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.