Chapter 1

I am the Luna of the Silver Fang Pack.

Tonight, my mate told me to kneel before his mistress and beg for her forgiveness.

Because I "failed to produce an heir."

But he doesn't know — the child he ordered thrown into the dungeon three days ago carries his bloodline. His only bloodline.

……

……

The cold of the marble floor seeped through the thin fabric of my dress as Alaric's command pressed down on me like a physical weight. An Alpha's order. My wolf whimpered inside me, clawing against the compulsion to obey.

"Kneel, Selene."

His voice — the same voice that had once whispered promises against my throat in the dark — was ice. Flat. Final.

I looked up at him. Those steel-grey eyes I had loved since I was seventeen held nothing. No warmth. No recognition. As if seven years of being his Luna, his partner, the woman who rebuilt this pack from the ashes of war, meant nothing.

Beside him, Vivienne smiled. She stood draped in crimson silk, her auburn hair cascading over one shoulder, her hand resting on Alaric's forearm with the possessiveness of someone who had already won.

"She's not kneeling, darling," Vivienne murmured, pressing closer to him. "I told you — she has no respect for your new Luna."

New Luna.

The words hit me like silver through the chest.

"Alaric." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "You can't replace a Luna bond. The Moon Goddess—"

"The Moon Goddess gave me a barren mate." He cut me off without flinching. "The elders have approved the dissolution. You have no pup. You have no claim."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell him everything — about the pregnancy I'd hidden because the pack doctor warned me that Alaric's enemies would use it against him, about the child I'd secretly carried to term and hidden away with a trusted omega in the eastern wing, about the night three days ago when Vivienne's guards "discovered" the baby and dragged the screaming infant to the dungeon on charges of being a rogue's offspring smuggled into the packhouse.

My child. His child.

But the words died in my throat. Because Alaric was looking at me the way you look at something you've already discarded.

"You have until dawn," he said. "Take what you can carry and leave pack territory."

He turned his back.

Seven years.

I had given him seven years, a war victory, a rebuilt pack, and a son he didn't know existed.

And he gave me until dawn.

I didn't kneel.

I walked out of the great hall with my spine straight and my wolf howling inside my ribcage. The pack members lining the corridor wouldn't meet my eyes. Some of them I had healed. Some of them I had fed during the famine. One of them — Mara, the head omega — had tears streaming silently down her face.

None of them spoke.

Alpha's word was law. And Alaric's word had just declared nothing to me.

I made it to the east corridor before my legs gave out. I pressed my back against the stone wall and slid to the floor, biting down on my fist to keep from screaming.

The dungeon.

My baby was still in the dungeon.

I had tried to get to him twice. Both times, Vivienne's personal guards had blocked the entrance. The second time, one of them had grabbed my arm hard enough to leave bruises and whispered, "The Alpha's mistress says if you go near the rogue child again, she'll have it put down."

Rogue child. My son. Eight weeks old, with Alaric's grey eyes and my dark hair. A perfect, helpless little boy who didn't understand why he was sleeping in a cold cell instead of his mother's arms.

"Luna?"

I looked up. Mara was crouching in front of me, her round face blotched with crying.

"Don't call me that anymore," I whispered.

"You'll always be my Luna." She pressed something into my hand — a small iron key. "Third sub-level. The old servant's passage. Vivienne's guards don't know about it."

I stared at the key.

"You have to go now," Mara urged. "Before the dawn patrol starts."

I closed my fist around the key so tightly the metal teeth bit into my palm.

I was done being the dutiful mate. I was done waiting for Alaric to see my worth.

Tonight I will get my son.

And then I would burn everything Vivienne had built on my ashes.