I shook off his hand and walked toward my chambers like a dead woman walking.
He didn't follow. Behind me, I heard Vesper coaxing him, her voice dripping sweet over that faint trace of decay beneath the jasmine. "Darius, go check on her, please. I'd hate for her to be upset because of me."
"Let her cool down. She loves me too much to stay angry. She'll come around."
Each word landed like a stone. Every step I took felt like dragging my feet through wet concrete.
And the last five years with Darius began replaying in my mind, scene by scene, like a film I couldn't pause.
I'd met him seven moons of years ago.
His pack had barely taken shape. A handful of pack warriors, a single den on the south edge of the border-lands, and a name that meant nothing to any bloodline that mattered. I hid the fact that I was the sole bloodline-heir of the Ashthorne Pack and quietly opened every door my family's name could open. Pack alliances brokered through intermediaries so he'd never trace them back to me. Territorial disputes that dissolved overnight because a single mind-link from the Ashthorne estate reached the right pack-captain at the right hour. The Moon Goddess's bloodline protection that he assumed was luck, or the work of his own Beta-counsel. From a low-born turned wolf with nothing to his name to one of the most feared Alphas on the forested coastlands, and he never knew that the invisible architecture holding it all together was mine.
After we sealed the mating bond, he treated me like I was the center of his universe.
When I fell ill, he sat at my bedside and refused to leave. He posted a warrior outside the door and canceled a border-parley with the Calabrese Pack because my fever wouldn't break.
When I was hungry, he cooked for me himself, making the oatmeal I loved, the kind that was easy on my stomach. The Alpha of the Ironclaw Pack, sleeves rolled to the elbow, standing over a fire in the den's kitchen while his Beta waited in the hall.
Every time we walked the territory together, he held my hand and never let go. His warriors trailed three paces behind, and he kept me on the inside of the path, away from the open ground, the way old-blood Alphas guard what belongs to them.
Every mating-anniversary, every Moon Blessing Day, he showed up on time with a gift and a smile.
Then Vesper moved into the den, and everything changed.
She was his blood-sworn brother's widow. That was the reason. Fenwick Greyhollow had taken a silver round meant for Darius during the Calabrese border-war, and the old code was clear: an Alpha shelters his fallen brother's family. Vesper had no one else, no bloodline to shelter her, no territory, no protection. So he brought her into our home under the sacred blood-brother oath sworn to the Moon Goddess.
At first it was just small courtesies. Checking in on her. Making sure she was comfortable. Then came the late-night calls. Her legs were swollen. Her feet were numb. She needed him. Again and again, she pulled him out of our bed in the dead of night, and each time I heard his footsteps recede down the corridor of the den, the silence he left behind grew heavier.
On our mating-anniversary, he left me sitting alone at the gathering and rushed to the Healing Hall to sit with her through a pup-bearing examination. I sat there for forty minutes. The candles burned down to nothing. The serving omega stopped asking if I wanted to eat.
I got jealous. Of course I did. But every time, Darius would take my hands and say with absolute conviction: "Her mate gave his life for mine once. His widow and pup, how can I just abandon them? Selene, you're the kindest soul I know. You understand, don't you?"
And when he said it, his right palm would press against mine, and I could feel the raised scar there, the blood-oath mark seared into him the night he and Fenwick swore the sacred bond beneath the Moon Goddess. He invoked that scar like scripture. Like it made everything holy.
Because I loved him, I trusted him. I trusted us. I trusted what we'd built.
Until I saw him in bed with her.
Then I knew exactly how wrong I'd been.
If he wanted to warm another she-wolf's body, he could have her. I was done.
When morning came, I wiped the dried tears from my face and made two calls through the mind-link.
The first reached the Healing Hall. "I need to arrange a procedure. As soon as possible."
The second reached my mother. "Mamma, Darius betrayed me. I'm severing the bond and coming to you. Papà has been wanting to hand the pack over to me, hasn't he? I'll be there soon."
Her voice didn't waver. Not a tremor. Not a breath out of place. Aurelia Ashthorne had survived three decades as a Luna-Matriarch, and she received the news of her daughter's betrayal the way she received all threats: with absolute stillness before the storm.
"I told you from the start. You two come from different worlds. The Ironclaw line was never our equal. Taking him as mate was never going to end well. Come home to the Crown Territory. As for the pup, if you want to keep it, keep it. The Ashthorne bloodline could use an heir."
I cut the link and tore the bond-pledge in my hands clean in half.
Fifty billion in gold moons. My father had funneled it to me through three cover-territories and a hold of moon-credits in the high passes. It was meant to fund Darius's push into the river-trade routes along the northern coast, the claim that would have made the Ironclaw Pack untouchable.
He would never see a single moon of it now.
I dug out our mating record, the bond that had tied the Ashthorne name to the Ironclaw bloodline, and was about to summon the pack's Beta-counsel when my crystal communicator pulsed twice. A message appeared in the link-circle Darius's inner pack had formed to welcome me years ago, back when they still treated me like the Luna.
Congrats, sis! The big day's finally here!
Congrats, congrats! It's been a long road! We're heading to the Healing Hall right now to celebrate with you and Darius.
I frowned, about to ask if they'd sent this to the wrong wolf, when a third message appeared.
You fool, wrong circle! This is the FIRST Luna's circle. The little missus is in the other one! Wipe it, quick!
All three messages vanished in seconds.
My fingers tightened around the communicator until my knuckles went white.
A dull ache spread through my chest. Then a sharper one twisted low in my belly, and deep inside me my wolf went very still, the way a creature goes still when it finally understands the trap has already closed.
It had never occurred to me that there was another circle. A second one. One I wasn't in. A parallel world running beneath the surface of my mating bond, hidden the way this life hides everything, behind closed doors and careful silence.
Every time Darius's pack saw me, they tilted their heads in deference and called me the Luna. Warm. Respectful. Familiar. They sat at my table during the moonlit gatherings. They brought offerings to the den on the Blood Moon nights. They looked me in the eye and smiled.
And the whole time, behind my back, they'd already given Vesper a title of her own.
