The Luna's Final Year

Adrian Blackwood's dominant Alpha scent still clung to the room.

My legs hadn't stopped trembling, and the wolf inside me was letting out soft, wounded whimpers after the intimacy we'd just lost control of.

The next second, Adrian caught my chin in his hand and pressed a white pill onto the back of my tongue.

"Swallow."

I didn't fight him.

For eight years, after every night we spent together, he had watched me take birth control with his own eyes—as if making sure I could never carry his pup was the only way to prove I couldn't use his bloodline to get what I wanted.

Once he was satisfied, he picked up his phone and called another she-wolf right in front of me.

"Vivian, get ready."

"I'm taking you to the Moon Goddess Gala tonight."

When the door shut behind him, the mate mark over my heart felt as though it had been torn open.

I was the fated mate chosen for Adrian by the Moon Goddess when he turned eighteen.

I was also the Luna of the Silverpine Pack—at least in name.

Yet my own Alpha had spent years making sure I would never bear his heir.

All because, eight years ago, he discovered the agreement the former Luna had forced me to sign.

If I gave birth to an heir within one year, I would receive a one-hundred-million-dollar family trust.

If I gave birth within three years, the trust would be reduced to fifty million.

If I still failed to produce an heir after seven years, I would no longer have the right to interfere with the Alpha's public involvement with other she-wolves.

With bloodshot eyes, Adrian had demanded, "Elena Vale, when you accepted my mate mark, was it because you loved me—or because you wanted the Blackwood fortune?"

From that day on, he began parading different she-wolves in front of me.

He forced me to take the pills.

Forced me to feel jealous.

Forced me to admit that I loved him.

What he never knew was that the agreement had a second page.

If we remained childless at the end of eight years, either party could terminate both the legal marriage and the Luna bond.

Today marked exactly eight years.

...

On the night of the Moon Goddess Gala, the entire city of Ravenport was waiting for me to lose my mind.

Someone had even started a live poll online.

[Will Elena Blackwood crash the gala and have Vivian Hart thrown out of Silverpine territory?]

The comments were brutal.

[Last time she smashed a car. The time before that, she had security drag a woman out of the ballroom. This should be good.]

[Everybody knows she became Luna for the money. The Alpha should have rejected her years ago.]

I stared at the second comment for a long time, then tapped the heart beneath it.

From my verified account, I replied:

[You're right.]

My finger didn't shake when the post went live.

A year ago, one stranger suggesting Adrian leave me could have kept me awake until sunrise. I would have refreshed the comments over and over, desperate to defend my marriage and prove I still deserved the title of Luna.

Tonight, for the first time, I admitted they were right about one thing.

This marriage should have ended a long time ago.

My wolf curled up in the back of my mind. She didn't howl at the thought of severing our bond the way she used to. She only closed her eyes, too exhausted to grieve.

Within ten minutes, my reply was trending.

One of Adrian's friends was livestreaming backstage at the gala. On-screen, a man grinned and slapped Adrian on the shoulder. "Eight years, Alpha. Did you finally tame that wild Luna of yours? Come on, share the secret."

Adrian didn't smile.

His assistant had just handed him a phone displaying a security alert.

[Luna entered the Blackwood Estate vault.]

His gaze hardened.

"Tame her?" He sent me the livestream link, then looked straight into the camera. "She finally learned that every tantrum has a price."

He lifted his drink, his mouth curving without warmth. "My guess is ten million. Anything less wouldn't buy this much silence. Am I right, Mrs. Blackwood?"

The room erupted in laughter.

Only I noticed the tendons standing out along the back of his hand. His eyes kept flicking toward the message bar, waiting for me to burst into the stream and prove I still cared.

I didn't.

His glass hit the table harder than necessary.

Everyone else mistook his expression for smug satisfaction. Only his Beta, Caleb, leaned closer and asked, "Should I send someone to bring Luna back, Alpha?"

"No." Adrian answered too quickly. "She knows where home is."

I stood beneath the old estate in a vault packed with heirloom diamonds, company shares, antique weapons, and enough gold to fund a small country. I didn't touch any of it.

Instead, I crossed to the fingerprint-locked drawer at the back and removed a yellowing contract.

Eight years earlier, the Vale family had been attacked by a rival pack. Our parents had been gone since I was sixteen, so my younger brother, Ethan, and I had grown up depending on each other. During the attack, he shoved me clear of a collapsing steel beam and took the impact himself. Silver fragments and wolfsbane-laced smoke left him with permanent spinal and cardiopulmonary damage, and he had needed respiratory support ever since.

To pay for Ethan's treatment, I accepted former Luna Evelyn Blackwood's terms.

At the time, I believed the contract would never matter. Adrian and I loved each other. A piece of paper couldn't poison something that strong.

On the day I signed, Evelyn asked whether I would regret it.

Through the glass wall of the rehabilitation ward, I watched my unconscious brother struggle to breathe. Then I remembered Adrian sliding his ring onto my finger beneath the full moon, looking at me as if I were the only future he wanted.

I shook my head.

I trusted him. I trusted us.

I even planned to show him the contract once Ethan's condition stabilized. I would explain every clause myself, and he would understand why I had made the choice.

But Ethan's condition kept deteriorating. Every time I thought he was stable enough for me to tell Adrian the truth, another infection or cardiac episode sent him back into intensive care. I kept postponing the conversation until Adrian found the first page on his own.

By then, every explanation sounded rehearsed.

The tragedy was that our first year had been happy enough to make the years after it feel even crueler.

In spring, Adrian drove me along the Pacific coast to watch whales migrate. In summer, we hid in a cabin in the Rockies. In fall, he took me to New York for an indie game expo because he knew how much I missed designing. In winter, he rented an entire ski resort because crowds made me anxious.

When I had a fever, he stayed awake all night, using his body heat to soothe my restless wolf. When nightmares dragged me back to the attack on my family, he held my hand and repeated, "Lena, I'm here. Nobody will ever hurt you again."

Then he found the fertility contract.

I'd just returned from a medical checkup when I saw him sitting in the darkened study with the document open across his knee.

"So that's what I am to you," he said, staring at the trust figures. "A Blackwood bank account and a hundred-million-dollar payout."

I explained until dawn. I told him about Ethan, the frozen accounts, the hospital debt, and every payment I had refused from Evelyn beyond my brother's treatment.

He asked the same question again and again.

"If I weren't a Blackwood, would you still have accepted me?"

"Yes."

"Then prove it."

How was I supposed to prove love? Let my brother die? Turn back time and refuse the only help that had kept him alive?

I threw my arms around Adrian. His hands landed on my back by instinct, holding me for one heartbeat before he shoved me away.

That was the first night we stood on opposite sides of the same room while loving each other enough to bleed.

He didn't believe a word I said.

After that, Adrian began appearing in public with different she-wolves. He chose dresses in colors I'd once loved, seated them in my place at charity dinners, and made sure the photographs reached my feed before he came home.

He never actually slept with them. I would only learn that much later.

At the time, all I saw was the man I loved breaking every precious thing between us, then studying my reaction like a scientist waiting for proof.

Three years ago, Vivian Hart entered the picture.

She came from a fallen pack family, and her eyes resembled mine when I was younger. She knew exactly how to provoke me and exactly how to cry in front of Adrian afterward.

I slapped her at a gala once. Another time, I used my authority as Luna to ban her from Silverpine territory.

From that day on, she never let go of the grudge.

Adrian kept her close because she made me react.

He thought jealousy proved love.

At first, it was only one dance at a banquet. When I stormed into the lounge to confront him, secret relief flashed across his face. He pinned me against the door and breathed against my ear, "So you do care."

I sobbed that of course I cared.

He didn't stop.

Doubt became an addiction. Each time, he needed a bigger reaction to convince himself I still loved him. Staged photographs turned into public appearances, public appearances into cruel jokes, and cruel jokes into punishment whenever I struck back.

He never realized that every new demand for proof destroyed a little more of the answer.

I left the vault with the second page of the contract and drove straight to the law office appointed by the Pack Council.

Attorney Miller read the document twice before looking up. "Once the termination is filed, you forfeit every Blackwood asset and your Luna status. Are you certain?"

"Yes."

I removed my wedding ring and set it on his desk. My voice was so calm it startled even me.

"Please end my marriage."

He studied my face, then pushed a glass of warm water toward me. "The review takes seventy-two hours. You can withdraw the petition at any point before approval."

The water trembled inside the glass.

Eight years ago, Adrian had promised at our mating ceremony that he would spend his life making me feel safe enough to trust him.

Neither of us had kept our promise.

"I won't withdraw it."

The mate mark over my heart flared with pain the moment I said the words. Adrian must have felt it across the city, because my phone lit up with his name.

I let it ring.