Chapter 3

When I woke, it was already the morning of the third day.

My phone lay on the bedside table. With considerable effort, I reached for it and unlocked the screen.

I had been unconscious for twenty-four hours.

Other than a few app notifications, there was nothing.

No missed calls from Adrian. No messages.

Our conversation still ended with his money transfer, mocking me in silence.

I opened his social media profile.

Ten minutes earlier, he had posted a new set of nine photographs.

He was still on vacation with Selene.

There was an endless blue sea, a white beach, and a resort suite overflowing with flowers.

In one photo, Adrian stood behind Selene, fastening her life jacket. Sunlight washed over his profile, softening his face into an expression of extraordinary patience and tenderness.

The caption read, Someone is afraid of the water, so we're staying on the island a few more days.

Below it was a flood of likes and teasing comments from mutual friends.

This is too sweet.

Since when did Adrian have this much patience? Selene has trained him well.

How long are you two going to keep pretending you're only childhood friends?

Now this is what love is supposed to look like.

Selene only had to mention that she wanted an island vacation, and Adrian remembered.

He cleared his schedule and spent day after day with her.

If she said at midnight that she wanted sweet porridge from the other side of the city, he drove across town to buy it.

When she had a fever, he postponed an important treaty negotiation and stayed beside her bed all night.

Scrolling through Selene's profile was like opening a journal of their romance.

The cruelest part was that every page in that thick journal had once belonged to me.

At twenty, Adrian had also been willing to risk everything for nineteen-year-old Elara.

When the elders refused to recognize an outsider as Luna, he spent months arguing my case before the council,then spent a fortune bidding on the ring I’d once admired in a shop window for me.

I swiped through photograph after photograph.

At some point, he had stopped wearing the ring he had never once removed after our mating ceremony.

I could not bear to look any longer.

I let the phone fall from my hand and stared blankly ahead.

The medicine was wearing off. My throat was parched, but the pain was too severe for me to get out of bed and fetch water.

Adrian called just as the herbs finally subdued another wave of agony.

His voice carried its usual chill.

"Dinner at the pack estate tonight."

I was silent for a moment before answering.

"I'm not well."

He gave a quiet laugh.

"Stop pretending, Elara. We both know you only claim to be sick when you want money."

"If you can still hold your human form, come to the pack estate. You're still the Luna, and I won't have you embarrassing me by staying away."

The call ended.

Suddenly, I wanted to laugh.

The healer had said I had no more than seven days.

In just a few more, I would never have to force my unwanted presence on any of them again.

I braced a hand on the edge of the bed and pushed myself upright, only then noticing my wolf soul growing frighteningly frail.

I stared blankly ahead for several seconds.

Then I silently swallowed the increased dose of herbs the healer had prescribed, changed my clothes, and left for dinner.

The living room of the pack estate was as warm and lively as ever.

Selene sat beside the former Luna in a tailored suit.

She occupied the seat meant for the lady of the house.

When I entered, she was feeding the older woman slices of fruit and making her laugh.

Adrian sat in an armchair on the other side of the room, his attention fixed on his phone.

My arrival silenced the laughter for a heartbeat.

One of the pack members pulled out a chair at the very end of the long dining table.

I lowered my head and sat, separated from the head of the table by an expanse of polished wood.

The women resumed their conversation about jewelry and handbags. No one looked at me again.

I had been sitting for only a few minutes when the dull ache deep inside my wolf soul returned.

Cold sweat began to bead on my forehead.

At last, the former Luna seemed to remember I existed. She looked down the table and frowned.

"Still no sign of a pup, Elara? It has been three years. This pack has no use for a foreign Luna who cannot produce an heir."