All Chapters of My Alpha’s Dying Lie: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Being Luna wasn’t just sitting beside Alexander at dinner.Not the way I’d done it.I’d dealt with heating failures, visited temporary schools on the outer territories, and delivered medicine with doctors during blizzards.Somewhere along the way, people had stopped mentioning any of that.I’d become Alexander’s wife who couldn’t give him children.I’d almost forgotten everything else myself.That evening, Martha called Nora back.A delivery payment was missing from the warehouse accounts.It wasn’t recent.The date matched the year Celeste first became pregnant.I didn’t recognize the company receiving the money.But when Nora read the name aloud, I remembered Celeste’s mother mentioning it at a dinner four years earlier.A maternity care center owned by a friend, she’d said.Alexander had been beside me, holding my hand.He’d told me his latest follow-up hadn’t gone well.I stared out the window.Memories I’d kept in separate compartments were finally starting to fit together.Before

I stared at the mint plant.“Your apartment.”“Is the door locked?”“Yes.”“Can anyone make you drink anything here?”I shook my head.It took a long time before I could lie down again.The next day, investigators sent an update.The samples preserved by the hospital, together with my test results, indicated exposure to harmful substances that should never have been swallowed.The specifics still needed confirmation.It hadn’t been a blessing.It hadn’t been holy water.My fingers went cold around Nora’s phone.“Did they know?”She understood who I meant.“We can’t establish yet how much each person knew.”I nodded.“Then keep investigating.”That afternoon, Alexander’s lawyer contacted her.They offered enough money to cover my living expenses, along with all medical costs.In return, they hoped I wouldn’t expand the impact of the matter before the facts were clear.I was trying to eat soup at the kitchen table.My spoon stopped halfway to my mouth.“Impact on what?”Nora didn’t answe

Waiting was miserable.I spent the day in the living room, listening to garbage trucks rumble down the street.Near evening, the doorbell rang.It wasn’t Alexander.It was Ben, the old gardener.He held his cap in both hands. His eyes reddened when he saw me.“Miss Claire.”I hadn’t heard that in years.He’d tended the community flower beds where my mother worked.When I married Alexander and was asked to choose a gardener, Ben had been the first person I thought of.Nora invited him inside.He hadn’t brought flowers.He carried a dirty plastic pot.Inside was a trimmed stem with wilted leaves, its roots wrapped in damp cloth.I stared at it.“It’s alive?”“A few roots weren’t completely torn. I hid them in the tool shed.”His voice dropped.“I should’ve stopped sooner.”I touched the edge of the pot, careful not to touch the fragile stem.“You were following orders.”“I was still the one holding the shovel.”He looked up.“I can’t pretend I didn’t do anything.”My throat tightened.So

By the end of the hearing, the council had formally recorded my independent wishes.Alexander could not order pack members to report my address or medical appointments to him.Staff involved in the incidents could provide information directly to investigators.His deputy would temporarily oversee the relevant administrative matters.Richard objected immediately.Evelyn closed the file.“This is not an insult to the Alpha’s position.”She looked at him.“It is a reminder that a position cannot shield anyone from an investigation.”Before the connection ended, Alexander called my name.“Claire, you’re really doing this to me?”I didn’t look away.“I’m just not letting you decide what you get to do to me anymore.”Three days after the hearing, Celeste contacted me from a new number.Her message began with a long apology.Postpartum emotions.Fear of losing the father of her children.She’d never meant to hurt me.Then she sent a photograph.A tiny baby asleep in a blue blanket.The childr

As though finding one moment I could have changed might bring that tiny heartbeat back.It couldn’t.On the drive home, Nora parked beside the river.Rain blurred the lights beyond the windshield.“Does this mean I’ll never be a mother?”She didn’t give me an answer she couldn’t promise.“We don’t know yet.”I bit my lip.“I’m scared.”“I know.”“And I don’t want this to be the only thing people see when they look at me.”Nora turned toward me.“Then we’ll slowly make room for the rest of you.”She pointed to the back seat.There was a cardboard box.My old work files.Along with pack records were notebooks from the garden design classes I’d taken.Twelve years earlier, when I met Alexander, I’d been preparing an application for a community garden project.Then we fell in love.Then I became Luna.The project kept getting postponed until all that remained was a set of drawings tucked inside a book.I reached back and pulled the box closer.The corners were worn white.My name was still