Celestia's pov 

I was thrown back into that cell 

Discarded like trash.

Awaiting my judgment, the next and final council meeting for my sake would conclude that.

But I already knew it wouldn't be good.

I curled my hands together, recalling Asher's warmth, his soft puppy smell.

Had he been fed? 

Was he softly rocked when he cried? 

Would I ever see him again?

I had been chained down.

This time with pure silver, it constantly burnt and ate at my skin giving it just enough time to heal before repeating the process.

No meals came to my cell, even with me chained down the guards didn't risk it.

"Celestia...oh how far you've fallen..."

My eyes remained on the floor.

He stood over me, behind the steel bars, his eyes judging and piercing.

"Raphael, why?"

"Why?" he spat back at me, "Are you still going to feign ignorance even now?"

I forced myself to look at him.

"Seven years Raphael...for five years I've given you everything, anything...my body...my heart...there is nothing you've wanted from me that my immediate answer wasn't yes, why am I being punished for being a good Luna and mate?"

He scoffed.

"How you've painted yourself to be the perfect victim after what you did to me..."He gripped the steel bars and bared his teeth to me."Seven years ago, my aunt's mate's anniversary...is that ringing any bells?"

I carefully recalled that night, and the days before it.

"Our son won't stop talking about you, but he's the shy type," Raphael's parents told me.

Back then Raphael and Medea were thicker than thieves.

When I asked his parents they disregarded the rumors.

"She is an orphan and her little sister's caretaker, Raphael just pities her,"

Then it all climaxed that night.

The anniversary party of the Alpha's younger sister was held at the pack house hall.

Everyone was wasted including me.

Raphael needed help getting to his room.

I helped without any ulterior motives.

It was Raphael who came at me with full force.

His lips slammed on mine and his hands sneaking under my shirt, he didn't allow me to get a word in, and the mate bond I had been ignoring blurred my thoughts even more 

When I woke up he looked down at me with disgust traces over his face, like I ought to be whipped off the face of the earth.

He got tested.

An aphrodisiac had been found in his system.

He accused me of violating him.

I defended myself to no avail.

Our parents were no help.

They only thought about forming a bridge between the families.

Mates of convenience.

The romance I envisioned was skewed from the start.

So I tried to win his heart, I tried to show him how loyal and caring I was even when he did little to hide his favor for Medea I swallowed it and looked the other way.

But it seems like the hoops I jumped through only cemented my guilt.

"Why would you be trying so hard if you were actually innocent?"He asked me point-blank once, "You know what you did which is why you're trying so hard to make it up to me,"

Finally, it leads us here.

"Do you really think I stole Medea's pup?"

He paused as if to consider my words seriously.

"No matter what I know that will be a million times better at being a mother than you,"

His answer told me enough.

"You know Asher is mine, don't you?"

"Medea decided to name him Jaxon, "He sharply corrected me 

My shoulders slumped, the chains burnt but the pain didn't compare to what was tearing my heart into shreds.

"Why did you come here, Raphael? To kick me when I'm already down?"

He produced a thick envelope and slipped out a single sheet of paper.

"For any complications in the future, I want you to sign this document that you have no relationship with Jaxon, if you do I'll arrange for the charges against you to be dropped,"

I laughed.

"So it's either Asher or my freedom?"

"It's Jaxon," he warned again with more animosity but I didn't care.

I raised my hands in motion making the chains sink deeper and burn harder.

"Then let me rot, but mark my words I will take my child from you all even if I have to walk over the mutilated corpses of you and your woman to do it,"

He drew a step back, eyes swimming with hatred and disgust.

"Even till your bitter end you won't admit to your faults,"

A false smile crawled up my lips.

"Count these happy moments, but you know me, Raphael, I won't stay down for long,"

His jaw tightened.

"Not this time, Celestia, you won't be able to lay a hand on Jaxon or Medea, I'll make sure of it,"

And he did.

I was brought to the training field for my judgment to be read out to the hundreds of pack members encircling me.

He pushed aside technicalities to dish out my punishment himself.

First was the rejection.

"I, esteemed Alpha of the Brazen pack Raphael Ashen reject you Celestia Willow as my mate, you are thereby stripped of your title as Luna and all privileges and powers that come with it,"

If I were not already on my knees I would have collapsed from the searing pain that rippled from my chest over to my spine.

The guards were wearing gloves, they tugged on my chains forcing me upright.

There was more waiting for me.

Oh, so much more.

"You will serve a decade-long exile away from Brazen pack to repent and during that time you will be stripped of your wolf until the time of your exile comes to an end,"

Ten years 

I swallowed 

They dragged me away, people jeered and threw rotten food at me as a parade of shame carried me out and followed me to the borders of brazen.

Beyond me was no man's land 

Here across several acres of land, untamed and unbridled everything and anything happened.

I was thrown past the 'line' 

Once a Luna 

Now I'm a rogue.

Raphael's POV 

"He won't stop crying, Raphael! I'm so tired!"

My grandmother told me ever since I was a pup that motherhood was one of the biggest transitions for any she-wolf.

With all that in mind, I'd hired three experienced nannies, each of them had at least eight years under their belt, Medea made regular guilt-free outings with her sister Eclipse and I paid for a tummy tuck when going to the gym was too much work.

I don't want to sound inconsiderate.

But I think I've done enough to make this motherhood journey easy on her.

However, she was always quick with Jaxon.

A little whimper and she was quick to snap at him.

Since Jaxon's cries were a regular rhythm throughout the night and most of the night his crib and other pup essentials were moved to our bedroom.

Medea wasn't happy about this but clipped away any complaint.

At least at first.

Then Jax broke into his third cry of the night and she got up before me. She sprinted off the bed and rushed to his bed. She swooped up the three-month-old and shook him with a strength I didn't know she was capable of.

In haste, I caught up to her and snatched the baby from her.

"Medea, what's gotten into you?!"

That's when she said it.

"He won't stop crying, Raphael! I'm so tired!"

His soft tender face ruffled and he cried with his whole being.

"I understand you're tired, Medea, but you know he's only this cranky because he doesn't eat often,"

Medea scoffed.

"Well maybe wouldn't be all skin and bones if he ate,"

Her words hit me with the weight of a physical blow.

"Medea, you're tired you don't know what you're saying...go to bed,"

I tried to lead her back to the bed with one hand and she tugged her hand away and I released it to balance Jax.

"Sleep isn't going to fix this, how much longer will I have to put up with this in my own home? My own child constantly rejects me. When he was a newborn he refused to suckle...we tried everything... don't you remember?"

I did remember.

For five days nothing passed through my son's mouth.

If he were not of Alpha blood he would have never made it far.

He also wouldn't stop crying.

That was until he smelt her.

Or rather her clothes.

I had been instructing the servants how they would dispose of Celestia's things, his tiny fingers pulled towards the wardrobe, to the clothes she had worn.

Medea had been standing by my side when she noticed it too.

We dismissed the servants and stuffed his crib with her clothes.

He calmed, his temperature finally relaxing to a subtle warmth and I got courageous and fished out a bottle of baby formula I had secretly bought.

Medea was flabbergasted.

And betrayed.

A silent apology rang in my eyes as I pressed cold formula into my son's mouth.

Slowly but steadily he began to suckle, I felt like I had aged downwards by about five years and my entire face brightened.

But Medea, now my Luna and mate, was not pleased.

She threw herself on the bed and cried until her eyes were red at the rims.

"I'm no mother, this is what I get for being a scam!"

She said over and over again.

I consoled her 

Kissed her 

Told her that she was just a mother rather than a certain someone.

To date, Jax still slept in her clothes, but I guess it wasn't the same as the real thing.

That's why he'd still break into tears in the middle of the night, loud enough to shake the entire packhouse.

When he finally settled down I held him in my arms for a bit longer and carefully placed him down in his crib like I was dropping a bomb.

Then I spun my head around.

No sight of Medea.

I sighed, leaving the bedroom and heading straight to where I knew she'd be.

The attic.

Medea's family had once been high-ranked and respected by the pack, but her father and mother chose the side of our enemies during a crisis, they were deemed as traitors and executed for their crimes.

Leaving Medea alone to tend to her little sister.

I had always liked her before, but seeing how resilient she was in the face of bullying and mockery for the offense of her parents.

I stood like a wall protecting her from those who tried to harm her.

When her family home was burnt down by self-righteous pack members I begged my parents to let her stay.

I was begging them in the living room when Celestia walked in.

She was 17, with almond eyes that carried carved out innocence.

She listened and followed me afterward as I was marching into my room.

"I need a maid," she said awkwardly, "if Eclipse promises to work hard, I can convince my father and mother to let her work under me,"

Back then I thought she was kind and sincere.

Eclipse became her personal maid, and I later made Medea my maid.

She was often bullied by the other maids in their quarters so she found the abandoned attic and would go there at night and sit on the worn-out mattress and look out the circular window.

She did that now.

Even after so many years.

And I could still see it 

That poor girl, broken by the world, abandoned by everyone, friends and family alike.

My Alpha instincts told me to protect.

I came forward, sitting next to her on the dusty ground.

Without warning she said; "Jaxon needs his mother,"

I reached forward and squeezed her hand.

"You are his mother,"

"His real mother, Raphael...his real mother," 

I swallowed.

"It will be hard to find her," I admitted, "if there is even a person to be found,"

"She's alive," She said rigidly, "...people like her never die off easily,"

I stared out the window imagining her broken face.

Was Celestia still out there?

Celestia's POV

"Leader there is someone who wants to see you," I heard from my most trusted subordinate as he slipped into my tent. I roused from sleep brushing my fingers into my mangled locks of hair. 

"Is it the leader of another rogue group?" I asked still between consciousness and subconsciousness.

Crane paused for a considerable time before responding to my question. 

"He refuses to introduce himself, but..." Crane goes ahead to describe the man who had come to see me, each new detail making my muscles tense and every speck of slumber to be shredded out of my eyes. 

"Are you really sure that's what he looks like?" 

I already opened my feet and grabbed a jacket to throw over the tank top I was wearing. Both fabrics were worn out and past their prime. I remember, long ago, I wouldn't even be caught dead in this kind of clothes, and yet now these were among my best, and I wore them casually without a second thought. 

I breezed past Crane, "Let's go he sounds familiar but I won't be sure unless I see him personally myself, where is he?" 

"In the pit leader, we kept him there so that you could question him without stressing yourself honestly he was a real pain but he went in without any arguments I guess you really want to talk to you even though he doesn't want to tell us who he is I think...." 

Crane kept talking but honestly, I was zoning out right now.

The descriptions he had given me matched only one man I had known in the past, the man who took everything from me my heart my body, and even the pup that came from me. He drained me down to my last drop and tossed me aside when he saw no more use for me. 

It had already been 5 years.

And those were the longest 5 years of my life. 

After my parade of shame, I was thrown off the border into no man's land. 

For days I lived like an animal, with no roof above my head and scavenging for my food every day. Most of my meals were hunted for and eaten in my wolf form, it came to a point that I hardly ever transformed back to my other state.

My wolf, Shade, warned me of the dangers of this. 

"The more time you spend in your wolf form the deeper our connection becomes," 

"Isn't that a good thing?" I said ignoring the elephant in the room when she brought it up to me one rainy day as I hid in a cave. 

I could feel her agitatedly moving around in the interior of my consciousness. 

"You know it's not a good thing, you've heard of rogues who lose all their humanity merged so perfectly with their primal instinct that everything else is thrown out the window. When that happens there is a person who knows a wolf just a dividend of bad and poor decisions we must remain separate to coexist perfectly or else we will end up destroying each other," 

It was good that I had such a strong-willed wolf.

She grieved over the loss of our mate and our pup but yet remained a pillar for me she refused to let me fall into complete darkness. 

Sometimes I was grateful for her. 

Then there way times that I was not so grateful.

Moments when I wished that she would just let me pull the plug.

"What are we even living for?" I would ask battling from day to day, every day I was attacked by a rogue who still smelt a lingering pack scent on me, it was incredibly inconvenient but at the same time, it gave me an absurd sense of relief. 

One night on a full moon I came across two rogues, I was already sinking my baring my fangs and digging my pose into the ground as I pushed myself into a battle stance they just gave me a strange look and walked by.

A wail broke out from inside me, a howl of pure pain.

My scent was no longer that of a pack wolf, the one foolish string I desperately held onto had been snapped and now I carried the aura of a rejected one. 

After that night nothing shade said moved me. I had already prepared a day, mapped out everything I was going to do, and in my heart I gave my dear Ash a goodbye letter, which was one that was written not with a pen on paper but my tears sinking into the soil. 

I hoped in some way it would reach him.

But of course I wasn't counting on it, that would be silly. 

There was a cliff I planned to head to, where I would end it all. 

I have been holding onto hope that I would see my pup one day but I didn't want to deceive and touch on myself anymore.

But before I could reach the cliff I noticed that some rogues were intentionally avoiding it, I asked around and found out that a certain rogue who had gone completely berserk and lost his mind had made the cliffside his 'spot'

Nobody dared to go close unless they wanted to be ripped apart like confetti.

But I went ahead anyway. 

I had lost all will to fight, if this was going to put an end to all my misery then so be it.

The berserker noticed me the moment I had one toe in his reserved spot and came out to me full speed, I closed my eyes and instead of the darkness I hoped to see there was a vivid picture of my son's face.

In that deciding moment, I knew I couldn't quit.

Not until I held Asher in my hand again.

So I fought. 

Until I was torn, bloodied, and finally victorious. 

The berserk transformed back his sanity returning to him after a good beating. 

He was a muscular man with a full beard and perhaps in his early 30s.

I asked for his name.

He looked at me with a bewildered expression but still responded; "Crane my name is Crane,"