Scorned and burned

Rivenna's POV

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"Push, my lady!" the midwife screamed.

Heat flooded my veins. My body burned. Hours of pushing had leeched the color from my skin, and now my vision blurred at the edges.

"The baby is breech, Luna," the midwife said quietly. She didn't meet my eyes. "You're losing too much blood."

She whispered as I was bleeding out on a fur-covered bed while my mate is nowhere to be found.

"I can't." My voice broke. "Please make it stop."

"One more push. Just one."

I gripped the sheets until my knuckles went white. Gritted my teeth so hard I tasted copper.

Then I pushed with everything I had left—every scrap of hope, every desperate prayer that this child would be the thing that finally made Wren look at me the way he used to.

And then—

"The baby is out!"

Joy. Pure, blinding joy flooded my chest.

Then silence.

No cry. No coo. No breath.

I looked at the midwife's face. No smile. No warmth. Only dread, raw and poorly hidden.

"What?" My stomach dropped. My heart slammed into my throat. I used the last of my strength to push myself up on one elbow. Sweat dripped from my damp red hair. My bones trembled. "What is it?"

The midwife walked toward me slowly, like she was approaching a grave.

"I am so sorry, Luna Rivenna."

She held out her arms.

The baby was grey. Pale grey, like winter clouds before snow. His tiny body was half-formed—a beautiful, terrible mix of human skin and dark wolf fur from the waist down. His eyes were closed. His chest did not move.

"The baby is stillborn."

I shook my head. Then shook it again. Then again.

No. No, no, no—

She placed him in my arms. His skin was cold. So cold. The cold of a room abandoned. The cold of a heart that had stopped beating before it ever had a chance to start.

"My boy." The words came out as a whisper, then a scream. "My baby boy!"

I held him to my chest, rocking, waiting for the warmth of my body to wake him up. It didn't work. Nothing worked. He was gone.

I had nothing left. Wren. I needed Wren.

"Where is my mate?" I asked, wiping my tears. My fingers brushed the thick, ugly scar on my right cheek—a reminder, always, of how little he valued me. "He must be in a meeting. Go get him. Please."

The maids exchanged glances. Pity. Mocking pity. The midwife opened her mouth, then closed it.

I didn't wait.

I stumbled out of bed, clutching my son.

"My lady! You just gave birth—you're still weak—"

"I have to show my mate our baby."

I didn't hear her protests. Didn't feel the blood soaking through my dress or the way my legs threatened to buckle with every step. I just walked.

Past the cramped room my husband had assigned me. Past the maids with their sideways looks. Through the cold stone halls of the castle that was supposed to be my home.

My baby was still warm. From the heat of my chest pressed against his cold grey face. A hoplesss fleeting thought encouraged me, that Maybe if I hold him long enough, he'll wake up.

I was a fool. I knew I was a fool. But I couldn't stop hoping.

As I reached Wren's private chambers.hading towards the Heavy oak door as . I reached for the handle to see the door Half open.

And a giggle drifted through the crack. Bria's giggle.

I pushed the door slowly. Quietly. Like a ghost watching her own funeral.

There she was. Long blonde hair spread across my mate's bare chest. Her fingers traced lazy circles on his skin. Beside them, sleeping in a small crib, was her son.

"Oh, my love," Bria murmured. "Thank you for staying with us. Our son Bryan has been sick all day."

Wren's child? No. That couldn't be.

For three years, I had pitied her. Widow of a rogue mate, Wren had said she was his Childhood friend who needs a home, he had pleaded for her and claimed she was nothing else to him

And I had swallowed every backhanded compliment, every public slight, every private "joke" at my expense. I had let her raise her pup under my roof.

My roof. My mate. My life.

"I hear the pup didn't survive." Bria twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "That's too bad, don't you think?"

I waited.

Defend me, I begged silently. Please, Wren. Tell her that's cruel. Tell her I just lost our child. Tell me you care.

He laughed.

A low, easy laugh. A man with no weight on his conscience.

"You're far too kind, my dear Bria." He kissed her forehead. "She thought she could trap me with that forced betrothal. After everything her pack did to mine." He shrugged.

"I stayed. Three years isn't that enough? That was the contrac anyways. And now everything that remains of the Onyx-Moon is mine—pup or no pup."

He tilted Bria's chin up.

"I'm the Onyx-Moon's alpha now. And its king."

I didn't remember screaming.

But I must have, because suddenly Bria was shrieking, and the vase in my hand was already flying, and it shattered against the headboard in a thousand sharp pieces.

Wren shot to his feet. Naked. Unashamed. He stared at me like I was a stain on his floor.

"You lied to me." My voice didn't sound like my own. It sounded like something breaking. "All this time—you never loved me....and our baby—"

"Quiet." His voice was ice.

"You weren't there! You weren't there when he was dying and you never loved me!"

"And why would I love a baby that isn't mine?"he growls and My world stopped.

I stared at him. He stared back. No hesitation. No doubt.

He believes it. No—he didn't just believe it.he was sure of it, that how little he cared for me.

Bria screamed again. "Look! Look at what she did to our son!"She held up Bryan's arm. A thin line of blood. Fresh claw marks.

Her own claws that's she created, she scratched him while pretending to comfort him. Making The toddler stirred awake crying .

Wren didn't look at the wound. He didn't look at Bria. He looked at me with wicked eyes strained in a glare

"You little.."

"I didn't do it—"

He seized my forearm. His grip was iron. I was too weak to fight, too weak to even hold my baby properly as he dragged me out of the room, down the hall, past the maids who didn't even bother to hide their smirks now.

"Where are you taking me? Stop!"

He threw me into an abandoned shed.

The door slammed shut behind us. Chains rattled. I didn't see where they came from—I only felt them wrap around my ankle, heavy and cold.

"This is what you deserve." Wren's voice was distant now. Calm. "You think I didn't know? Sleeping with my Delta. Passing off that bastard as mine."

"That's a lie." I crawled toward him, clutching my son. "I have never! you're the only man I've ever been with!, please, Wren. I just lost our baby. Our baby. Please."

Through the open door, I saw Bria. Holding Bryan on her hip. That same sweet, sad smile she wore at pack gatherings.

Then Wren turned his back on me.

"My love," Bria said, passing Bryan into his arms. "Let me speak with her. Woman to woman."

Wren hesitated. Then nodded. He walked far enough away that he couldn't hear.

Bria crouched in front of me. Touched my cheek. Wiped a tear I didn't know I was crying.

"I know you've always hated me," she said softly. Loud enough for Wren to hear. "But please. Let us be happy."

Then his back was fully turned.

And her face changed, the facade gone.

The sweetness didn't just fall away—it melted. What remained was sharp Cold features that mocked me .

"So do everyone a favor," she whispered, "leave us alone and die miserably and quietly please."

I stared at her. At this woman I had fed, clothed, protected. This woman whose son I had bathed when he was feverish. This woman I had called sister.

"You ...you are the one spread those lies about me."

"That's exactly what you deserved.you belive you were better than me because you are of royal blood, you are nothing"

She leaned close. Her lips brushed my ear.

"And thank your weakness to The silver mercury I've been slipping into your tea" Her voice was silk over steel. "It worked beautifully."

I saw red.

My claws came out—weak, trembling, barely grazing her shoulder before she screamed.

"She wants to kill me!"

"Enough!"Wren roars.

His shove sent me flying into the wooden wall. My head cracked against the boards. My baby slipped from my arms.

I caught him. Just barely.

"You're far too kind to this whore," Wren told Bria. Then he looked at me like I was garbage.

"Rivenna Osborn. I, Alpha Wren Conwood of the Onyx Pack, reject you as my mate. I cast you aside for the last and final time."

The bond burned.

I felt it snap. Felt it Die.

Every hope I had carried for seven years turned to ash in my chest.

"In the morning, you'll be sent to the Rogue Forest." He closed the door. "Live out the rest of your days there."

"Wren—"

The lock clicked.

And then—heat.

I smelled smoke before I saw it. Flames licking under the door. Fire climbing the walls. Somewhere outside, the crackle of kindling and the distant sound of footsteps walking away.

They had set the shed on fire.

I crawled to the door. Clawed at it. The chains around my ankle held fast.

"Help!" My voice was gone. My throat was full of ash. "Somebody!"

No one came.

I looked down at my son. His grey face. His closed eyes. The tiny fingers curled like he was still reaching for me.

"I'm sorry." Tears cut tracks through the soot on my cheeks. "Mommy was too weak. Too naive. I loved a man who never loved me back."

The flames grew closer.

"But if I had another life—" I coughed. Blood this time. The mercury poison burning through my veins. "If I had another chance"

I pressed my lips to his cold forehead.

"Moon Goddess. Please hear me."

The smoke swirled. The fire roared.

"Give me another life. Another chance to rewrite my cursed fate. Another chance to undo every mistake. I don't care what it costs. Please."

The roof groaned as it collapsed in, I held my baby tighter.

The flames engulfed me, And my heart stopped for the last time.

Or so I thought.