I woke up on the floor again.

The cold marble pressed against my cheek, and for a moment I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there. The Alpha suite bed loomed above me, sheets tangled and empty. My body ached in that specific way that told me he'd been here during the night—the mysterious presence that came to me in the dark, all heat and possession and a scent that made my wolf purr even in her half-dead state.

Pine. Storm-charged earth. Something wild and clean that wrapped around my bones and made me feel, for those brief hours, like I wasn't completely alone.

I pressed my face into my forearm and inhaled. The scent clung to my skin, faint but unmistakable. My wolf, Luna, stirred somewhere deep inside me—a flicker of awareness she rarely showed anymore after three years of whatever poison was slowly killing her.

Mate, she whispered, the word barely audible even in my own head.

I pushed myself up on shaking arms. The nausea hit immediately, rolling through my stomach in waves. I'd been waking up sick for two weeks now, but I couldn't afford to think about what that might mean. Not today. Not with the Moon Festival starting in a few hours and a hundred tasks still waiting for the Alpha's glorified servant to complete.

The bathroom door opened. Tristan walked out, already dressed in his formal black suit, and the wrongness of it slammed into me like a physical blow.

Artificial cologne. Sharp and chemical, nothing like the scent I'd just been breathing in. And underneath it, unmistakable—perfume. Floral and cloying. A woman's scent that wasn't mine.

He looked down at me still on the floor and his lip curled. "You're still here? I thought I told you to start on the pack house floors an hour ago."

I stared up at him, my mind trying to reconcile the man standing in front of me with the presence that had claimed me in the dark. They wore the same face. They had to be the same person. But nothing else matched—not the scent, not the way he looked at me like I was something stuck to his shoe, not the cold contempt in every word.

"I—" The nausea surged again and I had to swallow hard. "I'll start now."

"You look like hell." He adjusted his cufflinks without looking at me. "Try not to embarrass me in front of the guests. Your sister's coming home today, and I won't have you making the pack look weak."

Katie. Of course. The golden child returning from her convenient three-year absence, right when the pack's wealth was finally secured and the Luna title was worth having again.

Tristan's boot connected with my hip—not hard enough to bruise, just enough to make his point. "Move."

I moved.

Two hours later, I was on my knees in the foyer, scrubbing marble that was already clean. My hands were raw and chemical-burned from the harsh soap they made me use—the kind that stripped skin as efficiently as it stripped grime. The cramping in my abdomen had gotten worse, sharp enough that I had to pause every few minutes and breathe through it.

Stress, I told myself. Just stress.

The main doors opened and I didn't look up. I'd learned that lesson early—eye contact was a privilege I hadn't earned.

"Oh my God, is that Bella?"

Katie's voice. Bright and delighted, like she'd just spotted an old pet she'd forgotten she owned.

I looked up.

She stood in the doorway backlit by afternoon sun, wearing a silk dress that probably cost more than I'd seen in three years. Her hair—our hair, the same shade of honey-brown—was styled in perfect waves. Her skin glowed with health and expensive skincare. She looked like everything I used to be before I became this.

"Katie." Tristan's voice changed completely, warm in a way I'd never heard directed at me. He crossed the foyer in three strides and pulled her into an embrace that lasted too long, his hand sliding down to the small of her back in a way that made my stomach turn.

She laughed and pressed closer, her fingers playing with his collar. "Miss me?"

"Every day."

I was still on my knees. Still holding the scrub brush. Still invisible.

My parents appeared in the doorway behind Katie, and they rushed past me without a glance—my mother's designer heel actually stepped over my hand—to embrace their returned daughter.

"Darling, you look wonderful!"

"We've missed you so much!"

"Tell us everything about Paris!"

The cramping in my abdomen sharpened into something that felt like claws. I pressed my free hand against my stomach and felt Luna stir again, stronger this time.

Protect, she said, and I didn't understand what she meant.

Katie finally looked down at me, and her smile was perfect. Warm. Sisterly. Absolutely empty.

"Bella, you poor thing. You look exhausted." She turned to Tristan, her hand still on his chest. "You work her too hard."

"She's exactly where she belongs," Tristan said, and the way he looked at me made it clear what he meant.

On her knees. On the floor. Beneath notice.

The Moon Festival was going to be a very long night.

The Great Hall glittered like something out of a dream I'd stopped having years ago.

Crystal chandeliers threw fractured light across tables laden with roasted game and honeyed wine. The pack was dressed in their finest—silks and pressed suits, jewelry that caught the firelight. Everyone looked beautiful. Everyone looked happy.

I stood against the back wall in my only clean dress—a plain grey thing that had been washed so many times the fabric had gone thin at the seams. My hands were still raw from scrubbing floors, hidden now in the folds of my skirt. The cramping in my abdomen had eased to a dull ache, but the nausea remained, a constant companion I'd learned to breathe through.

Katie sat at the head table beside Tristan, radiant in emerald silk that made her skin glow. She laughed at something he said, her hand resting on his forearm with easy familiarity. My parents flanked them, beaming like they'd won some unspoken lottery.

No one had looked at me since I'd entered the hall.

The feast stretched on. Courses came and went. Toasts were made to the pack's prosperity, to the Alpha's leadership, to the Moon Goddess's blessings. I stayed pressed against the wall, trying to make myself smaller, trying not to exist.

Then Tristan stood.

The hall quieted immediately. He tapped his glass with a knife, the crystal ring cutting through the last whispers of conversation. His Alpha aura rolled out across the room—not crushing like the presence I felt in the dark, but enough to command attention.

"My pack," he said, his voice warm and confident. "Tonight we celebrate not just our prosperity, but the future of the Silverclaw bloodline."

Applause rippled through the crowd. Katie smiled up at him, her expression perfectly composed.

"Bella." His eyes found me against the wall. "Come here."

Every head turned. The weight of their stares pressed against my skin like physical touch. I couldn't move.

"Now."

The Alpha tone in that single word forced my legs into motion. I walked through the silent hall, past tables full of people who'd spent three years treating me like furniture. The distance to the stage felt infinite.

I climbed the steps on shaking legs. Stood before him. Kept my eyes down.

"Look at me."

I looked up.

His face was cold. Distant. Nothing like the man who'd held me in the dark, whose scent had wrapped around me like safety. But they had to be the same person. They had to be.

"I, Tristan Reynolds, Alpha of the Silverclaw Pack—" His voice amplified, filling every corner of the hall. "—reject you, Bella Wagner, as my mate and Luna."

The world stopped.

Then the pain hit.

It felt like something inside my chest was being ripped out through my ribs. The mate bond—the thing I'd thought was weak, damaged, barely there—tore away with the force of a limb being severed. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't see. My knees buckled and I hit the stage floor hard.

Blood filled my mouth. Hot and copper-tasting. I coughed and it splattered across the polished wood, dark and wrong.

Through the haze of agony, I heard Tristan's voice, still amplified, still steady: "This woman has failed to produce an heir. She harbors a weak spirit and a dying wolf. She is no longer under pack protection."

Hands grabbed my arms. Someone shoved papers in front of my face. A pen was forced into my trembling fingers.

"Sign."

I couldn't read the words. Couldn't focus. The pain was eating me alive from the inside out. My hand moved anyway, muscle memory from three years of obedience. The signature looked like a child's scrawl.

Someone pulled me to my feet. Katie stood beside Tristan now, his arm around her waist. She was smiling.

"The pack welcomes Katie Wagner," Tristan announced, "as my true mate and your future Luna."

The applause was deafening.

I stumbled toward the stage steps. My vision swam. Luna stirred inside me, stronger than she'd been in months, her presence sharp with something that felt like rage.

Run, she said.

I made it three steps before Katie moved into my path. Her smile was bright and sisterly as she raised her wine glass.

"Oh, Bella—" Her hand tilted. Red wine cascaded down my dress, soaking through the thin grey fabric, staining it the color of blood. "I'm so clumsy."

Laughter erupted around us.

Something hit my shoulder. A bread roll. Then another. Food scraps rained down as I ran for the doors—the pack's jeers following me like a physical force.

"Rogue!"

"Weak wolf!"

"Good riddance!"

The heavy doors slammed shut behind me and the sound cut off like a blade.

I stood in the empty corridor, wine-soaked and bleeding from the mouth, the rejection pain still tearing through my chest in waves. Through the windows, I could see storm clouds gathering, black and violent.

Luna pushed harder against my consciousness.

Run, she said again. Into the woods. Now.

Thunder cracked overhead as I started running.

I didn't make it far.

My legs gave out somewhere past the territory marker, where the manicured pack grounds gave way to wild forest. The rain had turned the earth to mud, and I went down hard, my palms sinking into cold slick darkness. The rejection pain was still tearing through my chest—waves of it, like something with claws was trying to dig its way out from the inside.

I couldn't shift. Luna was there, stronger than she'd been in years, pushing against my consciousness with desperate urgency. But my body wouldn't respond. Three years of poison had left me too weak, too broken.

The scent hit me first.

Unwashed fur. Rancid meat. The sour-sharp smell of rogues who'd been living outside pack law for too long.

I lifted my head. Three wolves emerged from the tree line, their eyes reflecting the lightning that split the sky. They were smaller than pack wolves, mangy and scarred, but their teeth were just as sharp.

"Well, well." The largest one shifted into human form—a man with matted hair and a face full of old violence. "What do we have here? A little rogue, all alone."

I tried to stand. My legs wouldn't hold me. I went down again, this time onto my side, and the impact sent fresh agony through my abdomen. The cramping was back, sharper than before, and my hand moved instinctively to cover my stomach.

The rogue's eyes tracked the movement. His smile widened. "Damaged goods. Even better."

The other two circled closer, still in wolf form. One of them growled low in his throat, the sound vibrating through the mud beneath me.

Luna screamed inside my head. Not words—just pure animal rage and terror. She threw herself against the barrier of my poisoned body, trying to force the shift, trying to protect us.

It wasn't enough.

"Please," I heard myself say. The word came out broken, barely audible over the rain. "Please don't—"

The largest rogue lunged.

Then the world exploded into violence.

Something massive and black intercepted him mid-leap. The impact sounded like thunder—bone meeting bone with crushing force. The rogue's scream cut off in a wet gurgle as jaws closed around his throat and tore.

Blood sprayed across the mud. Across my face. Hot and copper-tasting.

The black wolf was enormous. Twice the size of any Alpha I'd ever seen, with fur so dark it seemed to absorb the lightning rather than reflect it. And his eyes—God, his eyes—glowed red like embers in the darkness.

The remaining rogues froze. I felt it then, the aura rolling off the black wolf in waves so crushing I couldn't breathe. It pressed down on everything, on the air itself, a weight that made my bones ache and my wolf go absolutely still.

The black wolf moved.

It wasn't a fight. It was an execution. Efficient and brutal and over in seconds. The rogues didn't even try to run. They couldn't. The aura held them in place while teeth and claws did their work.

Then silence. Just the rain and my ragged breathing and the sound of something massive moving through the mud toward me.

I couldn't move. Couldn't think. The black wolf stopped three feet away, his red eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

He shifted.

The transformation was seamless—fur melting into skin, massive frame condensing into human form. And when it was done, when the man stood before me in the rain, I screamed.

Tristan's face. The same sharp jaw, the same dark hair, the same features I'd looked at every day for three years.

"No—" I scrambled backward through the mud, my hands slipping. "No, please, I signed the papers, I left, please don't—"

"Stop." His voice cut through my panic. Deeper than Tristan's. Resonant in a way that made my chest vibrate. He frowned, something that looked almost like pain crossing his features. "I am not him."

I stared up at him. Rain plastered his hair to his skull, ran in rivulets down his bare chest. He was identical. Exactly identical. But—

The scent hit me.

Pine. Storm-charged earth. Wild and clean and so familiar it made my chest ache with something that wasn't rejection pain.

The scent from the dark. The presence that had claimed me in the night. The only thing that had made me feel safe in three years.

It was him.

He moved closer, dropping into a crouch. Not aggressive—careful, like he was approaching something wounded. His eyes—not cold like Tristan's, but burning with an intensity that made me want to look away and never stop looking at the same time—searched my face.

Then he inhaled.

His entire body went rigid. His eyes flared brighter, the red glow intensifying until I could see it reflected in the rain between us. A sound rumbled from his chest—not a growl, something deeper, more primal.

Inside my head, Luna exploded into consciousness.

MATE, she screamed. MATE MATE MATE—

The man's hand moved to my stomach, hovering just above the fabric of my ruined dress. His voice, when he spoke, was barely human.

"You're carrying my child."