The summons came three days after the soup incident, delivered by Victor with the same clinical detachment he brought to all of his duties as Beta. 'The Alpha has requested your presence in the main hall for the Pack Heritage photoshoot at noon.' He paused, studying me with eyes that revealed nothing. 'You should wear something... appropriate.'

I knew what 'appropriate' meant. Not the Luna's formal gowns that hung in my wardrobe, gathering dust. Something that would mark me as lesser. I chose a simple gray dress that buttoned to the throat, the kind worn by pack staff during formal functions. The irony wasn't lost on me.

The great hall was a flurry of activity when I arrived. Photographers—humans from the city, oblivious to the true nature of the family they were capturing—adjusted lights and backdrops. Loretta sat in her wheelchair in the center of it all, draped in a gown the color of blood, her dark hair arranged in perfect waves.

And around her neck, catching the light with every movement, hung the Harvey family rubies.

My rubies. The jewels that had been placed around my neck on my mating day, the ones that had adorned every Luna of the Black Moon Pack for generations. The ones Matthew had told me, in softer days, were a symbol of my place in the pack's heart.

'Luna Penelope.' Victor appeared at my elbow, his voice pitched low. 'You'll be standing here.' He gestured to a spot three paces behind Matthew's chair, slightly to the left. 'The photographers need you in the background. For... context.'

Context. As if I were part of the furniture, a prop to complete the picture of pack hierarchy.

Matthew entered, and the room shifted like iron filings to a magnet. He wore his formal Alpha attire—black suit, silver cufflinks, the kind of commanding presence that had once made my heart race. Now it just made my stomach clench.

He didn't look at me. Not once.

'Alpha Matthew,' the head photographer called, his voice bright with professional enthusiasm. 'We're ready to begin. If you could stand behind Miss Loretta, one hand on her shoulder... perfect. Now smile like you're celebrating something beautiful.'

Loretta's smile was radiant. Matthew's was practiced. I stood where I was told, my hands folded in front of me, watching my mate pose with another woman while wearing my jewelry.

'The next shot,' the photographer announced, 'will be the two of you together. Miss Loretta, if you could stand...' He trailed off, clearly confused.

Loretta rose from her wheelchair with fluid grace. My breath caught. The photographers, focused on their equipment, didn't notice. But I saw Matthew's eyes flicker—he'd seen it too. For one heartbeat, I thought—

'The chair was just for comfort,' Loretta said lightly, her hand finding Matthew's arm with practiced ease. 'I can stand for a few photos.'

Matthew's face smoothed over. 'Of course, sweetheart. Whatever makes you comfortable.'

They posed together—his arm around her waist, her head tilted back against his shoulder, the rubies gleaming between them like a promise. The photographers clicked away, calling out directions, completely unaware of the perversion they were documenting.

I stood in my gray dress and watched my life become a photograph I wasn't truly part of.

Hours later, I found her in the garden.

Loretta sat on a stone bench, her wheelchair folded neatly beside her, stroking something small and gray in her lap. My heart stopped when I recognized the runt wolf pup—Shadow, the tiny creature I'd found abandoned at the edge of our territory last winter. The one I'd nursed back to health in secret, hiding him from a packhouse that had no room for gentleness.

'So this is your little friend,' Loretta said, her fingers tangled in Shadow's fur. 'I found him wandering. Poor thing seems lost.'

I took a step forward. 'Shadow, come here.'

The pup whined, struggling to get away from Loretta's grip. She held him tighter, her nails digging into his fur.

'Don't be greedy, Penelope,' she said, her voice dropping to that cold register she used when we were alone. 'Some things are too weak to survive in this world.'

I lunged forward as she stood, the pup squirming in her arms. But I was too late.

The crack of breaking bones echoed through the garden. Shadow's small body went limp, his eyes still open, fixed on me with a trust I had failed to honor.

Loretta let him fall to the ground between us. 'Oops,' she whispered.

She collapsed back into her wheelchair just as footsteps approached. Matthew appeared at the garden entrance, his expression darkening as he took in the scene.

'What happened?' he demanded.

Loretta's face crumpled into perfect grief. 'I was just trying to hold him, and he got so scared... he thrashed and fell. I couldn't catch him in time.'

I stared at Matthew, waiting for him to see through the lie, to notice the wheelchair she'd just risen from without assistance.

'She killed him,' I said, my voice breaking. 'Matthew, she killed Shadow.'

He looked down at the small, broken body, then back at me with cold impatience. 'It was an accident, Penelope. Stop acting like a child over a dead animal.'

I found her waiting for me at the top of the grand marble staircase, the one place in the packhouse where footsteps echoed like thunder. Loretta sat in her wheelchair, bathed in the afternoon light streaming through the stained glass windows, looking like a painting of innocence. But her eyes—those eyes that Matthew never really saw—were sharp as broken glass.

'It's so quiet today,' she said, her voice carrying in the empty hall. 'Everyone's at the territory meeting. Just us girls.'

I gripped the banister, my burned skin still throbbing beneath the bandages. 'I'm busy, Loretta.'

'Oh, I'm sure you are.' She wheeled herself forward until she blocked my path down the stairs. 'Busy pretending you're still Luna. Busy hiding your little secret.'

My blood turned to ice. 'What are you talking about?'

She smiled, the kind of smile that belonged in a horror story. 'I know about the heart transplant, Penelope. I know whose heart beats in your chest.'

The world tilted. I'd never told anyone. Matthew's late sister—her heart had saved my life after a childhood illness. The surgery had been arranged while I was unconscious, a gift I'd only discovered later. How could Loretta know?

'The heart is rejecting you,' she continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. 'It knows Matthew doesn't love you. It knows you don't deserve to live.'

'You're lying.' But my hand went to my chest, feeling the steady beat that had kept me alive for all these years.

'Am I?' She leaned forward. 'I wonder if Matthew knows about the pup you're carrying. Your little bastard of a dying wolf.'

The words hit me like a physical blow. I was pregnant. Six weeks along. I hadn't even told Matthew yet, waiting for the right moment, waiting for him to see me again.

'How did you—'

'I watch you,' she said simply. 'I see everything. The way you hold your stomach when you think no one's looking. The way you've stopped drinking wine.' Her eyes gleamed with malicious delight. 'Matthew will be so disappointed. Another broken thing you couldn't protect.'

Rage—pure, molten rage—surged through me. I pushed past her, my shoulder hitting her wheelchair. 'Move.'

She grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin. 'You're nothing,' she hissed. 'Nothing but a placeholder. A body keeping his real Luna warm.'

I tried to wrench free. 'Let go of me.'

Instead, she pulled herself up from the wheelchair, her legs strong and sure, and flung herself backward toward the stairs. At the same time, her foot shot out, catching my ankle.

Time slowed.

I saw her lips curve in triumph as she let go of my arm. I felt my body pitch forward, my arms windmilling uselessly. I heard the sickening crack of her wheelchair hitting the marble steps as she threw it down to cover her tracks.

Then I was falling.

Thirty steps. Thirty impacts against cold, hard marble. Each one a new agony, each one stealing my breath. I heard something crack inside me—not a bone, something deeper. The child. Our child.

I landed at the bottom in a crumpled heap, and the pain that followed was unlike anything I'd ever felt. It started deep in my abdomen and radiated outward, a tearing, ripping sensation that made me curl into myself. Blood—so much blood—pooled beneath me, soaking into the expensive carpet.

'Matthew!' I screamed, the word tearing from my throat. 'Matthew!'

But he was gone. At the territory meeting. No one was coming.

Through the haze of agony, I heard footsteps thundering through the packhouse. Loretta's voice, pitched high with fake panic: 'Help! Someone help! The Luna fell down the stairs!'

She appeared at the top of the staircase, her face a perfect mask of terror. Behind her, the Omega Housekeeper emerged from the shadows, her eyes cold and calculating.

'Get the fire extinguisher,' Loretta whispered to her. 'And meet me at the security hub.'

I tried to stand, to crawl, to do anything, but the pain was overwhelming. I watched through a veil of tears as Loretta wheeled herself toward the back of the packhouse, moving with purpose, moving like a woman who had never needed saving.

The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was smoke beginning to rise from the security wing, carrying with it the evidence of what she had done.

The infirmary room they put me in wasn't meant for healing. It was meant for forgetting. Cold stone walls that wept with dampness, a narrow cot with sheets that smelled of mildew, and a single window too high to see through. The kind of room where wounds festered instead of closed.

They brought me there after the stairs, my body broken and my womb empty. I remember the Omega Housekeeper's hands, rough and clinical as she cut away my blood-soaked dress, her eyes never meeting mine. 'Such a mess,' she muttered, more to herself than to me. 'Look at the bloody stairs you left behind. Took three omegas to clean it up.'

No pack healer came. Not on the first day, not on the second. On the third day, I heard Matthew's mother outside the door, her voice carrying the weight of former Luna authority. 'No healing abilities for this one. She doesn't deserve our energy.'

The tea the Housekeeper brought me tasted like ash and bitter herbs. Not medicine—punishment. 'Drink it all,' she'd say, watching me with those flat eyes. 'It's the best you'll get.' I'd sip it slowly, feeling the liquid burn down my throat, wondering if it was meant to hurt this much.

On the fourth day, Matthew finally came.

He stood in the doorway, his Alpha aura filling the small room like smoke, but he didn't step inside. He kept his distance, his face a mask of cold disappointment. I tried to sit up, to tell him about the baby, about Loretta's lies, but his Alpha tone hit me before I could speak.

'Stay down.'

The command crushed the air from my lungs. I collapsed back against the pillows, my body remembering every step of that staircase.

'My mother told me what happened,' he said, his voice flat. 'You tried to kill Loretta by jumping with her. You failed, and now you're here.'

The lie was so complete, so perfectly crafted, that for a moment I thought I was going mad. 'Matthew,' I gasped, fighting against his Alpha command. 'She pushed me. She killed our pup—'

'Silence.'

The word hit like a physical blow. My wolf, already weakened, whimpered and went quiet. I felt her retreating deeper inside me, curling into herself to survive.

'You'll remain here until the Charity Gala,' Matthew continued, his eyes never quite meeting mine. 'You'll perform your Luna duties one last time. Then we'll discuss your... future.'

He left without waiting for my response. Without asking about the blood or the bruises or the child we'd lost. Just gone, leaving me drowning in his Alpha command.

The days blurred together after that. More bitter tea. More neglect. The Housekeeper's mocking smiles. I stopped fighting. What was there to fight for?

Then came the night of the Gala.

They dressed me in a thin, outdated dress that hung from my frame like a shroud, the fabric scratching against the healing scars on my chest and arms. No makeup to cover the bruises. No shoes that fit. Just a broken Luna being led to her final performance.

Loretta waited at the entrance to the pavilion, radiant in a bespoke white gown, her dark hair arranged in perfect waves. Her wheelchair gleamed under the fairy lights, and around her neck—my neck—the Harvey rubies caught the moonlight. She looked like a tragic angel, a vision of innocence.

Matthew arrived last, and his eyes went straight to her. Not to me. Never to me.

The Charity Gala was in full swing, pack members and human guests mingling under the stars, when Loretta positioned herself near the edge of the training pool. I saw her watching me, waiting.

She slipped.

Her wheelchair tilted, and she tumbled backward toward the icy water. But her hand shot out, grabbing my arm, dragging me down with her. We both crashed through the surface, the cold shocking my weakened system.

I couldn't swim. Not with my broken body. Not with my shattered spirit. I sank, watching through the rippling surface as Matthew dove into the water.

He swam past me. Right past me. His strong arms reaching for Loretta, pulling her to safety while I drowned beneath them.

A guard dragged me out eventually, a nameless face in the crowd. I stood there, shivering and dripping, watching Matthew cradle Loretta on the pool's edge, listening to the pack cheer for his heroism.

I reached into my wet dress and pulled out the rejection papers I'd taken from his office weeks ago. My fingers were numb, but I managed to sign them with a smear of my own blood from a reopened wound.

I threw them at his feet.

Then I shifted.

My wolf emerged—mangy, skeletal, pathetic. She limped across the pavilion, past the gasping crowd, past Matthew's shocked face, and into the night. The mate bond snapped with a sound only I could hear, and for the first time in years, I was free.