Chapter 2

I wiped away the last tear, scrubbed every trace of breakdown from my face, grabbed my documents, and drove straight to the Great Lakes Elders' Council archives.

In our world, dissolving a mate bond was never simple. A union between two major packs meant redrawing territorial lines, meant countless rival packs lurking in the shadows waiting to watch us crumble.

I didn't care anymore. I just wanted to end this charade.

But when I pushed the bonding contract across the registration counter, the elderly Elder frowned, ran check after check through the soul-binding records system, and finally looked up at me with something close to pity.

"Luna Blackwell," she lowered her voice, "your bonding contract with Alpha Dominic Blackwell... is forged. The Elders' Council has no record of this soul-bond ever existing."

My mind went blank.

"What?"

"The spirit-vein serial number is fabricated, and the seal insignia doesn't match." She slid the contract back—the one I'd treasured for an entire year. "On a soul level, the mate bond between you and Alpha Blackwell was never activated."

Memories sliced through me like broken glass.

The ceremony had fallen on a full moon. A long queue stretched before the sacred grove clearing, and Dominic hadn't wanted me standing in the midday sun. He insisted on entering the inner sanctum alone to complete the registration. I sat obediently in the armored car, head full of dreams about our future. Half an hour later he walked out, contract in hand, flashing me a smile. "Done, my Luna."

I threw myself into his arms and laughed like a fool.

Now I understood—from the very start, he'd never intended to give me a real bond.

The contract was fake. That grand ceremony was nothing but theater. I had never been his Luna. Just a puppet trapped in an elaborate lie.

No wonder I'd felt nothing when he marked me. It wasn't that the bond needed time to awaken—it simply didn't exist. The moment his canines pierced my neck, the belonging I waited for was never coming, because he had never poured his soul into that bite.

It was just an empty scar.

A searing pain ripped through my chest, nearly splitting me in two. I bit down hard on my lip until the taste of iron flooded my tongue.

"Ma'am? Ma'am, are you alright?"

The Elder's voice reached me through a watery haze. I tried to answer, but the room began to spin, the moon-pattern carvings on the vaulted ceiling stretching into a blinding white line.

Then the world collapsed into darkness.

When I opened my eyes, a stark white ceiling stared back.

A nurse stood beside the bed, clutching a lab report, her expression grave.

"Luna Blackwell, please notify your Alpha to come in as soon as possible."

My heart clenched. "What's wrong?"

She hesitated, then spoke. "You're twelve weeks pregnant, but your condition is concerning—severe anemia with signs of malnutrition. Werewolf pregnancies drain the mother far beyond what a human body endures. You need to contact the father..."

Pregnant. The word detonated inside my skull.

The relentless nausea, the exhaustion, the dizziness—it wasn't stress or insomnia.

Instinctively, my hand pressed against my stomach. Flat as always, nothing to feel. But something was growing there.

A child. Dominic's and mine. A pup carrying the blood of two great lines.

Three months ago, I would have wept with joy.

Now, I just felt the absurdity of it all.

I picked up my phone and dialed Dominic. The ring cut off before it finished its first tone.

I called again. And again. And again, until my fingertip went numb from swiping. The nurse stood by, watching with quiet sympathy.

Fifty missed calls.

I stared at that cold number on the screen and nearly laughed.

The Blackwell Alpha, leader of the most powerful pack in the Great Lakes—his phone never left his side. He answered any call within three rings, because in our world, one missed call could mean a bloodbath. A life.

But he wouldn't pick up for his own Luna.

Just as I was about to give up, the line connected.

"Stop calling." Dominic's voice came through ice-cold and impatient. "I'm busy."

Low, clipped, edged with irritation.

And in those brief seconds, I heard another voice—Lillian's breathy, cloying whine, pressed right up against the receiver.

"Dominic, who are you talking to? Come back over here..."

The line went dead.

I gripped the phone until my knuckles turned white. That voice was a dull blade, carving into my chest stroke by stroke.

He was busy. Busy with her. Busy transferring every drop of tenderness and patience that once belonged to me to another woman.

And I—his Luna in name, carrying his bloodline, lying alone in a hospital bed—didn't deserve three seconds of his time.

Deep in my consciousness, my wolf let out a grief-stricken howl that thinned to a thread and finally broke into silent whimpering. She was tired too.

I set the phone down slowly and turned to the nurse.

"Schedule the procedure." My voice was soft but perfectly steady. "I don't want this child."

She froze. "Luna, maybe you should reconsider—"

"There's nothing to reconsider." I cut her off. "The sooner, the better."

An hour later, I lay on the freezing surgical table.

The overhead light was blinding. My body wouldn't stop trembling. Anesthesia flowed into my veins, and consciousness began to thin.

Just before everything faded, memory surged with brutal clarity.

Sixteen years old, deep in the Rockies, I'd fallen into an ice crevasse. Subzero water flooded my lungs; suffocation and terror nearly drove me mad. Dominic shifted on the spot, tearing through the ice crust with claws and raw flesh. His forepaws were scraped to ribbons, blood everywhere, but he didn't stop for a single second.

When he finally pulled me free, he'd shifted back—naked, soaking, shaking violently as he held me.

"Selena," his voice was wrecked, cracking with tears, "you can't die. What would I do if you died?"

That boy who shredded his hands to save me. That Alpha who swore to love me forever.

Where was he now?

With another woman. One who wasn't even his destined mate.

Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, trailing into my hairline. The anesthesia spread, pulling consciousness further away, like sinking to the bottom of a frozen lake.

"This is the last time," I whispered, unsure whether the words were for myself or for someone who would never hear them. "The last tear I'll ever shed for you."

Then the darkness swallowed me whole.

After the surgery, I lay in bed for a long time. My body felt hollowed out, the dull ache in my lower abdomen a reminder of what I'd just lost.

But I didn't cry.

I called the nurse in, my voice hoarse but calm. "Have the embryo cryopreserved."

She stared at me in surprise. "Are you sure? That's—"

"I'm sure." I cut her off. "Use the best preservation technology available. Cost isn't an issue."

After she left, I leaned back against the pillow, hand resting on my stomach.

This was where the last bond between me and Dominic Blackwell had lived.

One day, I would give it back to him.

As a parting gift. As a verdict for his betrayal.