Chapter 2

Ivy’s sobbing pulled me back to the rooftop.

Adrian had brought her safely over the railing.

She clung to him with her entire body, her arms locked around his neck and her bare legs pressed against his. The sight made nausea rise in my throat.

Adrian seemed genuinely shaken.

His usually steady hands trembled as he held the back of her head. He kissed her hair again and again, all his Alpha composure shattered by fear.

“Thank the Goddess you’re safe.”

Ivy shook violently in his arms.

“Are you going to mark Serena?” she cried. “Because if you are, you should have let me jump.”

Adrian gently wiped the tears from her cheeks.

Then he looked at me.

The tenderness in his expression disappeared, replaced by the cold authority that made every wolf in Blackwood Pack instinctively lower their head.

“It’s only a marking ceremony,” he told Ivy. “No matter what title Serena receives, you will always come first.”

The wolves around us went silent.

Adrian released a long breath, as if he were the one being forced into an impossible sacrifice.

“Serena has been with me for eight years. I don’t love her the way I once did, but when I nearly drowned as a teenager, she saved my life.”

His arm remained around Ivy’s waist as he continued.

“After that, she followed me everywhere. She took care of my meals, treated my injuries, and handled every tedious responsibility I gave her without complaint. I owe her for all those years.”

Shock spread across the faces around us.

They knew I had saved Adrian from the river. It was how our relationship had begun.

But that had happened long ago.

Adrian had always believed I used that old debt to demand things from him. If I had known the brilliant, compelling boy I saved would grow into a man who spoke about my love as unpaid labor, I would not have entered the water then.

And I would not have taken the blade today.

The pitying looks directed at me became unbearable.

I gave a cold laugh.

“Adrian, I’m tired. When are you going to fulfill your promise?”

Understanding flashed in his eyes.

The corner of his mouth lifted with arrogant satisfaction.

“So you really can’t wait to be marked?”

He stroked Ivy’s ear to soothe her before giving me his attention again.

“Fine. Tell me which full moon you want for the ceremony.”

He stood beneath the moonlight with Ivy wrapped in his coat, every inch the powerful Alpha the pack admired. Even his condescension carried a dangerous kind of charm—the certainty of a man who had never been denied anything important.

“If you’ve gone to all this trouble to become my Luna,” he continued, “then I’ll—”

“Release me from your mate claim.”

His voice stopped.

Adrian’s hand froze against Ivy’s cheek.

He looked up sharply, disbelief slowly hardening into anger.

“You want me to release you?”

I ignored the joy that flashed across Ivy’s face.

“Yes.”

Adrian studied me as though I were a puzzle beneath his notice.

“What is this supposed to accomplish?”

His voice remained calm, but Alpha pressure rolled across the roof.

“You’re angry because I saved Ivy before comforting you, so now you’re threatening to leave? Serena, if you want my attention, there are less embarrassing ways to ask for it.”

“I’m not asking for your attention.”

A humorless smile touched his mouth.

“Everyone in Blackwood Pack knows you’ve followed me since you were fifteen. I couldn’t drive you away if I tried.”

His gaze dropped deliberately to my abdomen.

“Now you’re carrying my first pup. You finally have the heir you always believed would secure your position beside me, and you expect me to believe you want to dissolve my claim?”

His words were cruel, but the hand at his side tightened when he mentioned our child.

Adrian wanted this pup.

He had already selected the strongest oak wood for the cradle. He had ordered the nursery moved beside his private suite and summoned the best prenatal healer in the region.

He spoke to our unborn child every night.

He had even chosen his name without asking me.

Rowan Blackwood.

Adrian wanted our son with the same absolute certainty with which he wanted everything else.

He simply did not believe the mother carrying that child could have desires separate from his own.

His gaze moved to my left hand.

“At least remove my ring before you lie to me.”

There was triumph in his voice.

He believed he had found the flaw in my performance.

Adrian had bought that ring with the first payment he received as a junior representative on the Pack Council. Our initials were engraved inside it.

Years ago, a car accident left me unconscious for two days. When the healers found me, my fingers were still clenched tightly around the ring.

Adrian knew how much it meant to me.

He knew how much he meant to me.

That was why he was so certain I could never leave.

I slipped the ring from my finger.

Then I tossed it over the edge of the roof.

“I forgot. Thank you for reminding me.”

Adrian’s pupils contracted.

His head turned toward the place where the ring had vanished, and for the first time that night, his flawless confidence cracked.

The wolves around us fell completely silent.

I looked at my bare finger.

Once, losing that ring would have felt like tearing out my own heart.

Now I felt nothing.

The worst pain had already happened in my previous life, when I lay bleeding underground and listened to our pup’s heartbeat disappear.

Adrian’s jaw tightened.

Even then, he refused to believe me.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing, Serena, but I’ll give you one chance to end it.”

His voice was deep and controlled, the voice of an Alpha granting mercy to someone foolish enough to challenge him.

“Apologize now, and I’ll pretend none of this happened. The Luna title will still be yours. The nursery is ready, and our son will be born under the protection of the entire Blackwood Pack.”

He made it sound magnificent.

To any other wolf, it would have been.

Adrian Blackwood was powerful, handsome, and destined to command one of the strongest packs in the region. Becoming his Luna was the future I had once begged the Goddess to give me.

But even now, he was not asking me to stay.

He was informing me that I was still permitted to accept the life he had designed.

I smiled faintly.

“Adrian, I hope we both finally get what we want.”

Then I turned and walked away.

Behind me, Ivy spoke in a small voice.

“Aren’t you going after her?”

Adrian gave a cold laugh.

“No.”

His confidence had already returned.

“She’ll come back on her own.”

Ivy hesitated. “But she threw away your ring.”

“She’s carrying my heir.” Pride warmed his voice when he spoke of the pup. “Serena wanted this child more than anything. She spent years doing everything she could to give me a son.”

He paused.

“She would never deny Rowan an intact family just to punish me.”

His certainty followed me to the stairwell.

“She can’t bear to leave me.”

I did not look back.

In my previous life, Adrian had been right.

For our child’s sake, I endured his contempt, his control, and the underground cell until both Rowan and I died.

This time, Adrian was wrong.

I could not bear to lose my child again.

That was exactly why I had to take him and leave.