The morning sickness hit me again as I bent over the herb cabinet, my stomach lurching violently. I pressed my palm against the cool stone wall of the healing chamber, breathing deeply through my nose until the nausea passed. Three weeks of this now, and I could no longer deny what my body was telling me.

I was pregnant.

The realization sent a warm flutter through my chest, followed immediately by nervous excitement. Chase and I had talked about pups before—distant conversations about the future, about carrying on his Alpha bloodline. But now it was real, growing inside me like a precious secret.

My fingers instinctively moved to my grandmother's moonstone pendant, the smooth surface warm against my skin. She would have been so happy. "The Moon Goddess blesses those who love with pure hearts," she used to say, her weathered hands gentle as she braided my hair. "Your pups will carry the strength of your bond, little one."

I finished organizing the healing supplies with trembling hands, my mind already racing ahead to tonight. Our weekly pack run through the moonlit forest—it would be perfect. Just Chase and me beneath the Moon Goddess's light, where our bond felt strongest. I could picture his face when I told him, the way his dark eyes would soften with wonder before pulling me into his arms.

The sun was setting as I made my way toward the Alpha house, my heart hammering with anticipation. I'd rehearsed the words a dozen times, imagining how his wolf would howl with joy when he learned he was going to be a father.

But as I approached the stone steps, voices drifted through the partially open window of Chase's study. I recognized Marcus Reed's voice immediately—Chase's Beta rarely visited this late unless pack business demanded it.

"The alliance ceremony with Celia Spencer is set for next week," Marcus was saying, his tone businesslike. "Alpha Ryan expects the marking to be completed before the full moon."

I froze on the steps, my hand gripping the iron railing. Alliance ceremony? My wolf stirred uneasily in my chest, sensing my confusion.

"Good." Chase's voice was cold, distant in a way I'd never heard before. "It's time to end this charade anyway. Five years of playing the devoted mate was exhausting."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I pressed myself against the wall, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure they'd hear it.

"That was quite the performance," Marcus chuckled. "I have to admit, when you made that bet about winning over the pack's little healer, I never thought you'd keep it up this long."

Bet?

The moonstone pendant felt suddenly heavy against my throat. My grandmother's voice echoed in my memory: *True love cannot be faked, Emma. The Moon Goddess sees all deception.*

"Emma served her purpose," Chase continued, and I could hear the shrug in his voice. "She kept my wolf calm while I learned to control my Alpha instincts. But now I need a real Luna—someone who can strengthen pack alliances, not some pathetic little healer who thinks fairy tales are real."

The world tilted. Five years. Five years of believing in our bond, in the way he held me after nightmares, in the gentle kisses he pressed to my forehead when he thought I was sleeping. Five years of thinking I was cherished, protected, loved.

All of it a lie. A bet.

I stumbled backward, my vision blurring with tears. The baby—our baby—suddenly felt like a weight in my stomach rather than a blessing. How could I have been so foolish? How could I have believed that someone like Chase Crawford, future Alpha of the Silvermoon Pack, could truly want someone like me?

The front door opened before I could flee.

"Emma?" Chase stepped out, his expression shifting from surprise to something that might have been guilt. "What are you doing here?"

I stared at him, this man I'd given everything to, and felt something crack inside my chest. "I came to tell you something," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "But I think I already have my answer."

His jaw tightened. "You were listening."

It wasn't a question. Marcus appeared behind him, his face carefully neutral.

"Was any of it real?" The words tore from my throat like broken glass. "Five years, Chase. Five years of my life."

He ran a hand through his dark hair, and for a moment, I thought I saw something flicker in his eyes. Regret? Shame? But when he spoke, his voice was steady, matter-of-fact.

"You knew what you were getting into, Emma. I'm going to be Alpha. I need a Luna who can handle pack politics, not someone who spends her days playing with herbs and dreaming about fairy tale endings."

The pendant seemed to burn against my skin. My grandmother's most precious possession, passed down through generations of strong women who believed in true love and sacred bonds.

With shaking fingers, I lifted the chain over my head.

"Then I guess you won't be needing this reminder of your pathetic little healer," I said, holding out the moonstone pendant.

Chase's eyes flicked to it dismissively. "Keep your trinkets, Emma. I have more important things to worry about than sentimental garbage."

He turned away, already dismissing me, already moving on to his real life—the one that had never included me as anything more than a temporary convenience.

The pendant slipped from my numb fingers, hitting the stone steps with a soft chime that sounded like my heart breaking.

I didn't sleep that night. How could I? Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Chase's voice echoing in my head: *pathetic little healer*, *fairy tales*, *five years of playing the devoted mate*. The words carved themselves deeper into my soul with each repetition, leaving wounds that felt like they'd never heal.

I sat curled on my small bed, clutching the moonstone pendant in my palm. The chain was broken where it had fallen, but the stone itself remained intact—smooth and luminous even in the darkness of my cottage. My grandmother's voice whispered through my memory: *The Moon Goddess sees all deception, little one. Trust in her wisdom.*

My wolf whimpered inside me, a sound of pure anguish that made my chest ache. She'd felt the mate bond too, had reveled in Chase's presence, his scent, his touch. Now she cowered in the depths of my consciousness, betrayed and broken just as I was.

"We have to protect the pup," I whispered to her, my hand moving instinctively to my still-flat stomach. "We can't let them grow up thinking this is what love looks like."

But even as I spoke the words, the magnitude of what I was considering crashed over me like a tidal wave. Reject Chase? Reject my fated mate, the bond blessed by the Moon Goddess herself? The very idea went against everything I'd been taught about our kind, about the sacred nature of true mates.

Yet what was sacred about a relationship built on lies? What divine blessing could exist in a bond that was nothing more than a cruel game to him?

The hours crawled by. I watched the moon move across my window, its silver light casting shifting shadows on my walls. By dawn, my decision was made. I couldn't live as Chase's dirty secret while he played house with his chosen Luna. I wouldn't raise my child in the shadow of his deception, watching them wonder why their father looked at them with indifference or shame.

The next evening brought the full moon ceremony, as it did every month. The entire pack gathered in the sacred clearing, our wolves stirring restlessly as the moon's power called to us. I stood at the edge of the circle, my heart hammering against my ribs as I watched Chase take his place at the center beside his father, Alpha Crawford.

He looked magnificent in the moonlight—tall, powerful, every inch the future Alpha. His dark hair caught the silver light, and when he threw back his head to howl, his voice rang out strong and commanding. This was the man I'd loved for five years. This was the father of my unborn child.

This was the man who'd called me pathetic.

"Tonight, we run as one pack," Alpha Crawford announced, his voice carrying across the clearing. "United under the Moon Goddess's blessing, bound by loyalty and—"

"Wait." My voice cut through his words like a blade. Every head turned toward me, eyes wide with shock. Omegas didn't interrupt Alpha ceremonies. Omegas didn't speak unless spoken to.

But I wasn't just an omega anymore. I was a woman who'd been betrayed, a mother protecting her unborn child, a wolf who'd finally found her strength.

I stepped forward, my legs shaking but my voice steady. "I have something to say."

Alpha Crawford's eyes narrowed. "Emma, this is neither the time nor—"

"This is exactly the time." I lifted my chin, meeting Chase's gaze across the circle. His face had gone pale, his dark eyes wide with something that might have been panic. "I have a rejection to make."

Gasps rippled through the crowd like wind through wheat. Rejections were rare, sacred ceremonies in their own right. But an omega rejecting an Alpha heir? It was unheard of.

"Emma, don't." Chase's voice was low, urgent. He took a step toward me, but I held up my hand.

"I, Emma Henry," I began, my voice carrying clearly in the stunned silence, "reject you, Chase Crawford, as my mate and future Alpha."

The words hung in the air like a physical presence. Someone behind me whimpered. Another wolf whined softly. The mate bond stretched between us, already beginning to fray at the edges as the rejection took hold.

Chase staggered as if I'd struck him. "Emma, you don't understand what you're doing. You can't—"

"I understand perfectly." Tears streamed down my face, but my voice never wavered. "I understand that our bond meant nothing to you. I understand that I was just a bet, a game to pass the time while you prepared for your real future."

The crowd murmured, confusion and shock rippling through the pack. Alpha Crawford stepped forward, his face thunderous.

"Explain yourself, girl. These are serious accusations."

I turned to him, this man who'd welcomed me into his pack, who'd smiled when Chase first brought me to family dinners. "Ask your son about his five-year performance. Ask him about the bet he made with his Beta."

Chase's face crumpled, and I knew everyone could see the truth written there. The guilt, the shame, the desperate panic of a man whose lies had finally caught up with him.

"Emma, please," he whispered. "We can talk about this. There are things you don't understand—"

"I understand enough." I pressed my hand to my stomach, feeling the tiny life growing there—a life that would never know the pain of false love if I had anything to say about it. "I reject you, Chase Crawford. I reject your lies, your games, and your pathetic excuses."

The bond snapped.

Pain lanced through my chest like lightning, dropping me to my knees in the sacred dirt. Chase cried out, doubling over as the same agony tore through him. Our wolves howled in unison—a sound of loss so profound it seemed to shake the very trees.

But beneath the pain, I felt something else: freedom.

As the pack rushed forward to help us both, as Chase reached for me with desperate, shaking hands, I pulled myself to my feet and walked away. I had packing to do.

Three days after I walked away from the sacred clearing, the drums began.

I could hear them even from my small cottage on the pack's outskirts—the deep, rhythmic beating that announced a mating ceremony. My hands stilled on the worn leather satchel I'd been packing, my wolf whimpering softly in my chest. The sound carried across the territory like a death knell, each beat driving home the reality I'd been trying to ignore.

Chase was completing his alliance with Celia Spencer.

I pressed my palm against my still-flat stomach, feeling the flutter of life that had started this whole nightmare. "We don't need to hear this," I whispered to my unborn pup. "We don't need to be here for his grand celebration."

But even as I spoke the words, my feet carried me toward the window. The main pack grounds sprawled below, decorated with silver ribbons and moonstone lanterns for the occasion. Wolves in their finest clothes moved between the ceremonial fires, their laughter drifting up to my isolated cottage like mockery.

I should leave. I should grab my bag and disappear into the forest before the ceremony began. But something kept me frozen at that window, watching the elaborate preparations for the union that would erase me completely from Chase's life.

The ceremony began at moonrise. From my vantage point, I could see the sacred circle where just three nights ago I'd rejected my mate bond. Now it hosted a different kind of ritual—one built on politics rather than the Moon Goddess's blessing.

Chase stood at the center, magnificent in traditional ceremonial robes. Even from this distance, I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. Celia appeared beside him in flowing white silk, her blonde hair crowned with silver flowers. She looked every inch the perfect Luna—beautiful, poised, politically advantageous.

Everything I wasn't.

Alpha Crawford's voice boomed across the grounds as he began the ancient words. I couldn't make out the specifics, but I knew them by heart. The same words that should have been spoken over Chase and me someday, if our bond had been real.

The crowd fell silent as the marking ritual began. This was the moment when Chase would bite Celia's neck, sealing their alliance with his scent and claim. I gripped the windowsill, my knuckles white with strain.

But something was wrong.

Even from this distance, I could see Chase's hesitation. His wolf should be eager, dominant, ready to claim his chosen mate. Instead, he stood rigid as stone, his dark head bent toward Celia's exposed throat but not moving closer.

The silence stretched uncomfortably long. Someone in the crowd shifted nervously. Alpha Ryan Spencer—Celia's father—stepped forward with obvious concern.

Chase finally moved, but his actions were mechanical, lifeless. When his teeth found Celia's neck, there was no passion, no joy, no triumphant howl from his wolf. He bit down with the efficiency of completing a business transaction, nothing more.

Celia gasped and swayed, her hand flying to the fresh mark. But instead of the blissful expression of a newly mated female, her face showed confusion, even disappointment. The crowd cheered, but the sound felt hollow, forced.

Chase released her and stepped back, his face a mask of cold indifference. This should have been his moment of triumph—claiming his perfect Luna, securing his pack's future. Instead, he looked like a man attending his own funeral.

My wolf stirred restlessly, sensing something through our severed bond. Even broken, some connection remained—a shadow of what we'd shared. And that shadow whispered that Chase's wolf was fighting him, rejecting this false mating with every fiber of its being.

The ceremony continued with toasts and congratulations, but I'd seen enough. I turned away from the window, my heart hammering with an emotion I couldn't name. Relief? Vindication? Or something darker—a twisted satisfaction that his perfect political alliance felt as hollow as our relationship had been real?

I resumed packing with shaking hands. Clothes, my grandmother's herb journals, the few precious memories I couldn't bear to leave behind. The moonstone pendant sat on my nightstand, its chain still broken from when I'd dropped it on Chase's steps. I hesitated, then slipped it into my bag. Whatever lies Chase had told, this piece of my grandmother's love remained true.

As I folded my healing supplies into careful bundles, footsteps echoed on the path outside. Heavy, familiar footsteps that made my wolf whine with recognition.

Chase.

I froze, my hands still buried in my satchel. What was he doing here? His ceremony was barely finished—shouldn't he be celebrating with his new mate?

The footsteps stopped at my door, followed by a long silence. Then, so softly I almost missed it, I heard him speak.

"Emma?"

My name on his lips sounded broken, desperate. Nothing like the cold dismissal from three nights ago.

I didn't answer. I couldn't. Instead, I continued packing in silence, tears streaming down my face as I prepared to disappear from his life forever.