The cool night air of the medicinal garden was the only thing keeping me from shattering completely. I collapsed onto the stone bench beneath the weeping willow, my breath hitching in ragged gasps. The humiliation of the dinner still burned on my skin, hotter than the physical wound I had sustained.

I looked down at my hand. A bright red welt stretched across my palm and fingers, blistering where I had grabbed the hot silver tureen to stop it from falling when Drake’s command forced my knees to buckle. I hadn’t dropped the wine, but the soup tureen had seared my flesh. I hadn’t dared to cry out then. A Luna does not show weakness, even when she is being treated like a servant.

"Let me see it."

The voice was low and familiar. I didn't jump; my wolf knew his scent—earth, pine, and safety. Clark Andrews stepped out of the shadows, his face etched with a mixture of sorrow and suppressed rage.

"I'm fine, Clark," I whispered, cradling my hand against my chest. "Go back inside. If Drake sees you here..."

"He is too busy drinking to his 'heir' to notice his Beta is missing," Clark said bitterly. He knelt before me, disregarding the dirt staining his dress slacks. Gently, he took my wrist. His touch was cool, a stark contrast to the angry heat of the burn. "This needs aloe and comfrey. Stay still."

He pulled a small jar from his pocket—one of my own salves I had given the pack warriors. With infinite care, he applied the balm to my blistered skin. The relief was instant, but the ache in my chest only deepened. Here was the man who should have been just a friend, treating me with the reverence my mate had forgotten.

"You cannot keep doing this, Celine," Clark murmured, his eyes locked on his work. "The ritual is tonight. You are already exhausted. Your aura is flickering."

"I have to," I said, my voice hollow. "If I don't, his wolf dies. And if his wolf dies, the pack falls."

Clark looked up, his brown eyes searching mine. "The pack is already falling, Luna. A pack led by a madman has no future. You need to protect yourself. You need to leave."

I instinctively placed my other hand over my stomach, where the tiny, secret life fluttered. "I can't leave. Not yet."

Clark’s gaze dropped to my hand on my belly. He paused, a flicker of realization passing through his eyes, but he said nothing. He simply squeezed my uninjured hand, a silent vow of protection. For a moment, in the quiet of the garden my mother had planted, I felt a peace I hadn't known in years.

But peace in the Black Moon Pack was a fragile illusion.

A soft click from the second-floor balcony shattered the moment. I looked up, my heart seizing. Sabrina stood there, framed by the light of the Alpha’s bedroom. She wasn't looking at the moon; she was looking at us. A slow, venomous smile spread across her lips. She didn't say a word, but the way she turned and slinked back into the room made my blood run cold.

"She saw us," I whispered, pulling my hand from Clark's grip. "Go. Please, Clark."

He hesitated, jaw clenched, but the Beta instinct to obey his Luna won out. He vanished into the trees, leaving me alone with the dread coiling in my gut.

Inside the bedroom, the atmosphere had shifted. I could feel it even from the garden—a spike in the air pressure, the static charge of an agitated Alpha. Sabrina was weaving her web.

*"Look at them, Drake,"* I imagined her purring, her voice dripping with false concern. *"Touching hands in the dark. Your Beta and your barren mate. Perhaps that is why she is so cold to you..."*

I wiped my face, steeling myself. The full moon was rising. It was time for the ritual.

I entered the house through the side door, moving silently toward the Alpha’s study where we usually prepared before heading to the grove. The door was ajar.

Drake was pacing, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. His aura was erratic, flaring out in jagged waves that made the air taste metallic. Sabrina sat on the edge of his desk, holding a crystal goblet filled with a dark, viscous liquid.

"Drink this, my love," she cooed, extending the glass. "It will help you focus. It will give you the strength she tries to steal from you."

The scent hit me before I even crossed the threshold. It was sharp, acrid—like burnt sugar and rotting meat. Wolfsbane. But not just the herb; this was a concentrated elixir, the kind brewed in the dark basements of rogue territories. The kind Victor Kane dealt in.

"Drake, no!" I gasped, stepping into the room. "Do not drink that!"

Drake spun around. His eyes were wild, the pupils blown wide. The silver of his irises was muddy, swimming with red veins.

"You," he snarled. The sound was more beast than man. "You dare tell me what to do? After what you were doing in the garden?"

"I was tending to a wound you caused!" I cried, pointing at the glass. "That is poison, Drake! Can’t you smell it? It’s wolfsbane!"

Sabrina laughed, a tinkling, innocent sound. "Oh, Celine. Always so dramatic. It’s just a tonic for vitality. Something to help him since his 'healer' mate is so useless."

She pressed the glass into Drake’s hand. He looked at the dark liquid, then at me. The trust that had once existed between us was gone, eroded by months of manipulation and his own desperation for strength.

"I don't need your permission, Celine," Drake spat. "And I don't need your pity."

He raised the glass and downed the elixir in one swallow.

"No!" I screamed, lunging forward, but it was too late.

A roar ripped from his throat—a sound of raw power and agony. His muscles bulged, tearing the seams of his shirt. The elixir was forcing a surge of artificial energy into his dying wolf, like pouring gasoline onto a fading spark. It wouldn't heal him; it would burn him out from the inside.

He turned to me, and for the first time, I didn't see my husband. I saw a stranger fueled by chemical rage and a jealousy whispered into his ear.

"You think you can betray me with my own Beta?" he growled, his voice vibrating with the Alpha tone, amplified and distorted by the drug. He took a step toward me, the floorboards groaning under the weight of his aura.

I backed away, clutching my stomach, terror icy in my veins. The ritual was meant to save him, but tonight, the man standing before me didn't want to be saved. He wanted to destroy.

The path to the sacred grove felt longer tonight, the shadows stretching like grasping claws across the mossy earth. Usually, this place was a sanctuary, a pocket of ancient magic where the moonlight filtered through the canopy in soft, silver ribbons. But tonight, the air tasted metallic. Wrong.

I knelt by the circle of moonstones I had painstakingly arranged five years ago. My hands trembled as I reached for the pouch of sage at my waist, but I stopped cold. The protective wards—runes carved into the bark of the elder trees—had been defaced. Smears of something dark and foul-smelling covered the sacred symbols, disrupting the flow of natural energy.

Sabrina.

The scent of her synthetic floral perfume clung to the devastation, masking the rot of the dark substance she’d used. My heart hammered against my ribs. Without these wards, the energy transfer would be volatile, dangerous for both of us. But I didn't have time to fix it. The crunch of boots on gravel signaled Drake’s arrival.

He emerged from the darkness, his silhouette jagged and imposing. The moonlight didn't seem to touch him; it repelled off him, pushed away by the chaotic storm of his aura. He reeked of the wolfsbane elixir he’d downed in his study—acrid, burning, and wrong.

"Drake," I whispered, standing slowly. My hand went instinctively to my stomach, shielding the tiny life he didn't know he was destroying. "The wards are broken. It’s not safe. We need to wait."

He laughed, a harsh, grating sound that made the birds in the trees fall silent. "Wait? You always want to wait, Celine. You want to keep me weak."

He stepped into the circle, ignoring the way the air shimmered and cracked with unstable magic. His eyes were no longer the warm silver I had fallen in love with. They were blown wide, swimming with muddy red veins, the wolfsbane twisting his perception into paranoia.

"I am trying to save you," I pleaded, reaching out. My fingertips glowed with faint healing light, a desperate attempt to stabilize his erratic energy. "Your wolf is dying, Drake. Please, let me help."

"Help?" He slapped my hand away. The impact stung, but his words cut deeper. "Sabrina told me the truth. You drain me. You use these rituals to bind me to you, to make me dependent on your pathetic magic because you know you aren't enough of a woman to keep an Alpha satisfied."

The accusation stole the breath from my lungs. "That’s a lie! She’s poisoning you!"

I tried to channel the moonlight, to force the healing bond open despite the broken wards. I had to purge the poison from his blood. I stepped forward, grabbing his forearms. "Look at me, Drake! It’s Celine!"

The magic flared, reacting violently to the wolfsbane in his system. A spark of silver light exploded between us, hot and searing.

Drake roared, not in pain, but in blind, chemical-fueled fury. "Get off me, witch!"

He shoved me.

It wasn't a playful push. It was an Alpha’s strike, backed by the unnatural strength of the elixir. I flew backward, the world spinning in a dizzying blur. My back slammed into the unforgiving trunk of an ancient oak tree, the impact jarring every bone in my body. I crumbled to the ground, hitting the roots hard.

A sharp, tearing pain ripped through my abdomen. It was unlike anything I had ever felt—hot, wet, and final.

"No," I gasped, the word bubbling up with a copper taste in my mouth.

I tried to sit up, but my body wouldn't obey. A damp warmth spread between my legs, soaking into the cold earth. The scent of blood—my blood, our child’s blood—filled the air, thick and devastating.

Drake stood over me, his chest heaving. For a split second, clarity seemed to flicker in his drug-hazed eyes as the scent hit him. He took a stumbling step back, looking at his hands. "Celine?"

Then, a scream tore from my throat. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated grief, a mother mourning the future that had just been kicked out of her.

"Drake!"

The name wasn't mine. It was a roar from the edge of the grove.

Clark burst through the brush, his face a mask of absolute terror. He didn't look at his Alpha. His eyes locked onto me, onto the blood pooling beneath my dress.

"Don't touch her!" Drake snarled, the confusion in his eyes hardening back into possessive rage. He used the Alpha tone, the command slamming into the clearing like a physical weight. "Stand down, Beta!"

Usually, a Beta would crumble. Usually, the biological imperative to obey would freeze Clark in place.

But Clark didn't stop. He didn't even slow down.

"No," Clark growled, his voice vibrating with a defiance that shook the leaves from the trees. He broke the command, shattering the hierarchy for the sake of the woman bleeding on the ground.

He slid to his knees beside me, his hands hovering over my stomach, his face draining of color. "Luna... oh goddess, Celine."

"My baby," I sobbed, clutching his shirt, my vision graying at the edges. "He killed our baby."

Clark’s jaw tightened until I thought his teeth would shatter. He scooped me up into his arms, cradling me against his chest as if I were made of glass.

"Put her down!" Drake bellowed, stepping forward, his aura flaring with menacing intent. "She is my mate!"

Clark turned. For the first time in his life, the Beta looked at his Alpha with nothing but pure, unbridled hatred.

"You have done enough," Clark spat.

Without waiting for permission, without bowing his head, Clark turned and ran. He sprinted toward the pack clinic, his heart beating a frantic rhythm against my ear. I let my head fall back, the canopy of trees blurring into a dark tunnel. The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was the moon, cold and distant, watching silently as my world fell apart.

The first thing I noticed was the silence. It wasn’t the peaceful quiet of dawn or the hush of a sleeping house. It was a heavy, suffocating silence that pressed against my eardrums, drowning out the hum of the medical machines.

I stared up at the white ceiling tiles of the pack clinic, counting the water stains to keep from screaming. My body felt light, hollowed out, as if something essential had been carved away.

"Celine?"

Clark’s voice was a jagged whisper. I turned my head slowly. He was sitting by the bed, his head bowed, his hands gripping the metal rails so hard his knuckles were white. Dr. Reid stood behind him, wiping his glasses on his lab coat. His eyes were red.

"Tell me," I croaked. My throat felt like it was filled with glass shards.

Dr. Reid put his glasses back on, but he couldn't meet my gaze. "The trauma to your abdomen... the impact against the tree..." He took a shaky breath. "There was a placental abruption, Luna. The blood loss was severe. We couldn't save the pup."

I didn't cry. I think I had left my tears in the dirt of the sacred grove. Instead, a cold numbness spread through my chest. Five years. Five years of needles, of invasive procedures, of praying to the Moon Goddess until my knees bled. All for a tiny heartbeat that had flickered out in the span of a single violent second.

"He's gone," I whispered, my hand drifting to my flat stomach. It was just flesh now. Just an empty vessel.

Clark made a choked sound and buried his face in his hands. "I should have been faster. I should have killed him."

"Don't," I said softly. "He is your Alpha."

"He is a monster," Clark growled, lifting his head. His eyes burned with a mixture of grief and fury that mirrored my own soul.

Before I could respond, the clinic door banged open. The metal slammed against the wall with a deafening crash that made Dr. Reid jump.

Drake strode in. He didn't look like a grieving father. He looked annoyed. His shirt was still torn from his transformation, and he smelled of sweat, ozone, and that sickly-sweet floral perfume. Sabrina’s scent.

She wasn't with him, but her poison was clearly running through his veins. His eyes were hard, devoid of the silver warmth I had once worshipped.

"So," Drake said, his voice booming in the small room. "Is the show over?"

Clark stood up abruptly, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. "Get out, Drake. She just lost your child."

Drake let out a sharp, mocking laugh. He walked to the foot of my bed, looking down at me with a sneer that twisted his handsome face into something ugly.

"My child?" Drake spat the words. "Sabrina told me everything, Celine. There was no child. Just like there was no 'healing' in those rituals of yours. It's all a desperate ploy for attention."

My heart stopped. The accusation was so absurd, so cruel, that I couldn't process it. "Ask Dr. Reid," I whispered. "Look at the charts."

Drake didn't even glance at the doctor. "I don't need to look at fake charts concocted by your friends. You’re pathetic, Celine. Faking a pregnancy because you can't handle that I found a real mate? A fertile mate?"

"I was pregnant!" I screamed, the strength returning to me in a rush of pure hatred. "I carried your son, and you killed him! You threw me into a tree because you were high on wolfsbane and lies!"

"Watch your tone, Luna!" Drake roared, his Alpha aura flaring. It hit me like a physical blow, pressing me back into the mattress.

Usually, I would cower. Usually, I would submit to keep the peace, to keep his dying wolf stable. But looking at him now—this man who had desecrated our vows, our love, and our child—I felt something snap. The tether that had bound me to him for five years, the debt I owed his grandmother, the love I held for the boy he used to be... it all shattered.

I sat up, ignoring the searing pain in my abdomen. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Blood rushed to my head, but I forced myself to stand. I would not do this lying down.

"Clark," I said, my voice deadly calm. "Stand witness."

Clark’s eyes widened. He knew what was coming. He stepped back, giving me space, his posture rigid with respect.

Drake frowned, crossing his arms. "What are you doing? Sit down before you embarrass yourself further."

I looked him dead in the eye. I didn't see my husband. I didn't see the Alpha. I saw a stranger.

"I, Celine Stone," I began, my voice trembling not with fear, but with the sheer force of the magic gathering in my blood, "Luna of the Black Moon Pack..."

Drake’s face went slack. "Stop."

"...do hereby reject you, Drake Kennedy, as my mate."

The words hung in the air, heavy and absolute. I felt a tearing sensation in my chest, a spiritual ripping as the bond began to fray. It was agony, worse than the miscarriage, worse than the physical wounds. It was the severing of a soul.

I gasped, clutching my chest, waiting for him to accept it. Waiting for the final snap that would set me free.

But Drake didn't buckle. He didn't fall to his knees in the pain of rejection. Instead, a terrifying, manic grin spread across his face. He stepped forward, invading my space, his aura suffocating me.

"You think you can leave?" he whispered, leaning down until his nose brushed mine. His eyes were wild, the pupils dilated and wrong. "You think you can just say a few words and walk away from me? From your Alpha?"

"I reject you," I repeated, tears finally spilling over. "Let me go."

"No," Drake snarled.

The bond snapped back into place with a rubber-band force that nearly knocked me over. He was using his Alpha command to hold onto the connection, refusing to let it break. It was a violation of the highest order.

"I do not accept your rejection, Celine," he hissed, gripping my chin and forcing me to look at him. "You are mine. You are my Luna, my healer, my property. You don't get to leave until I say you're done. And right now? You still have a job to do."

He shoved me back onto the bed.

"Clean her up," Drake commanded Dr. Reid, not looking back as he walked to the door. "She has a ritual to perform tomorrow night. My wolf feels... hungry."