Chapter 1

A bone brush landed at my feet.

“Go scrub the stone corridor clean.”

I looked down at it and didn’t move.

Everyone in Blackthorn Pack knew what that meant. The stone corridor was cleaned by the lowest-ranked pack laborers, not by the Alpha’s mate.

“There are workers assigned to the corridors,” I said.

Mrs. Hale let out a cold laugh.

“I told you to go. So go.”

“That’s not a Luna’s duty.”

She finally looked up at me, contempt clear in her eyes.

“Luna? Zara, do you really think you’re a Luna? An Omega without a wolf, who can’t even bear children, how dare you speak of that title?”

My fingers tightened at my sides.

For five years, I had been with Adrian Hale, yet I never conceived a child.

In Blackthorn Pack, bloodline came before everything. So everyone decided the problem had to be me, the wolfless Omega.

I grew up in an orphan house, with no family and no one to rely on. The other pups called me a bastard, threw stones at me, said I was an empty shell abandoned by the Moon Goddess. Only Adrian ever stood in front of me and told me not to be afraid.

So later, when he proposed to me before the Moon Altar, saying he didn’t care whether I had a wolf or not, that he still wanted me as his mate, I said yes.

I thought I finally had a home.

But his mother never approved of me. She despised my unknown origins and impure blood, insisting we undergo bloodline and fertility testing, saying an Alpha’s heir could not afford even the slightest flaw.

The day the results came out, I learned the truth. The one who couldn’t have children wasn’t me.

It was Adrian.

He had congenital azoospermia. He could never produce an heir.

For an Alpha, that was a secret powerful enough to shake his position. But I couldn’t bear to destroy him, so I burned the report and took the blame onto myself.

From then on, all the disgrace was poured onto me.

They said an Omega who couldn’t bear an Alpha’s heir didn’t deserve to be Luna.

At first, Adrian would still speak up for me, saying he didn’t care about children and that we could adopt a pup from a collateral line. But as time went on, he stopped explaining.

Whenever I was hurting, he would only pull me into his arms and murmur that I should ignore them, that I should act like I heard nothing.

And I believed him.

It wasn’t until his mother forced me to give up herbal studies that I understood. In this pack, love was never the most important thing.

I had already received my acceptance letter from the Healing Institute of Moonridge Academy. I was one step away from becoming an herbalist. But she threw the letter in front of me and said coldly, “What use is this to a wolfless Omega? Stay in the main house and serve your Alpha. That’s what matters.”

Adrian stood with her.

“Mom’s right. You don’t need to go out and struggle. I’ll provide for you.”

I gave up my studies, but what I got in return wasn’t stability. It was deeper contempt.

In the main house, I was the Alpha’s mate in name, but in truth, I lived worse than the lowest-ranked wolves. Every day before dawn, I had to get up to prepare breakfast, check the storerooms, tend the hearth. Once the servants and pack workers arrived, I still had to stand aside and wait for his mother’s orders.

And now she wanted me to scrub the corridor.

“I refuse,” I said.

Mrs. Hale’s expression darkened.

I turned and went back to my room.

Not long after, Adrian returned.

He pushed the door open, didn’t ask a single question, and dragged me into the living hall.

His mother stood there looking wronged. A few servants and low-ranking wolves stood in the distance, heads bowed, not daring to look up.

“Apologize to my mother.”

I shook off his hand. “Why should I apologize?”

“It’s just cleaning a corridor. Do you have to make such a scene?”

“She’s humiliating me.”

Adrian frowned, impatience already creeping into his voice.

“Zara, don’t make it sound so ugly. With so many people watching, do you really have to make things difficult for her right now?”

He pulled me into the side hall, his tone softening slightly.

“Go out, apologize to her, and clean the corridor. When the council meeting is over tonight, I’ll stay with you.”

I almost laughed. He was always like this, acting as if a little comfort afterward could erase everything that came before.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll apologize.”

I followed him out. Under everyone’s watchful eyes, I lowered my head and spoke.

“Mrs. Hale, I’m sorry.”