Seraphina POV

Kael's broad shoulder brushed mine, leaving a trail of freezing cedar scent as the heavy mahogany door clicked shut behind him. I was left staring at the empty space he had just occupied, the phantom pain of our severed mate-bond throbbing in my chest.

Elder Elias Vance cleared his throat, drawing my attention back to the cold reality of the office. He unrolled a second, heavier parchment.

"The Writ of Exile and Bond Severance," Elias stated, his voice devoid of any pity. "Sign it, Seraphina. Relinquish the Blackwood name and formally accept the Alpha's rejection. This is the legal document that will be filed with the Council."

I stared at the paper. The rejection had already shattered our bond, but this writ would make my exile official in the eyes of every Pack in the region. It was a public branding.

"No," I whispered, my voice trembling but gaining strength. "He's being manipulated. I need to hear him say it to my face—again, with witnesses who aren't his mother's puppets."

I slapped the parchment out of Elias's hand. It clattered to the floor as I spun around and bolted out the door.

I sprinted down the familiar corridors, my bare feet slapping against the hardwood. As I neared the main foyer, two massive Pack Warriors stepped into my path, their faces like carved stone.

"Move!" I demanded, my chest heaving. "I am your Luna!"

"You are a Rogue," one of them growled, not yielding an inch. "Lady Genevieve ordered you barred from the main house."

Genevieve. The name tasted like ash on my tongue. Adrenaline surged through my wolfless veins. Driven by pure, reckless desperation, I ducked under the warrior's outstretched arm, ignoring his angry shout, and sprinted toward the clamor echoing from the Great Hall.

I burst through the heavy double doors. The room instantly fell silent, then erupted into a chorus of venom.

"Rogue's whore!" Tyler spat, stepping forward with his fists clenched.

"A stain on our bloodline," Susan sneered from the leather sofa.

Standing by the massive stone fireplace was Genevieve Blackwood. She wore a mask of aristocratic elegance, but her eyes danced with triumphant malice. "You have some nerve showing your face here, traitor," she purred.

"It was you!" I screamed, pointing a shaking finger at her. "You sent me to that hotel to meet that Rogue! You set me up!"

Genevieve merely chuckled, a delicate, dismissive sound. "Guards, drag this filth out."

"Stop."

The deep, commanding voice sent a shiver down my spine. Kael descended the grand staircase. I threw myself toward him, grabbing his forearm like a drowning woman clinging to a lifeline.

"Kael, please! It's a lie! You have to feel it, our mate-bond—"

His cyan eyes were devoid of the man who once loved me. His inner wolf, Fenrir, must have been howling in agony, but Kael used his sheer Alpha will to crush it into submission.

"It is done," he said, his voice a glacial void. He ripped his arm from my grasp as if my touch burned his skin. "You lack even the dignity to confess your crimes."

Desperation clawed at my throat. Then, I saw her. Isabelle Pruitt, my best friend, standing near the back of the hall.

"Isabelle!" I sobbed, lunging toward her. "Tell him! I texted you before I went to the hotel! I told you I was scared, that Genevieve sent me! Check your phone! "

Isabelle flinched, pulling her hands away from mine. She looked at Kael, tears spilling down her cheeks in a flawless display of heartbreak.

"Alpha... I truly wished she was telling the truth," Isabelle wept, her voice trembling. "But I never received a text from her. She must have deleted it herself to fabricate proof. I... I am so tired of defending her lies. You shouldn't be deceived by her anymore."

The betrayal hit me harder than a physical blow. The room spun. My anchor, my only witness, had just cut my throat.

"You're a liar, a traitor, and a Rogue's whore," Kael snarled, his disgust absolute.

Genevieve's eyes gleamed with final victory. "Throw her beyond the borders!"

Two Warriors seized my bruised arms, hauling me backward toward the heavy oak doors. I thrashed wildly, my boots scraping against the stone floor. I had nothing left. No mate, no pack, no friend. But I had one last, desperate truth.

"Wait!" I shrieked, tearing my throat raw. "I'm pregnant!"

The Warriors froze in their tracks. The entire Great Hall plunged into a deafening, suffocating silence.

Seraphina POV

The deafening silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. For a fraction of a second, the glacial mask on Kael's face cracked. His cyan eyes widened, and I could almost feel his inner wolf, Fenrir, thrashing against his iron control, howling in sudden, desperate joy at the mention of a pup.

Then, a cold, delicate laugh shattered the quiet.

Genevieve stepped forward, her eyes glittering with malicious amusement. "A phantom child to secure your crown? You truly have no shame, Seraphina. A desperate, pathetic lie from a desperate, pathetic Rogue."

"It's not a lie!" I cried, my hands instinctively moving to shield my flat stomach. I turned wildly to the only person left. "Isabelle, tell him! You're my best friend—you know I wouldn't lie about something like this! "

Isabelle let out a broken sob, burying her face in her hands. When she looked up at Kael, her eyes were swimming in perfectly timed tears. "Alpha... I am so sorry. She told me weeks ago that if you continued to grow distant, she would fake a pregnancy to trap you. I didn't want to believe she would actually stoop this low."

The air punched out of my lungs. The betrayal was so absolute, so flawlessly executed, that I couldn't even form words.

Kael's brief flicker of hope died instantly, replaced by a disgust so profound it radiated from him like heat. His jaw clenched, and when he spoke, his voice carried the crushing, undeniable weight of the Alpha's Command.

"You are a stain on my bloodline," Kael snarled. The power in his words washed over me, and though my wolfless body didn't physically buckle under the Command the way a wolf's would, the sheer force of his hatred—combined with the exhaustion, the rejection, and the loss—made my legs give way. I sank to my knees, not by magic, but by despair. "The thought of you carrying anything of mine makes my very soul sick."

He snatched the Writ of Exile from Elder Elias's frozen grip and threw it at my feet. The heavy parchment hit the stone floor with a dull thud.

My tears stopped. The agonizing throb of my severed mate-bond was suddenly eclipsed by a cold, hollow numbness. I picked up the pen Elias had dropped. My hand shook violently, but I pressed the nib to the paper and signed away my life, my pack, and any claim I had to the Blackwood name.

I stood up, my knees trembling, and shoved the parchment hard against Kael's chest. He didn't even look at me. He turned his back and walked up the grand staircase, taking my heart with him.

"Throw her out," Tyler sneered, gesturing to the Warriors.

"Don't touch me," I hissed, yanking my arms away. "I can walk."

As I moved toward the heavy oak doors, Genevieve stepped into my path. Her manicured fingers clamped onto my arm, her sharp nails biting deep into my flesh. She leaned in, her expensive perfume masking the rot in her soul.

"That little mongrel in your belly will never draw breath on Blackwood land," she whispered, her voice a venomous hiss meant only for my ears. "The Moon Goddess doesn't bless the wombs of traitors."

Before I could react, the Warriors shoved me out into the freezing night.

They dragged me to the very edge of the Blackwood territory, tossing me into the dirt where the manicured lawns met the wild, dark woods. The moment their footsteps faded, the shadows between the trees shifted.

A massive figure stepped out. He wore a dark mask, and the sour, feral stench of a Rogue hit my nose. Panic spiked in my chest. I scrambled backward, but he was too fast. He grabbed me by the hair, dragging me deeper into the suffocating darkness of the trees.

"Please!" I screamed, thrashing wildly against his iron grip. "I'm pregnant! Please don't!"

The Rogue threw me to the ground. He stood over me, his eyes dead and merciless. "That's the point."

His heavy boot slammed into my abdomen.

A scream tore from my throat, raw and bloody. I curled into a ball, desperately trying to cover my stomach, but his knee crashed into my side, then his foot found my stomach again. Agony exploded through my body, blinding and absolute.

"A message from those who value a pure bloodline," the Rogue spat, kicking dirt onto my face. "Your kind has no place here."

He vanished into the night, leaving me broken in the mud.

A warm, terrifying wetness began to pool between my thighs. No. No, please.

Gasping through the blinding pain, I dragged my shattered body over the dead leaves and sharp rocks, crawling toward the distant hum of the asphalt road. My fingernails tore as I pulled myself onto the freezing pavement.

Headlights pierced the darkness. A car was coming. I raised a trembling, blood-soaked hand, praying to a Goddess who had abandoned me.

The human driver saw me—a battered, bloody nightmare crawling from the woods. The tires shrieked as the car violently swerved, speeding away into the night.

The taillights faded into red blurs. The agonizing cramps tore through my womb, and as the darkness finally pulled me under, I felt the tiny, fragile spark of my baby's life slip away into the cold.

Seraphina POV

The harsh, stinging scent of bleach and rubbing alcohol dragged me back to consciousness. There was no damp earth, no pine, no comforting warmth of a Pack House. Only the sterile, lifeless hum of a heart monitor and the blinding glare of fluorescent lights.

I tried to move, but a sharp, tearing agony ripped through my abdomen. I gasped, my hand instinctively flying to my stomach.

It was flat. The subtle, warm flutter of life I had clung to was gone.

"Miss Harmon?" A woman in a white coat stepped into my line of sight. Her human eyes were soft with a practiced, clinical sympathy. "I'm Dr. Evans. You were brought in by a passing motorist. You suffered severe blunt force trauma to your abdomen." She paused, her voice dropping. "I am so incredibly sorry. We couldn't save the pregnancy. The embryo was only about five to six weeks, but the damage was... complete."

The words hung in the air, suffocating me. I stared at the ceiling, the white tiles blurring as the memory of the dark woods crashed over me.

That little mongrel in your belly will never draw breath on Blackwood land. Genevieve’s venomous whisper echoed in my ears, perfectly synchronized with the heavy thud of the Rogue’s boot. That's the point.

A violent shudder wracked my broken body. This wasn't a random tragedy. It was an execution. Genevieve Blackwood had orchestrated the entire thing, and Isabelle Pruitt had handed her the knife by destroying my credibility. They had murdered my baby.

"Miss Harmon, the police are here," Dr. Evans said gently. "They need to ask you a few questions."

Two human officers stepped into the room, their expressions grim. "Miss Harmon, your injuries suggest a targeted assault. Nothing was stolen. Do you know who did this? Do you have any enemies?"

Genevieve’s name burned on my tongue. But as I looked at the officers, reality settled over me like a shroud of ice. How could I explain a wolfless Omega, a hired Rogue, and a ruthless Luna? To them, Kael Blackwood was a respected billionaire CEO, a pillar of human society. One phone call from him, and I would be locked in a psychiatric ward for the rest of my life. Human law could not touch the monsters of my world.

"No," I whispered, my voice hoarse and dead. "It was dark. He wore a mask. Just a random lunatic."

The officers exchanged a frustrated look, took their notes, and left. By lying to them, I had chosen my path. There would be no human justice. I would have to survive, and I would have to make them bleed on my own terms.

Yet, beneath the boiling hatred, a pathetic, bleeding fragment of my severed mate-bond still twitched. A foolish, desperate part of my soul screamed that if Kael only knew the truth—if he knew his child was dead—the Alpha who once swore to protect me would wake up from his mother's manipulation.

"Excuse me," I croaked to the nurse. "Do you know if my personal belongings came with me? My phone?"

She nodded and retrieved a small plastic bag from a drawer. Inside was my battered phone—screen cracked, but still alive. Kael hadn't even bothered to take it from me. He probably wanted me to remember every hateful comment online.

I powered it on. My fingers trembled violently as I opened the messaging app and typed in the private number I knew by heart.

I was attacked. I'm in the hospital. The baby... our baby is gone.

I hit send. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of agonizing hope. Minutes bled into one another. I stared at the screen, praying to a Goddess I no longer believed in.

The phone buzzed.

My breath hitched. I opened the message, my eyes scanning the glowing text.

Stop the lies, Seraphina. I don't care about your games. You are dead to me.

The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering onto the thin hospital blanket.