LOGINMy fingers trembled against my stomach.
Pregnant.
I was pregnant.
The pack doctor’s words echoed inside my head until I couldn’t hear anything else.
“Congratulations, Luna… you’re carrying the Alpha’s child.”
A sharp pain twisted through my lower abdomen, forcing me to bend over.
“Evelyn!”
Someone shouted my name, but the voices around me sounded distant, as if I were trapped underwater.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
All I knew was that the tiny life growing inside me had just become the most important thing in the world.
“She’s going to faint!”
A pair of hands reached for me.
Before they could touch me, Kael stepped forward.
For one foolish second, hope bloomed inside me.
Maybe…
Maybe he still cared.
Maybe he regretted what he’d done.
Instead of holding me, he frowned.
“What is it now?”
His cold voice sliced through the silence.
I stared at him, unable to believe what I’d just heard.
“What is it… now?”
Did he think I was pretending?
Did he think I wanted everyone’s attention?
The elder nearest to us frowned. “Alpha, your Luna doesn’t look well.”
Kael’s expression remained unchanged.
“She’ll recover.”
Recover?
I had just lost my marriage.
My dignity.
My future.
And he thought I would simply recover.
Selene stepped closer, her beautiful face filled with concern.
“Kael, maybe we should postpone the ceremony.”
She reached for his arm.
“I don’t want anyone to think I came between you two.”
The words sounded considerate.
Almost kind.
If I hadn’t caught the tiny smile that disappeared the moment Kael looked at her, I might have believed her.
“You didn’t,” Kael said firmly.
“You’ve done nothing wrong.”
His words settled over the square like a final judgment.
The pack members exchanged glances.
Some looked uncomfortable.
Others didn’t even try to hide their satisfaction.
“I knew it,” someone whispered.
“Our Alpha never loved her.”
“Evelyn was only Luna because of the late Alpha.”
“Selene has always been his true mate.”
Their voices surrounded me from every direction.
Each one stole another piece of my pride.
I refused to cry.
Not here.
Not in front of the people who wanted to watch me break.
The chief elder stepped between us.
“Alpha Kael, according to our laws, a rejected Luna has the right to challenge the decision before the Moon Goddess.”
“I won’t challenge him,” I said quietly.
The elder looked at me in surprise.
“But—”
“I won’t beg for a place in a man’s heart.”
My voice was calm.
Calmer than I felt.
If Kael wanted freedom…
I’d give it to him.
His eyes met mine for the first time since the ceremony began.
Something unreadable flickered across his face.
Relief?
Guilt?
I no longer cared.
The elder sighed heavily.
“Then the rejection will become official before midnight.”
Midnight.
In less than three hours…
I would no longer be the Luna of Blackwood Pack.
A strange numbness settled over me.
Three years of loving Kael.
Three years of trying to become enough.
And it all ended with a single sentence.
No apology.
No explanation.
Just…
“I reject you.”
As the crowd began to disperse, I turned to leave.
“Wait.”
Kael’s voice stopped me.
Slowly, I looked back.
He walked toward me until only a few steps separated us.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Finally, he reached into the pocket of his ceremonial coat and pulled out a black bank card.
“Take this.”
I stared at it.
“What is it?”
“There are five million in the account.”
My heart clenched.
“I don’t need your money.”
“It’s enough for you to start over.”
Start over?
Was that what he thought this was?
A business deal?
He had discarded three years of my life and expected money to erase the pain.
“I said I don’t want it.”
His jaw tightened.
“Don’t be stubborn.”
A bitter laugh escaped my lips.
“So that’s what you think this is?”
“Evelyn—”
“No.”
I stepped back.
“You don’t get to reject me…”
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“…and then pay me to disappear.”
Without another word, I walked away.
This time, he didn’t stop me.
But as I reached the stone steps leading out of the sacred square, a familiar voice called after me.
“Luna!”
It was Doctor Helena.
She ran toward me, clutching a small leather medical bag.
She looked frightened.
Very frightened.
When she reached me, she lowered her voice until only I could hear.
“Luna… don’t tell anyone about the baby.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“What?”
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening.
“Someone broke into my office this afternoon.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“They searched through every patient file.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“The only file they took…”
Her hands trembled as she grabbed mine.
“…was yours.”
To be continued…
“How far ahead are they?” I asked, already moving toward the door before Rowan had finished speaking.“Hours, at most,” he said, falling into step beside me. “They left the library sometime this afternoon. If they’re traveling the same route you did, on foot through that terrain, we may still be able to reach the site before they do, if we move now and don’t stop.”“Then we move now,” I said.Kael caught my arm, not to stop me, but to turn me toward him for one brief, steadying moment. “You’re not going alone again,” he said. “Not this time.”I didn’t argue. Whatever the First Hand had required of that first meeting, this was different. This wasn’t a question waiting to be asked in good faith. This was a faction who had already decided what they intended to do, and the only question remaining was whether we could stop them before they did it.“Lucien,” I said, turning to him, “I need you to stay. If something happens at the site, Kyle and Lyra cannot be left unprotected here.”He didn
“Who are they,” I asked, my voice tight with a fear I no longer bothered to hide, “and how close are they to the palace?”“Closer than you’d like,” the First Hand said. “I don’t know the exact shape of what they intend. Only that patience, among that branch, has finally run out. Go. Now. I’ve already delayed you longer than I should have.”I didn’t waste another moment on questions. I ran the entire way back through the clearing, past the standing stones, retracing my steps as fast as the uneven ground allowed, my pendant still warm against my skin as though it understood, somehow, the urgency carrying me forward. Rowan’s perimeter found me before I reached the tethered horse, two guards emerging from the tree line the moment they caught sight of me running, their expressions shifting instantly from relief to alarm as they read my face correctly.“The palace,” I gasped. “Now. Something’s wrong.”They didn’t question me. One rode ahead immediately to send word, the other staying close
“I don’t know,” I said, because I understood, standing at that threshold, that lying would have cost me more than honesty ever could. “But I’ve spent five years protecting my children from a truth I didn’t fully understand myself. I’d rather carry the weight of knowing than keep failing them with ignorance.”Something in the figure’s expression softened, just slightly, and they stepped aside to let me pass.The interior of the structure was smaller than I expected, barely larger than a single room, though it seemed to stretch further than its walls should have reasonably allowed, the way certain places did when they held something old enough to bend the ordinary rules of space around themselves. At its center, resting on a simple stone pedestal untouched by the dust and decay that had claimed everything around it, sat the crown.It wasn’t what I expected at all. No jewels, no elaborate gold work, nothing that spoke of wealth or conquest the way I’d always imagined a royal crown should
The road Cassian’s map traced wasn’t a road at all for most of its length, more a suggestion of one, a path that had clearly once carried travelers and had since been left to the slow, patient work of time and weather. I rode as far as the terrain allowed before I had to dismount and continue on foot, the horse tethered carefully where I could find my way back to it, my heart beating harder with every step that carried me further from anything familiar.I understood, somewhere around the second hour of walking, that whoever had chosen this location had chosen it deliberately for its isolation, the kind of place that revealed itself only to someone who already knew precisely where to look. I thought of Rowan’s quiet perimeter, positioned somewhere behind me at a distance I couldn’t see and wasn’t meant to, and let that knowledge steady me even as every instinct I’d honed over five years of careful vigilance screamed at the open vulnerability of walking forward entirely alone.The land
“Absolutely not,” Kael said, before I’d even finished reading the message aloud to the rest of them.“You don’t get to decide that,” I said, and I didn’t say it unkindly, but I said it firmly enough that he stopped, caught himself, and let the silence settle instead of pushing further. I watched him do it, watched the old instinct rise and watched him choose, deliberately, not to follow it, and some small part of me ached at how much that restraint still cost him even five years into becoming the man who could offer it.“I understand the instinct,” I told him, gentler now. “I have the same instinct every time Lyra climbs something she shouldn’t. But I need all of you to understand something too. This isn’t recklessness. I’ve thought about almost nothing else since I read that message.”Lucien, who hadn’t spoken yet, finally did, his voice careful. “Walk us through your thinking. Not to talk you out of it. So we understand it well enough to help you if you decide to go.”I appreciated
I sat with that question long after Cassian had finished reading it aloud. *Do they still believe the crown can be shared, or has three hundred years of watching us fail each other finally convinced them it cannot.*It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t even, strictly speaking, a warning in the way the rest of the fragment had framed it. It was an invitation to understand someone before deciding what they were, and after everything I’d learned about my own history being buried, distorted, and weaponized by people who never bothered to ask the right questions first, I understood exactly why the First Hand had left it behind as their only instruction.“We don’t even know if they’re the ones who left the key,” Rowan pointed out carefully. “We’re building an entire theory on a symbol and a fragment.”“We are,” I agreed. “But it’s the only theory that actually explains everything we’ve seen. The watching. The patience. A message that wasn’t a demand, left somewhere it would only be found by people







