Chapter 1On my birthday night, my Alpha mate, Kieran Ashwood, and my son, Leo, each gave me a present.
One was a worn Mate Bond Certificate. The other was a paternity test report.
It turned out their wife and mother... had never been me.
It was the maid, Elena Whitmore.
Kieran's eyes were cold, indifferent. "Back then, my parents forced me to mark you. Elena couldn't carry a pup, so I had no choice but to fake a mate bond with you and have you give birth for us."
"Now that the two of them are gone, it's time for the Luna position to go back to its rightful owner."
Leo looked at me with the same disgust. "From now on, you're the lowest servant in Blackstone Pack. You need to pay back everything my mom suffered!"
I didn't cry or scream. I just nodded in silence.
I'd heard them earlier, while I was getting dinner ready.
Elena dabbed at her tears, pitiful and sweet. "Luna has everything. I'm an orphan my whole life. I just want to know what it felt like, even for one year, to have a family who loves me and stays with me."
Kieran soothed her like she was made of glass. "If you like it, then for this year, you'll be Luna."
Leo hugged her leg and nodded hard, like he couldn't wait. "Yeah! Aunt Elena, starting today, you're my mom!"
I watched them laugh together, bright and intimate, and something in me went dead.
Fine. If they could pick a new family, so could I.
I moved to sit down out of habit, but the chair was yanked away at the last second.
I hit the floor hard.
Pain speared up my tailbone so sharply my vision flashed white.
Elena rested one hand on the chair back, eyes wide in fake surprise. "Arabella, you didn't seriously think you were still Luna, did you? I'm the lady of this pack house now."
"A filthy servant sitting at the same table as the masters, having delicacies with us... do you really think that's appropriate?"
She said it like she'd always belonged there, like she hadn't been doing the exact same thing for years.
Kieran frowned at my humiliation. "So you forgot what you are already? No manners. Get to the kitchen. That's where the servants eat. It's not your first time anyway."
A bitter laugh scraped at my throat.
Back then, Kieran had pushed for Elena to eat with us, even when my in-laws objected. I'd worried it would stir resentment among the staff, told him it wasn't appropriate.
All I got was his anger. "Arabella, do you seriously have no compassion? Everyone else has family. Elena's an orphan. What's wrong with giving her a little extra care?"
"Fine. If you're so worried about 'fairness,' then you can go eat in the kitchen with the servants. That way no one will talk."
That was the moment it started. The Luna of this house had been treated worse than a maid.
I forced myself up and headed for the kitchen.
"Wait!" Elena called after me, smiling like she'd just remembered something fun. "Arabella, shouldn't you take off your designer clothes and jewelry and give them back to me? Those are Luna's, you know."
I froze.
The clothes didn't matter. The only jewelry I had on was the ring Kieran had proposed with.
Kieran seemed to realize it too. He looked away, uncomfortable for half a second. "Elena, that ring isn't worth much. It's not good enough for you. If you like rings, I'll buy you a bigger, better one tomorrow."
Elena's eyes immediately turned red, wounded and wronged on cue. "Even if it's not expensive, it means something, Kieran. You said I'm Luna. Were you lying to me?"
"Or do you still have feelings for her?"
Her voice trembled. "Fine. I'll go. I'll just go back to being an orphan nobody loves."
Kieran's face softened. He pulled her into his arms, panicked by the thought of losing her. "How could I lie to you? With me and Leo, you'll never be alone again."
Then he turned to me, impatience snapping back into place. "Arabella, what are you standing there for? Go put on a servant uniform, and take off the ring. Give it to Elena!"
Leo, who'd been watching like it was entertainment, tapped his bowl with a spoon mockingly, eyes gleaming. "And don't change in the master bedroom. That's my mom's room. The guest room you used to stay in? She's turning it into a walk-in closet."
"As for you, you can go live in Baxter's old shed. You've been squatting in someone else's spot for years. Letting you have a doghouse is already generous."
"You've wasted so much of Blackstone Pack's money. We're not suing you yet, since you 'served' our family for a while, but you'll pay it back with labor."
"I've done the math with Dad. At an average servant's wage, you'll be working it off for, what, fifty years? And this time Grandpa and Grandma aren't here to protect you."
Chapter 2
The pack members covered their mouths, snickering. The looks they threw at me were laced with contempt and mockery.
I'd poured my heart into raising that pup. And now he was humiliating me in front of everyone, for another woman, without blinking.
It felt like an iron fist closed around my heart. I couldn't breathe for a moment.
I inhaled slowly, steadying myself, and took the ring off.
Elena snatched it out of my hand and slid it onto her finger, then leaned into Kieran's chest with a smile. "See? It fits perfectly. Like it was made for me."
It had been.
Kieran had measured my finger with yarn while I slept, trying to surprise me. Maybe he'd been too nervous, because the ring had come out a little small.
Maybe everything really had been written from the start.
Kieran stroked her hair, indulgent. "As long as you like it."
His gaze flicked toward me, just once, like he was checking to see if I'd break.
I pretended not to notice and walked away.
After dinner, the pack members drifted out, one by one. Elena ordered me to clean the table alone.
Emma couldn't stand it and stepped forward. "Luna, let me help you..."
Elena appeared like a ghost and slapped her hard across the face. "You old hag. Who are you calling Luna? So generous now. Where was that generosity when it was me?"
"I'm the lady of this house now. What I say goes. Stick your nose in again and pack your things and get out."
Then she smiled at me, provocative. "Arabella, I'm doing this to help you learn the workflow faster. Kieran said Blackstone Pack doesn't keep dead weight."
"Now I'm going upstairs to watch TV with Kieran and Leo. Take your time."
The show was boring enough to put anyone to sleep. But the laughter from the master bedroom never stopped.
I squeezed Emma's hand and told her I was fine, told her to rest. She had an early bus in the morning.
Emma nodded, but she couldn't stop herself from muttering as she left. "Since Elena came here, she's barely lifted a finger. Why would she need any help?"
"She gets a guest room, she can walk into the Alpha's study whenever she wants, and half the time she's calling him to help her shower at midnight..."
My hands paused over the dishes. My throat went dry, like someone had poured sand into it.
So while I'd been living in denial, they'd already crossed the line.
Maybe I'd been the only one in this house still pretending it was "compassion," deluding myself.
Kieran and I had grown up together, because our mothers were best friends.
When we were five, the adults teased him in front of the TV, asking if he wanted to mate with a pretty lady like the actresses.
Kieran shook his head, stubborn and serious, baby voice and all. "No. They're not as pretty as Arabella. I only want Arabella to be my mate!"
The two mothers laughed until they leaned over, and just like that, it became a childhood engagement.
Later, my parents passed in a car accident. My mother-in-law brought me into her home.
The year I graduated college, my father-in-law became critically ill. The treatment was obscenely expensive. That was when Kieran swore he'd make something of himself.
I saw their despair, the way the whole house felt like it was holding its breath, and I took out the inheritance my parents had left me.
Half went to my father-in-law's care. Half went to Kieran's startup.
To make sure he had no distractions, I gave up the jewelry design major I loved and stayed to care for his father.
I still remembered the day Kieran got down on one knee with that plain band, voice breaking. "Arabella, I'll never fail you. I'll build something huge, and give you the best of everything in this world."
I was frail from years of stress and exhaustion, and pregnancy was hard for me. But Kieran said he wanted to be a father, so I endured more than a dozen rounds of IVF, needles until my body felt like a pin cushion, until I finally had our son, Leo.
Then Kieran succeeded. Leo was born safely and grew up healthy.
I thought that was it. I thought our life would stay beautiful.
But after Elena applied for the job, everything started changing, little by little, until it didn't feel like my home anymore.
Chapter 3
Elena was clumsy and bad at everything. Kieran started out annoyed by her, then somehow that turned into indulgence.
When I finally said she hadn't passed her probation and we should let her go, he slammed his bowl and forks so hard they clattered across the table.
"Elena doesn't have family. She couldn't even afford tuition, she had to drop out and become a maid. She's already miserable enough. Can't you give her a way to live?"
"Arabella, since when are you this petty? Blackstone Pack isn't going to collapse over one extra set of utensils. I earn the money here, and you don't get to decide how I spend it!"
Even my son glared at me, furious on her behalf. "Mom, how could you be so mean? All you do is make me study, tell me to eat less junk, and even limit how long I can play games."
"Elena's different. She helps me with homework, buys me ice cream and soda, and even lets me use her tablet. That's the mom I actually want!"
I'd asked myself before if I was too strict, if I wasn't doing enough.
Tonight made it painfully clear. They had left me long ago.
It was almost midnight by the time I finished cleaning. My back hurt so badly I could barely stand straight.
On my way to crash, I passed Leo's bedroom. The door was half open, and I could see everything.
Kieran held a bottle of medical spray in his hand. "Go change first," he told Leo. "I'm gonna check on your mom. Her back's not good, and we went too far tonight..."
Leo snatched the spray, his face twisted with resentment. "What's 'too far' about it? Did you forget how she used to make things hard for Aunt Elena? If her back hurts, she deserves it."
"Having a bad mom like her is embarrassing. My classmates would isolate me if they knew."
"Let her suffer for a year, learn what it means to be kind and gentle. Then we can give her the Luna title back. Consider it her birthday present next year."
Bitterness rose in my throat.
I remembered the year Leo begged to go skiing. He spiked a fever on the mountain. The car broke down halfway down, and the cold killed my phone battery.
I carried him through subzero air for nearly half the night before I found a clinic.
A half-grown boy wasn't light, and that was when my back started failing me.
Kieran looked like he wanted to say something else, but Elena's voice floated up from downstairs. "Hubby, baby boy, come out and set off fireworks with me!"
Leo's eyes lit up. He kept talking, almost excited now. "Dad, you think Aunt Elena's younger, prettier, and more considerate too, right? Mom's boring and doesn't know how to dress. All she does is nag and control everything. You don't even have anything in common with her."
"But Aunt Elena will learn wine tasting for you, play golf, go to concerts. She'll even help me skip school to go have fun. We should enjoy life, too."
Kieran hesitated for two seconds. Then he nodded. "Fine."
Before they came out, I was already inside the so-called "doghouse."
The place was a disaster. Baxter's mess from when he died was still on the floor, uncleaned. The air was thick with a sharp, rotten stench.
After my father-in-law was gone, my mother-in-law passed away just over a week ago. Baxter, the dog she'd raised since he was a pup, seemed to understand. He refused food and water for three days, then followed her in death.
I'd told Elena repeatedly to clean this little shed out. Clearly she'd ignored me, like she always did.
She never listened when it came to the actual job I'd hired her for. Her entire focus was pleasing Kieran and Leo. Because they always protected her.
I quietly took out the Mate Bond Dissolution Agreement I'd already signed.
A few days ago, my mother-in-law's private lawyer came to me and said she'd left something behind. Besides a bank card, this was it.
"The late Luna said a mother knows her son. He's changed his heart, and he wronged you. She also knows you stayed in Blackstone Pack to repay the kindness her family once showed you."
"The Alpha likely won't truly break the mate bond on his own, but when you're ready for freedom, use this and leave."
I didn't know how she'd gotten Kieran's signature. But in that moment, I was grateful, down to my bones.
Outside, fireworks bloomed in the night sky, bright and beautiful, lighting up the three of them wrapped around each other.
And lighting up my face, pale as ash.
All these years, in this house, I'd been nothing but a high-end servant.
