How ironic.
I yanked the bedroom door open and stormed out. The moment I reached the great hall of the den, one of the household omegas hurried toward me, her bare feet quick against the cold flagstones. "Luna Ironclaw, you're awake! The second Luna went into her birthing-time without warning. The Alpha carried her to the Healing Hall himself!"
I stopped dead. "'Second Luna'? Who taught you to call her that?"
I snatched the carved moonstone vase from the console beside me and hurled it to the floor. It shattered across the stone in a spray of blue and silver. My chest heaved. The sound rang through the hall, and somewhere deeper in the den, a set of footsteps paused mid-stride.
The omega flinched, her gaze dropping to the floor the way everyone's did in this den when the air shifted. "It was Lady Nightvale's instruction. She said the Alpha agreed she's also a lady of the den. You're the first Luna, and she's the second..."
She was still talking when I pulled my keys from the hook by the side passage and drove to the Healing Hall. The two warriors posted at the gate didn't try to stop me. They knew better. But in the mirror I caught one of them lifting his communicator to his ear, and I knew Darius would have my scent on the wind long before I reached the doors.
By the time I crossed the threshold of the Healing Hall, Vesper had already whelped.
The private chamber was packed. Nearly all of Darius's inner circle had crowded inside, pack-captains and warriors and their mates, laughing and talking over one another like it was a celebration. Like it was already a Naming feast. Armed wolves stood at the corridor's mouth, but they parted for me without a word. I didn't go in. Not yet. I stood just outside the doorway, and I listened.
That was when the wrongness hit me. Vesper's scent hung thick in the chamber, overripe jasmine and sugared honey, and beneath it, threading through everything, that faint cold note that had never once smelled right to me. My wolf pressed up beneath my skin, hackles rising, a growl building low in my chest that I forced back down.
"Darius, does your Luna even know Vesper's had the pup?"
"Don't bring her up." Darius was bent over the cradle, teasing the sleeping newborn with one finger. A soft, doting smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "This pup's gorgeous."
"Honestly, Darius. Look close enough and he even favors you a little!"
"Keep your voice down. If Selene hears that kind of talk, she'll overthink everything."
Vesper lay propped against the pillows, her glamour still flawless. She didn't look like a she-wolf who'd just given birth. She looked like one who had won something. "Overthink what? Whether she agrees or not, I'm keeping my promise. This pup will carry your name and be entered into the Ironclaw bloodline registry."
The chamber shifted at that. Even the laughter dimmed for half a breath. Every wolf in that room understood what entering a pup into a pack's bloodline registry meant. It was not a formality. It was a claim on the hunting grounds, on the territory, on the right to one day stand where Darius stood. And it required the Alpha's formal recognition before the Moon Goddess.
"But you'd have to break your bond with Selene first. That doesn't feel right..."
"It's no great matter. Once the pup's registered under my name, I'll formally sever the arrangement with Vesper and re-bind with Selene. Simple. If she won't agree, I'll do it behind her back."
Vesper sniffled, dabbing at the corner of her eye. "Selene is so kindhearted. She'll say yes. I'd be so grateful to her. Truly, however long I'm allowed to be your mate, even just in name, I'd be more than happy."
"Relax. You all know how much she loves Darius. Remember when she went to that sit-down with the Calabrese Pack and spent the whole night charming their old Alpha, glass after glass of moon-wine, just so Darius could close that border arrangement?"
"And that time Darius took ill from a wolfsbane trace in his blood? She thought it was something far worse. Got down on her knees and begged the moon-healer, then knelt outside the Healer's Den for hours until it was done. She's mad about him. She'd never leave. A small thing like this is nothing to her, set against losing Darius."
"Exactly what I was thinking."
Darius's lips curved. He pulled Vesper closer against him, his arm tightening around her shoulders. "Whatever it takes, I'll give Vesper and this pup a home."
I stood in the doorway and watched the male I'd loved for seven years hold another she-wolf in his arms.
My fingers curled at my sides until my nails bit into my palms, and somewhere beneath the human grief my wolf went very still, the way a beast goes still when it finally understands the trap it stepped into.
He had it all figured out. He'd been planning to give Vesper a home all along. Sever me, register the pup, re-bind me like a trade of territory shuffled across a map. And every wolf in that room had already accepted it as the natural order of things. Because that was what Selene did. Selene bent. Selene knelt. Selene loved him so much she'd swallow anything.
Well then. Who was I to stand in his way?
I stepped into the doorway and spoke quietly. "A male pup? Congratulations."
The moment I appeared, every face in the room went white. The laughter died like someone had cut the air from the chamber. A pack-captain set his glass down too carefully. Vesper's hand drifted toward the cradle, a reflex she couldn't quite hide.
Darius released Vesper at once and crossed the room in three quick strides. His voice turned gentle, almost tender. "What are you doing here? You're carrying our pup. You should be resting at the den."
"I heard everything you just said."
I looked up at him. "You want to sever our bond so you can register Vesper's pup under your name. Enter him into the Ironclaw bloodline."
"Selene, I only feel for her. You know she has nowhere else to go. I'm doing this because she was Fenwick's mate. He was a brother to me. He took a silver round meant for me..."
His hand moved as he spoke, and I saw it. His fingers drifted to his right palm, tracing the faint scar there. The blood-oath mark, sworn to the Moon Goddess. Fenwick's name, raised like a shield, the way it always was.
He scrambled to explain. I cut him off, my face blank. "I agree. Let's sever the bond."
"Truly?"
His eyes lit up. He hadn't expected me to say yes so easily.
None of them had. I could feel the silence in the room behind him pressing against my back like a held breath. The Alpha's Luna had just agreed to sever the blood-alliance between the Ironclaw and Ashthorne lines, and she'd said it the way one orders the evening meal. Darius didn't understand what he'd just been handed. He wouldn't. Not yet.
