The cottage sat at the edge of Moonveil's residential quarter, modest but well-maintained. Nothing like the Alpha's residence. Nothing like where a Luna should live.

But Allyson wasn't a Luna. She was just—

I stopped myself. Sebastian had been clear about what she was. What she carried. My fingers trembled as I smoothed down my dress, the same emerald one I'd worn for our anniversary dinner that never happened. I hadn't changed. Hadn't slept. The fabric was wrinkled now, clinging to my skin in the morning humidity.

Through the window, I could see her moving inside. Allyson. The Beta's daughter. The chosen mate. The mother of his heir.

I dropped to my knees in the dirt outside her door.

The earth was still damp from last night's rain, seeping through the expensive fabric immediately. Cold. Unforgiving. I clasped my hands together and stared at the wooden door, waiting.

Sebastian's command echoed in my skull: *You will ask her to return. You will beg if necessary.*

An hour passed. Then another.

My knees ached. The sun climbed higher, beating down on my neck and shoulders. I didn't move. Couldn't move. Inside me, my wolf—the one that had awakened so late, the one I'd been so grateful for—whimpered softly, confused by my submission.

*We shouldn't be here*, she whispered.

*We have to be*, I told her. *We have no choice.*

Movement in my peripheral vision. Pack members emerging from their homes, drawn by the spectacle of their Luna kneeling in the dirt like a common Omega. I kept my eyes down, but I heard them. Their whispers carried on the morning breeze.

"Is that Luna Josephine?"

"At the Beta's daughter's cottage?"

"I heard she's pregnant. With the Alpha's..."

"Three years and the Luna gave him nothing."

Each word was a blade between my ribs. More wolves gathered. Some stood at a respectful distance, faces carefully neutral. Others leaned against buildings, arms crossed, watching with expressions that ranged from pity to contempt. A few younger wolves pulled out their phones.

I wanted to stand. To run. To disappear into the forest and never return.

But Sebastian's Alpha command wrapped around my bones like iron chains.

The third hour was the worst. My legs had gone numb below the knee. Sweat trickled down my spine. Someone had brought a chair and was sitting now, eating breakfast while watching me like I was street theater. Others joined them. The crowd swelled.

Then the door opened.

Allyson stood in the threshold, one hand resting on her rounded belly. She wore a simple sundress, pale yellow, her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked fresh. Rested. Glowing with that particular radiance pregnant women were said to have.

She looked down at me with something that might have been surprise if her eyes hadn't been so calculating.

"Luna Josephine." Her voice carried sweetly across the gathered crowd. "You shouldn't have troubled yourself."

I opened my mouth. The words Sebastian had demanded stuck in my throat. *Beg her to come back. Tell her the pack needs her.*

"Please," I heard myself whisper. The crowd leaned forward. "Please return to the pack house. The Alpha... Sebastian requests your presence. The pack—" My voice cracked. "The pack needs you."

Allyson tilted her head, considering. She let the silence stretch. Let everyone watch as I knelt before her, three years of Luna authority dissolving in the morning sun.

"I suppose I could consider it," she said finally. "Though I'm quite comfortable here."

Behind her, movement. My heart stopped.

Sebastian emerged from the cottage's shadows, his shirt partially unbuttoned. He'd been inside. The entire time I'd been kneeling outside, he'd been inside with her.

He moved to Allyson's side, his hand finding the small of her back with easy familiarity. His eyes met mine briefly—empty of apology, empty of regret—before he leaned down and pressed his lips to Allyson's neck. The same neck I'd watched him kiss hundreds of times before. The place where a mate mark should be.

Where mine wasn't.

Had never been.

Allyson sighed softly, leaning into him, and her free hand came up to touch his jaw. Possessive. Claiming.

"Well," she murmured, loud enough for the crowd to hear. "If the Alpha himself is here, perhaps the pack house isn't so far away after all."

Sebastian's arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her close. They stood framed in the doorway together—Alpha and chosen mate, her belly swollen with his child between them—while I remained on my knees in the dirt below.

Someone in the crowd laughed. Not loud. Just a quiet sound of amusement quickly stifled.

It was enough.

I stood. My legs nearly gave out, numb from three hours of kneeling, but I forced them to hold. Dirt clung to my dress, my skin. My carefully styled hair had come loose, strands sticking to my damp neck and face.

I didn't wait for dismissal. Didn't bow. Didn't say another word.

I turned and walked away from that cottage, from the gathered crowd, from Sebastian's arm around another woman's shoulders. My vision blurred but I didn't let the tears fall. Not yet. Not where they could see.

The forest called to me. Wild. Safe. Away.

Behind me, I heard Allyson's bright laugh, Sebastian's low response. The crowd's murmurs swelling into open conversation now that the show was over.

I walked faster. Then ran.

By the time I reached the tree line, the first drops of rain began to fall.

The rain turned to ice somewhere between the pack house and the border. I didn't notice when. Didn't care.

My feet carried me without direction, away from the cottage where Sebastian's hand had rested on Allyson's belly, away from the crowd's whispers, away from three hours on my knees in the dirt. The forest swallowed me whole—branches tearing at my ruined dress, thorns catching my skin. I welcomed the pain. It was cleaner than what Sebastian had done.

When I finally stopped, gasping and shivering, I realized I'd crossed into neutral territory. The scent markers were different here, neither Moonveil nor distinctly another pack's. Just... empty.

My legs gave out. I collapsed against a tree trunk, its bark rough against my spine through the thin, soaked fabric. The emerald dress—the one I'd chosen so carefully for our anniversary—clung to my body like a second skin, heavy with rain and shame.

"You shouldn't be here."

The voice came from behind me. Low. Familiar in a way that made every muscle in my body lock with terror.

I forced myself to turn.

Alpha Elias Washington stood ten feet away, his gray eyes—storm-colored, I'd once thought them beautiful—fixed on me with an expression I couldn't read. He wore simple traveling clothes, his dark hair wet from the rain. He must have been patrolling the border between Silverfang and neutral ground.

Of all the wolves in all the territories, it had to be him.

"I'm leaving," I managed, my voice hoarse. "I'll be gone in a moment."

"You're hypothermic." He didn't move closer, but his gaze traveled over me—clinical, assessing. "And injured."

I looked down. Blood mixed with rain on my arms where thorns had torn skin. I hadn't felt it. Still barely did.

"It doesn't matter," I said.

Something shifted in his expression. Not pity—I couldn't have borne pity from him. Something grimmer. Recognition, maybe. Or guilt.

"There's a border cabin half a mile north." His words were clipped, carefully neutral. "You can dry off. Warm up."

"I don't need—"

"You're shaking so hard you can barely stand." His Alpha authority bled into his tone, not quite a command but close enough to make my wolf stir uneasily. "Half a mile. Then you can leave."

I wanted to refuse. Wanted to tell him I'd rather freeze than accept anything from the Alpha who'd rejected me when I was sixteen, who'd called me worthless, who'd used his Alpha tone to sever our fated bond while I screamed.

But my body betrayed me. Another violent shiver wracked through me, my teeth chattering so hard I bit my tongue.

Elias turned without waiting for my answer and started walking. After a moment, I followed.

The cabin was small, utilitarian—the kind used by border patrols during long watches. Elias pushed open the door and gestured me inside without crossing the threshold himself. Maintaining propriety. Of course.

A fireplace dominated one wall. He moved past me to light it, efficient and quick, then stepped back toward the door.

"There are blankets in the chest. Dry clothes if they fit." He paused, his hand on the doorframe. "I'll be outside."

"Why?" The question escaped before I could stop it. "Why help me now?"

His jaw tightened. For a long moment, he didn't answer. Then: "Because I know what it looks like when someone's been destroyed by their Alpha. And I know what I did to you years ago. Consider this... insufficient atonement."

He left before I could respond.

I stood dripping on the wooden floor, alone with the growing fire and the weight of too many humiliations to count. My hands shook as I peeled off the ruined dress and wrapped myself in a rough wool blanket from the chest. The clothes Elias mentioned were too large, clearly meant for male wolves, but they were dry. I pulled them on anyway.

The fire's warmth started to seep into my frozen limbs, bringing with it the full awareness of pain—physical and otherwise. I sank onto the floor in front of the flames and stared at nothing.

Through the cabin's single window, I could see the road that led back toward Moonveil territory. As I watched, a familiar black car drove past. Sebastian's. Even from this distance, I could make out two figures in the front seat.

His hand was on Allyson's belly again. Protective. Possessive. The way a mate's should be.

I pressed my palm against my own stomach—flat, empty, worthless—and finally let myself break.

The sound that came out of me wasn't crying. It was something deeper. Rawer. My wolf howled inside my chest, a keening that had no outlet because I couldn't shift, couldn't run, couldn't escape the truth that Sebastian had branded into my soul today.

I had never been his Luna. Not really.

I'd been a placeholder. A convenient face while he built his real life with someone else.

Outside, Elias stood with his back to the cabin, rigid and still. He didn't turn around. Didn't intrude on my breaking. But he didn't leave either.

And somehow, that small mercy from the Alpha who'd once shattered me was more than my own mate had given me in three years.