Chapter 1The enforcers crashed my mating ceremony.
I - Selena Gentry, the celebrated artist, the prodigy every pack raved about - was hauled away in silver cuffs while still in my white gown.
The charge? Forgery and fraud.
Before the Enforcers had even finished processing me, my betrothed had already replaced me with his first love, Phoebe.
Three years in a shifter prison. That was my sentence.
My father, already battling late-stage cancer, died heartbroken from the shock. And my mother - her wolf never recovered. Her mind shattered.
When I finally walked out of captivity, I was nothing but a hollow shell.
Phoebe's stepbrother. All soft eyes and gentle hands. The Alpha of the Silverpine Pack.
"I've waited ten years to tell you how I feel, Selena," he whispered, reaching for my scarred hands. His wolf brushed against my senses, warm and careful. "Let me be the one who takes care of you now."
But one year into our bond, I discovered a recording on the car's dashcam.
A conversation between him and his best friend and Beta Nolan.
"Do you ever regret creating those forgeries? Having someone report Selena? Destroying the evidence that would've cleared her name?"
"Not a second. Phoebe and I could never be mated. You know the laws against stepsiblings. This was my gift to her - removing her competition so she could build her career and mate into the Hensley pack."
"Goddess, Marco. All of that was meant for Selena. Your actions destroyed her family."
Marco's voice turned hoarse. "Stop. For Phoebe, I could even kill."
...
Silence.
"As for Selena... I made her my Luna, didn't I? I'll make it up to her for the rest of my life."
"If you're so dedicated to making amends," Nolan challenged, "why not clear her name? Phoebe's already became Luna Hensley."
"Since her release, she's afraid to shift. They whisper 'murderer.' Call her the greedy bitch who killed her father and drove her mother insane for money."
"She lost a kidney from a beating in the detention den, for Goddess's sake. Between the physical trauma and everything else, she's severely broken. Her wolf is barely present anymore."
"Clearing her name would help her heal, Marco."
"Absolutely not," Marco snapped.
His voice hardened like forged silver.
"Four years ago, Selena was unstoppable. The darling of every gallery across the territories. Critics falling at her feet. If she clears her name now, she reclaims her spotlight, and Phoebe will be permanently relegated to her shadow."
His expression darkened with something cold and absolute. "I will not let Phoebe be pushed aside. Not ever. She deserves to shine too."
Nolan's voice cracked with anger. "So you're fine watching your Luna spiral deeper into depression? Watching her hurt herself? Her sire - your own mentor - begged you with his dying breath to protect her."
"You destroyed the happy family she once had. If she ever discovers the truth..."
A moment of silence passed.
Then Marco spoke, confident and calm. "She won't find out. She loves me now. I've made sure of it."
"I'll give her the perfect life - one that keeps her exactly where I need her to be. Safely under my control. "
"And as Phoebe's sister-in-law, she serves my purpose perfectly."
My blood turned to ice.
My hands trembled so badly I could barely save the recording.
I stumbled back to our chambers before Marco returned, collapsing in the corner like a broken doll.
My wolf let out a sound I'd never heard before - a keening, wounded whine that vibrated through my bones.
I'd thought Marco was my salvation after everyone abandoned me.
Instead, he was the puppet master who'd orchestrated my destruction.
I placed my trembling hand over my belly. The tiny life I'd just discovered was growing inside me.
And I completely fell apart.
"Selena? My Luna, what's wrong?"
I looked up through my tears to see Marco in the doorway. Concern perfectly arranged on his handsome face. Every inch the devoted Alpha.
"Thinking about the past again?" He crossed the room and lifted me gently from the floor, placing me on our bed. His hands were warm. So warm.
"Listen," he murmured, voice dripping honey. "I don't give a damn what anyone in any pack says about you. Your past means nothing to me."
"You'll always be that brilliant artist everyone worshipped. You're the love of my life. My fated. And I'll protect you forever."
His voice was achingly gentle as he warmed my ice-cold hands between his. His eyes held what looked exactly like real devotion.
If my car hadn't needed servicing.
If I hadn't stumbled across that recording.
I might have lived my entire existence believing his beautiful lie.
I raised my arm instead, revealing the angry maze of scars crisscrossing my skin. The newest cuts were still raw. Weeping slightly.
"It hurts so much, Marco," I whispered. "Every time I drag the blade across my skin, it hurts so damn much."
I met his eyes.
"If you cleared my name... maybe I could stop hurting myself. Maybe I could breathe again."
Chapter 2
The moment I mentioned clearing my name, guilt flickered through Marco's eyes - there and gone, swallowed instantly by irritation.
"Moon above, Selena. Why are you so damn obsessed with the past?" He ran a hand through his hair, jaw tight. "I've never given a shit that you were in shifter prison. Or that your body isn't perfect. Can't you just move on?"
He paced before me. His Alpha energy pulsed through the room, thick and suffocating.
"I love you. You know that. And you won't even take care of yourself. It's honestly pathetic."
Then he caught himself. Softened his voice like flipping a switch.
"My Luna. I just hate seeing you torture yourself over things we can't change."
A pause. A subject change.
"The care facility called. Your mother's doing better. Your birthday's coming up, isn't it? I'll bring her home to stay with us."
I stared at him through my tears. Said nothing.
He avoided my gaze. Backed toward the door.
"I'll make dinner. Get some rest."
Before I could respond, he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him.
Since leaving the art world to run the Silverpine Pack's enterprises, Marco had become the kind of Alpha who couldn't find his own kitchen. His pack served him everything.
No wolf in any territory would believe he played house for his damaged, disgraced Luna.
But of course, everything Marco did was ultimately for Phoebe.
The moment his footsteps faded, I grabbed my phone and called his mother - the pack's Elder Mother, the former Luna herself.
"I want out," I said flatly. "I'll dissolve the bond whenever you want. Just make it quick."
A stunned pause. Then her venomous voice hissed through the line.
"Who the hell do you think you are, demanding to break a mating bond with my son? With your Alpha?"
She spat the words like poison.
"If it weren't for Marco's misplaced charity in making you his Luna, a disgraced she-wolf like you wouldn't qualify to scrub our dens."
"Without him, you'd be servicing rogues in some back alley."
I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood. My hand shook around the phone.
Eventually, as if granting me mercy from the Moon herself, she spoke again.
"Fine. Five days. When you dissolve the bond, take your feral mother and disappear from our territory forever."
For a full year, the Elder Mother had threatened to sever my bond with Marco weekly. Yet when I finally asked for it myself, you'd think I'd insulted the entire bloodline.
I must have passed out from sheer exhaustion.
Through the fog of half-sleep, I heard someone call my name. A hand touched my forehead. I recoiled instinctively - though my body was too weak to escape completely.
When I woke again, sunlight flooded the chambers. The space beside me was cold. Empty.
I barely made it downstairs when I heard her.
Phoebe's theatrical sobbing echoed through the pack house.
"Moon Goddess, Marco. When will I ever conceive? Leroy's been trying for months. What if there's something broken inside me?"
"Shh. You're young. Healthy." Marco's voice was so gentle. The voice he never used with me. "When the Moon wills it, it will happen. Don't cry, sweetheart. It's not good for your wolf."
Then Phoebe spotted me and her sobbing stopped on command.
Her expertly swollen eyes locked onto mine.
"Selena!"
She shifted closer to Marco, widening those innocent doe eyes. Like I might lunge at her any second.
Ever since she'd mated Leroy Hensley - Alpha of the Ironcrest Pack, the male who was supposed to be mine - she'd perfected the role of the wounded she-wolf whenever I was near.
Before I could even speak, she rushed to explain.
"Please don't be angry with Marco! Coming here was my idea. I'll leave right now - "
She reached for her bag. Made a show of it.
Marco stepped between us. Annoyance flickered across his features before he turned to face me.
"Selena. Phoebe's going through a difficult time. I invited her to stay for a few days. As her sister-in-law, I'd appreciate if you could make her feel welcome."
Pain stabbed through my chest. Sharp. Deep.
But I forced my voice steady.
"Stay as long as you need."
It didn't matter. In five days, I'd be gone anyway.
Marco shot me an approving look. Like I was a trained pack hound who'd performed a trick correctly.
I grabbed my bag from the armchair.
"I'm going to visit my mother."
Phoebe perked up instantly. "Visiting your mom? Can I come? I haven't seen her in ages!"
Both Phoebe and Marco had been my father's star pupils before his passing. After Marco assumed the Alpha title and took over the pack's enterprises, I became my father's most accomplished student. Phoebe was the second-best.
She always had been.
Afraid I might refuse, Phoebe grabbed my arm with surprising force. Her grip dug in - far stronger than her fragile act suggested.
The sudden movement sent my bag tumbling.
Its contents scattered across the hardwood.
And among the spilled items lay a single piece of paper.
A prenatal checkup report.
Marco snatched it up. His eyes scanned the form. Widened.
8 weeks pregnant.
Phoebe spotted the report over his shoulder.
Her perfectly-timed tears began instantly.
Chapter 3
"Well, well." Phoebe's voice dripped syrupy sweet, but her eyes stayed cold as midwinter. "You two move fast. Pregnant after just one year of mating? How... efficient."
She let her voice crack on the last word. Her eyes swam with perfectly timed tears.
"I've been trying for four damn years. Four years. And the Moon has given me nothing."
Those fat, glistening tears began their practiced descent down her flawless cheeks.
I watched something shift in Marco's expression. A look he had never once given me. Raw devotion mixed with fierce protectiveness. It made my stomach twist into knots.
He pressed his lips together. Then turned to me.
His decision was already made.
"Get rid of it."
The words hit like a claw swipe to the chest. For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
"What did you just say?"
I whispered it. Certain I had misheard.
Marco sighed. Dramatic. Heavy. "Your body can't handle carrying a pup, Selena. You're missing a kidney. I couldn't bear watching you go through labor."
"I'm only thinking of you," he added. Practiced concern dripped from every word. "I couldn't stand seeing you suffer through whelping."
The same male who, seconds earlier, had been desperately reassuring Phoebe about her fertility.
A bitter laugh escaped my throat.
"This is my pup, Marco. My body. My choice."
With only one kidney, I lived on borrowed time anyway. I knew that. But I wanted - needed - this pup. Someone who would look after my mother when I was gone. Someone of my blood. My wolf craved it.
Marco's expression flickered. A microsecond of hesitation. Maybe.
Phoebe saw it too.
"Oh, Marco." Her voice shifted. Martyrdom blended with sweetness. "Maybe we should let Selena keep the pup. I absolutely adore little ones."
She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. Then delivered her killing blow.
"I'm just terrified. When Leroy sees his precious little niece or nephew... he'll finally realize what a broken, barren failure of a Luna I am."
Her voice dissolved into a delicate whimper.
Whatever doubt had crossed Marco's face vanished instantly.
His voice hardened to steel.
"Selena. This ends now. I'm calling the pack doctor to schedule the termination."
"The hell you are." I stepped back. My wolf stirred weakly beneath my skin. "This pup stays. If you don't want us, fine. We'll disappear."
"You'll never have to see either of us again."
Something dangerous flashed in Marco's eyes. Alpha power rippled through the room.
"You will never leave me." Each word dropped like a shard of ice. "And this pregnancy ends today."
Before I could move, his enforcers materialized from the hallway. They half-dragged, half-carried me to the vehicle as I screamed. Clawed. Fought their grip with everything I had.
It wasn't enough.
In the sterile pack clinic room, I collapsed to my knees before him.
"Please." I sobbed. Clutched at his pants. "I have nothing left in this world. Nothing. All I want is this one small mercy. Please let me keep my pup."
The pack healer looked profoundly uncomfortable.
"Alpha Marco. Modern shifter medicine has advanced significantly. Many she-wolves with a single kidney deliver perfectly healthy pups. This fetus is developing beautifully."
Marco's face remained carved from stone.
"Proceed with the termination. Now."
In the end, they strapped me to the table like a wild animal.
Even through the fog of sedation, I felt the cold instruments invading my body. Destroying the tiny heartbeat I had already bonded with. My wolf howled inside me - a sound that would never fully quiet.
My chest felt crushed. Silent tears streamed down my face.
When I finally surfaced from the drugs, I recognized our chambers by his scent before I even opened my eyes. Pine. Musk. The faint trace of something cold.
Through barely-parted lids, I spotted them.
On the sofa across the room. Marco and Phoebe. Her body curled against his like they were two halves of the same creature.
"I can't believe you actually went through with it." Phoebe's whisper held feigned horror. And something else. Fascination. "Making Selena termiNolan like that."
Marco's voice was low. Intimate. A tone he had never once used with me.
"Think about it, Liv. You've been mated for years with no pup. If I fathered a pup before you, Leroy's mother would make your life absolute hell."
"You're my precious sister. How could I let an inconvenient pregnancy hurt you?"
"Oh, Marco." Phoebe sighed. Her voice trembled with practiced emotion. "If only we weren't bound by pack bloodline laws. I would have chosen you. Mated you without a heartbeat's hesitation."
She paused. Let the sadness settle.
"But now I'm Leroy's Luna. It's too late for us. All I can do to repay your devotion is..."
