•Amara's POV

The words hit me square in the chest like a hard blow delivered during a fight.

The air left my lungs just as the entire pack gasped collectively in shock.

But I could barely hear them over the sound of my own heart shattering.

"What do you mean you reject me?" I said to him in a voice that shook badly.

My entire word was spinning.

Kade's eyes met mine.

And for just a moment, I saw a flash of the man that I had fallen in love with.

Then it was gone.

It was quickly replaced by the cold mask of an Alpha making a political decision.

"I need a new Luna," he said to me in an acerbic tone that crushed me.

I gaped softly, uncertain if what to do as my hands hurriedly flew to my pocket.

I was panicking.

I needed to show him the pregnancy test that was supposed to save us.

I needed to tell him that both of us had finally been able to make a baby.

"Come," Kade called out to the shadows and I looked up at the sound of his voice.

A woman stepped out of the shadows, draped in the Luna robes.

The moment I saw her, I knew that I couldn't do anything again anymore.

It was Elara, and she had a triumphant smile playing across her lips.

She was beautiful in a way that made my stomach to clench with anxiety.

Elara Moonridge had long golden hair and perfect curves highlighted by her dress.

My heart skipped several beats as my hands dropped away from my pocket.

Disbelief caused my throat to tighten.

"No," I whispered, but my voice was lost in the sudden silence that followed.

"Yes Amara," Kade countered.

He stared at me for the longest of time with a guilty look in his emerald orbs.

And then he turned away.

"Silvergrove pack," he announced, "I have called this assembly here tonight to make an important announcement."

My head was spinning and I crouched a bit to keep myself from falling backwards.

"You are dismissed from your position Amara," he began. "Elara with take it."

Whispers filled the pack as my heart twisted and my stomach clenched tight.

The council was instantly nodding their approval with gleaming eyes.

"You shall hand over your crown to Elara and step down," he delivered.

"No," I muttered. "No! No!" I began to scream while I shook my head.

Kade couldn't do this to me.

Not now.

"Stop throwing a tantrum," he spat with disgust. "Come," Kade gestured to her.

Elara walked up to him after casting a mocking smile my way.

Elder Thorne stepped forward to proclaim Elara the new Luna of Silvergrove pack.

"I introduce Elra of the Moon ridge pack to you all as your new Luna," he said.

And just like that, it was gine.

Everything I had worked for and everything I had been was given to someone else.

Tears filled my eyes and began to rush down my face before I could hold back.

It felt like I was slowly watching one of my haunting nightmares unfold.

I clutched my heart which was splitting into several chinese formations.

Tonight wasn't supposed to go like this.

I was supposed to tell him about the baby and we were supposed to celebrate.

But as it seemed now, our baby might never have a father.

"Why?" I demanded in a cracked voice. "Why are you doing this to me?"

The look in his eyes when he answered me would continue to haunt me.

"Amara, it is because you are pathetic," he spat in a cold, clinical voice.

My jaw dropped slack.

"You are a weak wolf that I have detested for longer than I care to admit."

The pack had gasped.

And even the Elders had looked surprised and stunned by the cruelty of his words.

The disdain in his eyes, the disgust in his time did something unspeakable to me.

"I need a Luna who can give me heirs," he continued to yell at me.

My legs started to give out, but I battled to keep standing and hold the fort.

"And not a barren, useless wife who brings about nothing to this pack!" he added.

He gestured towards Elara.

"I need someone who is stronger and far better than you Amara, a Luna."

She stepped forward with a satisfied smile that I would never be able to forget.

"See my choice, Amara," he gloated. "See what a real Luna should look like."

"You can't do this to me Kade," I muttered in a pleading voice. "I am your mate."

"Accept the rejection Amara!" He bellowed as he grabbed me by the shoulders.

He shook me as he spoke.

"Accept it so we can part ways! I do not want to be tied to a weakling as you!"

My heart dropped to my feet.

"I can not Kade!" I screamed. "You promised me forever in the mating ceremony."

Kade stepped back with a tsk.

"Amara, there is nothing like forever for a weak, incompetent and barren liability."

His voice was cold.

His words where like ice arrows shot straight at my heart without mercy.

It moved sleek, like cupid.

But, it was damaging.

"You are unworthy of the crown you wear and the position that you keep."

My legs began to shake.

Tears clouded my eyes, pain veiled my heart and disappointment glazed me.

I could have fought.

I could have screamed about the baby that was now growing inside of me.

I could have chosen to destroy every one of them there with the truth.

The pack would have been torn apart by the scandal of it had unfolded them.

And even Kade would have been forced to take me back because of the pregancy.

But, I didn't.

I didn't do any of that.

I couldn't do it.

Instead, I looked at Kade one more time, my eyes memorizing every inch of his face.

Then I reached up to remove my crown, the weight of it suddenly unbearable.

The pack watched in stunned silence as I placed it on the floor at Kade's feet.

"This is what you want?" I asked him with a broken voice and trembling hands.

"Yes Amara, I want you and your weak liability ass far away from me."

It was all the words I needed to hear to realize my fucking place.

"I, Amara Nightshade, reject you, Kade Blackwater, as my mate and Alpha."

The bond deep inside of me violently ripped apart as I let out a piercing scream.

It was a sound that was so raw it didn't even seem normal to me at all.

All of my pain, my agony and the fury from the betrayal was channeled into it.

The hall went deathly silent.

My fingers trembled as I dropped to my knees before him, rigged by pain.

Every inch of me felr like it was being marred and torn apart viciously.

Something built up, churning inside of my stomach before it was forced up.

It was blood.

I lurched forward as the blood sprayed out of my mouth with a hard core intensity.

I steadied myself with a hand in the floor and felt relief right after gagging.

For a moment after that, I couldn't breath as I just knelt there.

I waited till my breathing was steady and I was composed enough.

I rose to my feet, battling to do it but becoming victorious at the end.

Then, I looked Kade in the eyes one last time and whispered to him.

"You will regret this when you learn what you have lost," I muttered.

I had expected him to stop me.

Some part of me hoped he would realize what he was doing and take it all back.

He didn't.

Instead, he had stood there like a statue while the pack stared at me in shock.

And I had stood there with the crown at my feet and my heart in pieces.

I realized it wouldn't be worth it.

I realized that I didn't want a mate who had to be forced to stay with me.

I didn't want to raise my child in a pack that would always see me as weaklinh.

"It is over," I said to him in a bitter voice. "Our forever has finally ended."

Then I had turned and walked out of the great hall with my head held high.

I left my crown, my mate and the life I had thought would last forever behind.

In my pocket, the pregnancy test felt like the heaviest thing in the world.

•Amara's POV

(Six years later)

The smell of pancakes filled our small kitchen as I flipped the last one.

"Mommy why is it that I am different from the other kids in my class?".

I kept my face calm even though my heart skipped a beat.

I turned to my son who was cutting his pancakes into perfect squares.

This conversation had been coming for months and I still wasn't ready for it.

"What do you mean, honey?" I asked while pouring orange juice into his glass.

My son, Milo looked up at me with bright eyes that were so much like Kade's.

"Tommy pushed me during recess. I nudged him a bit but he flew across the room."

I swallowed softly.

"Tommy doesn't eat enough, that's why he flew though you barely touched him."

Milo gave me a dirty look.

"But mom, what about that thing my eyes does always?" he pressed on.

He was not fooled by my deflection.

"When I get really mad, they feel hot and Jimmy said they flash gold."

My stomach clenched.

"It's not normal, is it?" He demanded from me with quirked brows.

Milo was already too smart and too observant at five years old.

The wolf blood in him was stirring and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I sat down across from him and spoke, choosing my words carefully.

"Eyes play tricks in the light," I lied.

I forced a smile.

"Now eat your breakfast or you will be late for school again, today."

"But Mom-"

"Milo." I used my firm voice, the one that usually ended arguments. "Eat."

He sighed and took a big bite.

His questions were getting more specific and deflecting wouldn't work soon.

"If daddy was here, he wouldn't tell me to eat?" he mumured between bites.

And there it was, the words that always made my chest feel hollow.

"He wouldn't," I answered carefully.

His eyes lit up.

"Is daddy strong like me? Did he have gold eyes too?" He bombarded me.

My throat tightened.

I wanted to say.

I wanted to say that Kade was the strongest man that I ever knew.

I wanted to tell him that Kade's eyes could go from green to gold in a heartbeat.

I wanted to tell him that Kade would have loved you more than life itself.

That is if he had known of him existed.

But, I couldn't.

So I said only one word: "Yes."

"Why isn't daddy here with us?" He said with sad eyes and a pouting look.

Milo's innocent question hit me hard like a wicked punch straight to the gut.

How do I explain to a five year old that his father had rejected his mother?

How do you tell him that his father had chosen pack politics over love?

"Sometimes adults decide to make choices that will hurt people," I said softly.

He made a huh sound.

"Your father made a choice that meant he couldn't be a part of our family."

Milo nodded seriously as if he understood every word I had just said.

But I knew that more questions would be coming later-they always did.

My mind drifted back to that night six years ago that changed everything.

That night when I had walked out of that hall and Kade didn't follow me.

He didn't stop me when I had packed my few belongings that night.

He didn't come after me when I left pack lands at dawn with nothing.

I did take the silver knife and the braid he gave me during our mating ceremony.

And I took the most important thing,the secret growing deep in my stomach.

My exile wasn't chosen.

It was survived.

And survival meant raising Milo far from the man that had mercilessly burned me.

I needed my child far from the world where strength was measured in clans.

"Mom, you are spacing out again," Milo said, pulling me back to the present.

I blinked and realized then that I had been staring out of the window.

My coffee had grown cold in my hands.

"Sorry, baby. I was just thinking."

"About my daddy?" He asked just as he finished his last bite of pancake.

I laughed, grateful for his ability to pull me out of my dark memories.

He was always too smart.

"Tell me mommy," he pressed.

I ignored him and simply checked the clock on the microwave.

"We need to leave now or we will both be late for work and school."

He made a sound of horror.

"I don't want to be late or the classroom teacher will get cranky again."

I laughed as he jumped up from the table and ran to get his backpack.

I watched him go, so full to the brim with that soothing face year old energy.

My heart began to ache with how much he looked like Kade when he moved.

They had the same confident stride and the same way of holding their shoulders.

Like father, like son.

"Ready, Mom!" he called from the hallway as I grabbed my purse and keys.

I pushed the memories back into the locked box in my mind where they belonged.

Today was about getting Milo to school and myself to work at the diner.

Today was about the normal and almost human life I had created for us.

But as we headed toward the door, I could not shake that uneasy feeling.

I felt like our carefully constructed normalcy was about to come to an end.

"Come on, little wolf," I said, using his nickname. "Let's go face the world."

If only I had known how prophetic those words would turn out to be.

•Amara's POV

When I went to pick up Milo from school that afternoon I got a shocker.

My heart raced as his teacher told me that Milo had spoken a strange language.

"Well, it wasn't English. It sounded almost like Latin, but different," he explained.

My blood had congealed.

The old tongue-Milo must have been speaking the old tongue.

I had composed myself and quickly told him Milo must have picked it up in TV.

And I had excused myself and Milo when he had tried to argue and pry more.

Milo bounced around me all the way to the car, unaware of what was happening.

His Alpha bloodline was awakening and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

My enhanced senses picked up something as we left the school parking lot.

It was something that caused my wolf to stir for the first time in six years.

It was the smell of death and decay mixed with something ancient and unnatural.

It was the scent of predators.

"Mommy, you okay?" Milo asked from his car seat. "You look really worried."

I forced a smile.

"I'm fine, baby."

But I wasn't fine.

In my rearview mirror, I caught sight of a black SUV that had been following us.

I had noticed it for three days now.

This time, I got a clear look at the driver's eyes through his sunglasses.

It was an naturally bright silver.

My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I realized we were being hunted.

And that night, everything fell apart.

I was washing the dishes when I heard Milo crying from his bedroom.

It was not his usual tired whimper but a sound of pain that had me racing.

I found him thrashing in his bed and his small body moving restlessly.

"Milo," I said as I reached out to shake him and instantly jerked it back.

He was burning up with a fever that it almost hurt to even touch him.

His eyes flew open.

But instead of the normal bright green, they were glowing a pure Alpha gold.

"Mom," he whimpered.

But his voice sounded strange.

It sounded older.

"The shadows are calling," he told me. "I know they want me to come home."

My eyes widened and my blood froze, for he was speaking the old tongue.

It was the ancient language of our kind, words he had never heard in his life.

"The bloodline calls," he whispered in that ancient voice. "I must return."

Milo fell unconscious as strange glowing runes began appearing on his skin.

Fear gripped me.

I reached out to shake him just as the bedroom window exploded.

Three figures crashed in through the glass, moving with inhuman speed.

I screamed in panic and fear as I realized that these were my species.

There was something wrong with the way they moved, circling I and Milo.

These were wolves with silver eyes and fluid movements as if their joints were bent

And the smelt of rotting flesh and dark magic which filled the room.

"Get away from us!" I screamed.

"The little prince has awakened, what perfect timing," One of them laughed.

I hadn't shifted in five years.

I had buried my wolf so deep I wasn't sure she would answer my call.

But when these things threatened my son's safety, she exploded to the surface.

And she came forth with a fury that left even me completely surprised.

I howled as my bones cracked and moved with the reforming of the shift.

And suddenly I was standing on four legs with my fangs bared, ready to kill.

I was rusty, slower than I used to be, but desperation made me vicious.

The first rogue lunged at Milo and I easily caught the wolf mid-leap.

My teeth sank into his throat.

His blood tasted wrong, tainted with something dark and disgusting.

The second one tried to flank me.

But I spun and caught him with my claws, viciously ripping his chest open.

He fell backwards with wide eyes as black blood began pooling beneath him.

The third rogue was smarter because he stayed back and didn't aproach.

He watched me with those silver eyes.

"You can not stop what is coming," he said in a voice that sounded like an echo.

Then he lunged.

I had expected his attack and was prepared for it as I pushed him to the ground.

I went for the neck and succeeded as he fell to a heap, dying before my eyes.

"The bloodline calls to us. The children will return to their true home," he said.

I shifted back to human form, naked and bloody but not caring.

I grabbed the silver knife I kept hidden in Milo's dresser and lunged forward.

The blade sank into his heart and his eyes went wide with the shock.

"The bloodline calls to us," he whispered for the last time as he finally perished.

But as the life left his eyes, the silver colour was replaced by a solid black.

And underneath his pulsing skin, I could see that something was moving.

It definitely wasn't human.

I pulled the knife out and stepped back from it with my whole body shaking.

What the hell were these things?

Milo was still unconscious and still glowing with all those strange runes.

And I didn't have time to figure it out as more of them might be coming.

I hurriedly put on some clothes.

Then I reached out and grabbed an uncomcoius Milo from the bed.

I strapped him to the unused back carrier as if he weighed absolutely nothing.

It hadn't been used for a while and he had gotten too big for it.

But it would work.

I didn't use the front door and slipped out through the fire escape.

The old survival instincts I had learnt in my first months of self exile kicked in.

I knew every back alley and shadow route to walk the city without being seen.

It took me two hours to reach the cabin, a shelter I had made three years ago.

I had slowly stocked it with emergency supplies-food, clothes, weapons.

It had everything that we might need if we had the need to disappear.

I opened the door and quickly stepped in, shutting the door fight nehind me.

Milo woke up as I was settling him down on the small but soft feather bed.

"Mom?"

His voice was back to normal.

"Where are we?" He demanded as his eyes scanned our surrounding.

"We had to leave, baby. Some bad people were trying to hurt us."

He sat up while rubbing his eyes. Then he looked at his hands and gasped.

His fingernails had extended into small claws, and there was runes on his skin.

Horror filled his eyes as he looked up at me and shirked : "Mom, look at me!"

Byt before I could answer, a howl echoed through the forest outside.

It was long, mournful and definitely not from any normal kind of wolf.

I heard the crunching sound of leaves as they were being crushed under foot.

It was coming from outside our door.

I grabbed my knife and positioned myself between the door and Milo.

Every single maternal muscle in my body was coiled and ready for a fight.

"Stay behind me," I whispered.

We were about to find out whatever awful thing was lurkinh out there.

Or was our nightmare just beginning?

The footsteps stopped just outside our door and I gripped my knife tighter.

I was ready to fight for Milo's life again and again until there was no more threat.

But something happened.

"Amara."

My name.