CHAPTER 1: TESTIMONY

“Luna Keren Vale, do you understand the gravity of what you are about to do?”

My throat tightened as the question hit me like a sledgehammer. For a moment, I could not breathe.

I took a deep breath, lifting my chin. “I’m certain, my lord,” I replied, my voice steadier than I expected.

“Do you swear to testify against your mate and the Silver Moon Pack under the authority of the Lycan Council?” the man asked, his voice grave.

For a moment, I almost looked at him, but I forced my gaze forward, fixing it on the council members seated on the raised platform, expectations written plainly across every face in the room.

“Yes.”

The chamber immediately filled with murmurs of outrage and shock, making me flinch. It was a rare sight to see a Luna testify against her mate. Hell, before now, people would have argued that it was impossible.

Too bad for them, I was someone who loved to do the impossible.

Rage rose in me as I finally glanced sideways at the shocked and angry faces of the pack members seated in rows behind the partition, people who had spent a year making sure I understood I did not belong among them.

Then, unable to stop myself, my eyes slid over to the respondent’s table where my mate sat.

My chest tightened painfully when my eyes met his, and for a moment, the room faded, and all I could see was him as he had been.

The charming man I had crossed an ocean for. The man who had looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered. The man who had come into my boring human life called me his mate and led me into the exciting world of shifters.

The man who had destroyed my heart and soul.

His eyes, usually dark brown, were now almost black in the low light.

I had seen him angry before. I had seen him controlled, distant, and cold in a way that made entire rooms fall silent. I had seen him happy in those rare moments when he allowed himself to be.

But I had never seen this.

Right now, they were filled with an expression I did not have a word for. Shock and disbelief, yes. But underneath both of those, something rawer. Something that looked like a man watching the ground disappear beneath his feet and not yet understanding that he was falling.

His eyes searched mine, desperate for an explanation or denial, anything that would make that moment not real.

My fingers curled into a fist as my heart twisted painfully. The bond pulled at my chest, frantic and desperate, straining against the distance between us, demanding something I refused to give.

“Don’t,” I muttered to myself. “Don’t you dare. He deserves this. They all do. This is not your world, Keren. It was never your world. You are a human woman who made the mistake of believing a Lycan when he said the word mate meant something.”

The thought dragged me back into the reality I had fought to reach. I pressed my hand flat against my stomach, a habit I had developed in the last three months since I found out.

Nobody knew yet. That was the point.

I straightened, lifting my chin just enough to close whatever crack had opened in me, and turned away from him. I had more than my weak heart on the line now. I had a child to protect from this monstrous pack.

The questions began, and I answered every one without hesitation, presenting all the evidence I had against them.

Ford did not look away from me once.

By the time I finished, his expression had moved past shock and disbelief, past anger, and settled on something far worse.

Heartbreak.

The look of a man who had not known until that moment exactly how much he had to lose.

“Do you understand the consequences of your testimony?” one of the Council members asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Do you stand by every statement you have made?”

“Yes.”

The gavel came down.

“The Silver Moon Pack is found guilty of the charges as presented. Sentencing will be determined—”

The hall erupted into chaos.

Chairs scraped loudly, and voices and growls rose in outrage. Some Silver Moon pack members shouted in protest while others stood frozen, unable to process what had just happened.

I flinched as something hard struck the side of my head, and warmth trickled down my temple. Guards quickly surrounded me, leading me out of the hall as more objects were thrown in my direction.

“Keren!” Ford growled as he struggled against his restraints, his focus locked entirely on me.

And then everything fractured.

“Mommy.”

The word cut through the noise.

I winced as small hands patted my face with the persistence of someone who had done this many times and knew it worked.

“Mommy, wake up. The alarm is shouting.”

The courtroom dissolved, and the weight of it lifted all at once, leaving me disoriented, my breath coming faster than it should.

My eyes snapped open to see my son, Maverick, on top of me, his face bright with urgency as he bounced lightly on my stomach.

He stopped and gave me a toothy smile. “Hi, Mommy.”

For a second, I could only stare at him, at his father’s dark eyes watching me with the expectation of someone who had places to be.

I exhaled slowly, forcing my body to settle as I pushed myself up, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him closer. I pressed my lips to his hair, grounding myself.

He was here, safe with me. And that was all that mattered now.

I looked around my small but clean apartment, with its secondhand furniture and bare walls, clean because I had learned not to put down visible roots. The window faced a narrow street in New York that smelled like bread from the bakery below every morning, which was the one luxury I had not been able to make myself leave yet.

It was nothing like the Vale estate, with its ten bedrooms, round-the-clock staff, and a kitchen larger than this entire apartment, where I had been more lonely than I had ever been in my life.

I preferred this.

“Come on,” I said, brushing Maverick’s hair back gently. “We’re already late.”

We hurried through our routine and left the apartment in a rush. By the time we reached the diner, I was already running late.

My boss’s expression tightened the second she saw Maverick.

“Maya,” she called out, her tone edged with irritation. “This is a workplace, not a daycare. You know the rules.”

“I know,” I replied, offering an apologetic smile. “The sitter canceled, and I didn’t have anyone else.”

Her disapproving gaze lingered on him.

“I won’t let him get in the way,” I added quickly. “It’s just one shift. I’ll set him up with his tablet.”

She looked at Maverick, and he looked back at her with a calm expression far beyond his four years.

She sighed. “Fine. But if he causes any problems, you’re both out.”

I nodded and quickly set him up in the storage room behind the kitchen with his tablet and a plate of toast and orange juice.

I had taught him early that silence was a skill, and he had taken to it with an ease that sometimes worried me. A four-year-old who understood instinctively that drawing attention was dangerous.

The morning rush hit at nine and did not let up until half past eleven.

I was clearing the sink when I heard a dull, compressed thud from the storage room, followed by Sylvie’s voice rising an octave.

I dropped the plates without thinking and pushed through the door.

Maverick stood in front of the metal shelving unit that had been bolted to the wall, now bent inward like it had been struck by something far stronger than a child.

His small chest heaved. His hands hung at his sides. He stared at the damage with an expression caught between surprise and something that looked dangerously close to satisfaction.

Sylvie was backed against the opposite wall, her face pale. “He… he just,” she stammered. “He pushed it and it—”

“Oh my God,” I said quickly, turning to her. “I’m so sorry. That’s not possible. He couldn’t have done that.”

“Mommy, look what I—”

I rushed over and covered his mouth, forcing a light laugh. “Children,” I said, glancing at Sylvie. “You know how they are.”

I took his hand and led him out of the room. “Come on...”

I guided him to the small staff table near the service counter and crouched in front of him, keeping my voice calm even as my thoughts raced.

“Mavy,” I said softly. “Look at me.”

His eyes were slightly darker than usual.

“Indoor mode, baby,” I said, cupping his cheeks gently.

He nodded, and after a second, the darkness faded. He pouted. “It was in my way.”

I exhaled tiredly.

This was happening faster than I had expected. When I ran, I had calculated that I had years before his father’s blood started announcing itself.

He was four.

I had no one to ask. No one who could tell me if this was normal, dangerous, or something I needed to prepare for, because the only people who would know were the people I could never contact again.

I squeezed his cheeks gently. “You have to be gentler with things,” I started, but his attention had already shifted. His eyes were alert as he looked past me.

“Mama,” he said, pointing at something. “She looks like you.”

I turned and I froze.

The diner television was showing a news segment.

A reporter stood outside a glass building I recognized immediately as Vale Corps headquarters in London. 

The other half of the screen showed a photograph of me… an older version, before the hair color change and contact lenses.

The reporter’s voice cut through the noise clearly: “Billionaire heir Ford Vale has escalated his search for his missing son and is now offering a substantial reward for any information leading to the whereabouts of his former wife, Keren Voss, and the child she is believed to have taken…”

My breath hitched as cold panic slid through my chest. He had just put my face on national television.

Five years of careful movement. New cities, new names, cash only, no photographs, nothing that could be traced. All of it, gone.

I jumped when Maverick’s hand found mine under the table, and I looked down at him to see him watching me with those too-old eyes.

I squeezed his hand, suddenly feeling calmer for reasons I could not explain.

The stakes had just changed. For the first time in five years, running might not be enough.