Skye

I can't breathe.

The boy—this child who just called my husband daddy—is looking up at Jaxon with complete adoration. And Jaxon... Jaxon isn't denying it. Isn't pushing him away. He's just standing there with his hand on the boy's shoulder, watching me with those cold gray eyes like he's waiting for me to catch up to a joke everyone else already understands.

"I don't..." My voice cracks. "I don't understand."

Cassandra moves then, sweeping forward to place herself between me and the boy. Protective. Maternal. Everything I've apparently failed to be.

"Skye, I'm so sorry." Her voice is soft, pained. "I never wanted you to find out like this. Jaxon was supposed to tell you before the meeting today."

"Tell me what?" The words are barely audible. "Tell me what, Cassandra?"

She exchanges another look with Jaxon—and god, I hate that. Hate how easily they communicate. Hate how I'm always on the outside looking in at my own life.

"This is Liam," she says gently, resting a hand on the boy's head. "He's... he's Jaxon's son."

The floor drops out from under me. I grab the edge of the desk, my knuckles going white.

"That's not possible." But even as I say it, I'm looking at the boy's face. That jawline. Those eyes—steel-gray, just like his father's. "That's not—you left four years ago. You were already gone when we—"

"Before that," Cassandra interrupts. "Before Jaxon found out you were his mate. We were together, Skye. Surely you remember."

I did remember. I remembered watching them at pack functions, convinced they were perfect for each other. Remembered the night of my eighteenth birthday when Jaxon's scent had hit me like a physical blow, and I'd realized with devastating clarity that the Alpha heir I'd crushed on for years was mine. My fated mate.

And that he'd been sleeping with my sister.

"You knew?" I turn to Jaxon, and my voice is rising now, hysteria creeping in at the edges. "You knew about him this whole time?"

"No." His answer is clipped. "Cassandra only told me when she came back. A month ago."

A month ago.

That phrase keeps echoing in my head, each repetition driving the knife deeper.

"I'm so sorry," Cassandra says again, and if I didn't know her better, I might believe the tears gathering in her eyes. "I never wanted to interfere with your marriage. I left because I knew Jaxon had found his true mate, and I didn't want to stand in the way of that. I raised Liam alone, tried to build a life for us away from here."

"Then why come back?" The question tears out of me.

"Liam was sick." Her voice breaks convincingly. "He needed treatment that only Jaxon’s connections could provide. Our bloodline... you know how complicated wolf genetics can be. I didn't have a choice."

I look at Jaxon, desperate for him to contradict her. To tell me this is all some horrible misunderstanding. But he just stands there, stone-faced, and I realize with sickening clarity that he believes her. Every word.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I ask him. "I'm your wife. Your mate. Why didn't you—"

"Because today's meeting with the elders is to announce it," he cuts in, his tone maddeningly calm. "I needed to handle the political aspects first. The pack needs to know that despite this complication, you'll remain as Luna."

"Remain as Luna," I repeat numbly. "How generous of you."

His jaw tightens. "Don't be dramatic, Skye. This doesn't change anything between us."

A laugh bubbles up in my throat, sharp and painful. "It doesn't change anything? You have a son with my sister, and you think that doesn't change anything?"

"I have a responsibility to him." For the first time, there's heat in Jaxon's voice. "He's my firstborn. My heir. I won't turn my back on him just because the timing is inconvenient."

His heir.

The words hit me like a slap. I press my hand to my stomach, feeling the secret life growing there. The baby I was so excited to tell him about. The baby I thought would finally make us a real family.

But he already has an heir.

"You still care about her." It's not a question. I can see it in the way he positions himself, angled slightly toward Cassandra even as he argues with me. Can smell it in the way his scent shifts when she's near—less hostile, more... something. "All this time, you've been in love with my sister."

"This isn't about love," Jaxon snaps. "This is about doing what's right for the pack. For my son."

"What about what's right for me?" My voice breaks. "I'm your mate, Jaxon. Your fated mate. Doesn't that count for anything?"

His silence is devastating.

Cassandra makes a small sound, drawing Liam closer. "Skye, I know this is hard to hear, but Jaxon and I... we're just trying to figure out what's best for Liam. We're not trying to hurt you."

"You've been back for a month." I'm shaking now, rage and heartbreak warring inside me. "A month of secret meetings. A month of decisions made behind my back. A month of you two playing happy family while I trained myself into exhaustion trying to be the Luna he needed, not knowing I was already replaced."

"No one is replacing you," Jaxon says, but there's no warmth in it. No reassurance. Just that same cold authority he uses with pack members who challenge him.

"You slept with my sister." The words taste like poison. "You had a child with her, and you never told me. Not when we got married. Not during any of these three years. You let me believe—"

I can't finish. Can't voice the pathetic hope I'd been carrying around like a talisman. That maybe someday he'd love me. That maybe I could be enough.

"I didn't know about Liam," Jaxon says through gritted teeth. "I'm not keeping secrets to hurt you, Skye. I'm trying to handle a complicated situation with as much dignity as possible."

"Dignity." I taste blood where I've bitten my lip. "Is that what we're calling this? You want me to stand beside you at this meeting, smile prettily while you announce your son with my sister, and just accept that I'll always be second choice?"

"You're being unreasonable."

"I'm being unreasonable?" My voice rises to a near-shout. "You're planning some twisted arrangement where I play Luna while you and Cassandra raise your son together, and I'm the unreasonable one?"

"Skye—" Cassandra starts.

"No." I hold up a hand, something hardening in my chest. Something that feels almost like strength. "No, I'm done. I'm done being the understanding wife. The accommodating mate. The Luna who doesn't make waves."

I look at Jaxon, really look at him, and try to find any trace of the man I fell in love with all those years ago. But all I see is the Alpha who married me out of obligation. Who's been in love with my sister this entire time.

"I want a divorce."

Skye

The words drop into the silence like stones into still water.

Jaxon's eyes narrow. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me." My hands are steady now, even as my heart splinters. "Whatever sick arrangement you and Cassandra have planned, count me out. I won't be part of this."

"You don't mean that." Jaxon takes a step forward, and for a moment something flickers in his eyes—surprise, maybe, or anger. "Skye, you're my mate. You can't just—"

"Watch me."

I turn and walk out before he can see me fall apart. Before Cassandra can offer more poisonous sympathy. Before I do something stupid like tell him about the baby growing inside me—the baby that should have been his heir, but never will be now.

Behind me, I hear Jaxon call my name, sharp and commanding.

I don't stop.

I don't look back.

My hands tremble and my legs shake as I make the climb up the cliff to my secret hideaway, but I keep going until I reach the top. I found this place when I was fourteen, after one of the numerous times Cassandra humiliated me in front of the entire pack and I've been coming here ever since.

It's beautiful up here. Peaceful. Everything my life isn't.

I wrap my arms around my knees and let myself cry—really cry, the kind of gasping, ugly sobs I'd never allow anyone to see. My carefully applied makeup is probably running down my face in dark streaks. The blue dress Jaxon supposedly liked is creased and dirty from the climb up here.

I don't care.

Let it all fall apart. It was an illusion anyway.

"I knew I'd find you here."

I jerk my head up, my wolf surging with alarm before I catch the familiar scent. Warm brown sugar. Safe. Known.

Noah.

He's standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets, his dark hair slightly windswept. Those warm brown eyes that used to crinkle with laughter when we'd sneak away together are filled with concern now.

"Go away," I tell him, my voice raw.

"Can't do that." He moves closer, settling onto the rock beside me with the easy comfort of someone who's done this a hundred times before. "You're upset."

"Brilliant observation." I swipe at my face, hating that he's seeing me like this. "Shouldn't you be with your Alpha? I'm sure he needs his Beta to help manage the fallout from his dramatic wife."

Noah doesn't rise to the bait. He just sits there, solid and steady, the way he always has.

We used to do this all the time back when we were still best friends. I even wondered if we might be fated mates, though I was too busy crushing on Jaxon to give it much thought. Ridiculous, considering he was dating my sister and I’d never been brave enough to do more than admire him from afar.

But that was before everything went wrong. Before the night of my eighteenth birthday when Jaxon's scent hit me and I realized my best friend wasn't my mate after all. Before Noah pulled away from me, leaving me to navigate a loveless marriage and my new role as Luna alone.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

"For what? You didn't knock up my sister."

"Skye—"

"He still loves her.” I blurt out, the words spilling over before I can stop them. “Maybe he always has. And he ended up stuck with me. The pathetic girl who'd been crushing on him since she was fifteen, so desperate to be chosen that she'd accept any scraps he threw her way."

"Stop." Noah's voice is firm now, edged with something almost like anger. "Don't talk about yourself like that. You're not pathetic, Skye. You're the best Luna this pack has had in generations."

The praise makes my throat tight. "That won't matter when he divorces me."

"He can't." Noah's hand finds mine, warm and solid. "Even if he wanted to—which I don't think he does, not really—unbonding from a fated mate isn't something easily done. Especially not to replace you with someone who isn't even his true mate."

"He has a son with her." The words feel heavy. Final. "An heir. That changes everything."

"It changes the political landscape," Noah concedes. "But it doesn't change what you are to him. What you've been to this pack. You've been a better Luna than Cassandra could ever be—more compassionate, more dedicated, more—"

"More foolish." I pull my hand away. "I thought loving him would be enough to win his heart eventually. But I've wasted three years trying to make him love me, Noah. Three years of pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasn't. And all that time, he's been pining for my sister."

"You don't know that."

"I saw the way he looked at her today." My voice breaks. "Like she was the answer to a question he'd been asking for years. And I saw the way he looked at that boy. His son. There was... tenderness there. Something I've never seen directed at me."

Noah is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is careful. "I was in the meeting room after you left. I saw how crushed you were. Hell, everyone saw it. And for what it's worth, Jaxon looked pretty shaken too."

"Shaken because his dirty secret got exposed."

"Maybe. Or maybe because he realized what he's about to lose."

Skye

I want to believe Noah. God, I want to believe that some part of Jaxon actually cares. But I've spent three years reading meaning into empty gestures, and I can't do it anymore.

"The elders won't let him cast you aside," Noah continues. "You've earned their respect. More than that—you've earned their loyalty. They won't support him stripping your title just because his ex-girlfriend came back with a convenient sob story."

His words spark something in me—a tiny flame of hope that I immediately try to smother. Because hope is what got me into this mess. Hope that Jaxon would see me. Love me. Choose me.

"You really think they'd stand with me?" I ask quietly.

"I know they would." Noah's voice is fierce now, protective in a way that reminds me of the boy who used to defend me from pack bullies. "And I'll stand with you too, Skye. I should have been a better friend these past few years. I let the distance between us grow because it was easier than watching you hurt yourself trying to please someone who couldn't see what he had."

The kindness in his words threatens to undo me all over again. "Noah—"

"I mean it. Whatever you need, whatever you decide to do—I'm on your side. Not Jaxon's. Not the pack's. Yours."

Something in my chest cracks open. It's been so long since someone chose me first. Since someone saw me as more than just the Luna, or Jaxon's reluctant mate, or Cassandra's inferior replacement.

"Thank you," I whisper.

We sit in silence for a while, watching the sun sink lower. Somewhere down there, Jaxon is probably planning his next move. And I'm up here, trying to figure out how to survive what comes next.

"You should come back," Noah says eventually. "Face this head-on. Show them you're not running scared."

He's right. I know he's right. The old Skye—the one who accepted everything without question—would already be on her way back, ready to apologize for making a scene.

But that Skye got her heart broken today.

That Skye discovered she's pregnant with a child her husband might not even want, now that he has a ready-made heir.

That Skye watched her husband hold her sister and realized she'd been living a lie.

"They'll expect me at dinner," I say, more to myself than to Noah. "And at the meeting. Jaxon will want me presentable and compliant, ready to stand beside him while he announces his bastard son to the pack."

"Skye—"

"He thinks I'll stay." The realization settles over me like a shroud. "He thinks I'll be so desperate to keep my title, so afraid of losing my place in the pack, that I'll accept whatever scraps he offers. A Luna in name only, while he builds a real family with Cassandra."

"You don't have to accept anything you don't want," Noah says carefully. "You have power here, Skye. More than you realize. The pack loves you. The elders respect you. Even if Jaxon can't see your worth, everyone else can."

His words should comfort me. And maybe a week ago, they would have. A week ago, keeping my title and my place in the pack would have been enough.

But that was before I felt the flutter of new life inside me. Before I realized that staying means raising my child in the shadow of Jaxon's son with Cassandra. Before I understood that I have something worth protecting now—something more important than a title or a bond or a marriage that was broken from the start.

Noah's watching me, waiting for a response. Waiting for me to agree to go back and fight for what's mine.

But what if it's not mine anymore?

What if it never was?

What if the real question isn't whether Jaxon can take my title away—but whether I even want it in the first place?

The walk back home feels like a death march.

Noah offered to come with me, but I sent him away. Whatever consequences wait for me, I need to face them alone. Besides, having the Beta escort me home like a wayward child would only make things worse.

The sun has fully set now, leaving the pack grounds bathed in the silver glow of the full moon. I can hear voices from the main hall—dinner must be starting. I wonder if Jaxon told them why their Luna didn't show up. If he made excuses, or if he simply let them draw their own conclusions.

My stomach churns at the thought of facing the elders tomorrow. I didn't just ask for a divorce in private. I announced it in front of the most powerful members of the pack, then stormed out like a petulant child throwing a tantrum.

Not exactly exemplary Luna behavior.

But what else was I supposed to do? Stand there and smile while my husband introduced his son with my sister? Pretend my heart wasn't shattering into a million pieces?

I pause at the edge of the tree line, staring at the house I've called home for three years. It's beautiful—all stone and timber, built to house the Alpha's family for generations. I used to imagine filling it with children. With laughter. With love.

Stupid.

Taking a deep breath, I force myself forward. Even if I want a divorce, I can't just abandon my responsibilities. Tomorrow I'm supposed to oversee the visiting pack's welcome ceremony. Next week, I'm scheduled to mediate a dispute between two families. And there's the hospital fundraiser I've been planning for months.

I can't let the pack down just because my personal life is imploding.

The front door opens before I reach it.

Jaxon fills the doorway, backlit by the warm interior lights. His expression is unreadable, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. His scent washes over me—cedarwood and amber, laced with something sharp. Anger, maybe. Or frustration.

"You came back," he says, and I can't tell if he's surprised or relieved.

"I live here." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "For now, anyway."

His jaw tightens. "We need to talk."

"I don't have anything to say to you."

"Well, I have plenty to say to you." He steps aside, gesturing for me to enter. "You embarrassed me in front of the elders, Skye. You can't just—"

"I embarrassed you?" The words burst out before I can stop them. "You have a secret son, Jaxon. You've been hiding my sister's return for a month. But sure, I'm the one who caused a scene."

"Inside. Now." It's not a request. It's an Alpha command, and my wolf responds instinctively, my feet carrying me through the door even as I want to resist.

I hate that. Hate how the bond makes me vulnerable to his authority.

The house smells different. It takes me a moment to place it—jasmine and oak. Cassandra's scent, woven through the familiar cedar and rain that marks this space as ours.

No. Not ours. His.

I round the corner into the living room and stop dead.

There are boxes everywhere. Suitcases lined up against the wall. A child's toy—some kind of stuffed wolf—sitting on the couch where I usually read in the evenings.

And Cassandra, directing two pack members as they carry a dresser up the stairs.

"What is this?" My voice is barely a whisper.