My husband mated with his step sister. Not once, not twice, but over and over again. And the worst part is, he didn’t even hide it. I heard it myself. Inside our home, the same home where he once marked me as his Luna.
Every corner that used to feel like ours now felt tainted, from the bed to the couch to the kitchen counter.
I stood outside the hallway frozen, my body refusing to move as if even breathing had turned into something foreign.
“Samuel,” Ivy's voice came soft and needy, “When are you going to reject her? You promised me you would.”
“Soon, baby. Just not now… She’s still breaking over our twins.”
Our twins. A son and a daughter. He said it so easily, as if those words didn’t split what was left of me, while another woman lay with him.
“Poor Clara. Still crying over dead pups. Honestly, I don’t even know how you tolerate her anymore. But don’t worry,” she added, “I’ll give you another set of heir. I’ll carry your pups. I’ll get pregnant soon.”
Silence.
“I’m counting on it, Ivy.”
My fingers curled until my nails broke. I didn’t move, I just held myself together by force because falling apart there would have meant giving them my last piece.
“Tell me the truth, Alpha. Do you really love her? Your Luna?”
A longer silence followed, heavy enough to crush everything inside me.
“Yes. I love Clara. She's my bonded mate.”
Bonded mate?
He still said it like it meant something, as if it wasn’t another lie he had learned to carry without weight.
I stepped back before my legs gave out, forcing air into lungs that suddenly felt too small.
My mate. My Alpha. The man the Willoughby Pack feared and worshiped, the same man who once crossed frozen mountains to bring me chestnut cake because I mentioned it once. Now he stood in our home speaking love while dismantling everything he had built inside me.
Thirteen days.
That was all I needed.
Thirteen days until my human exit papers were approved.
Thirteen days until I could legally leave pack territory and disappear into the human world where the bond couldn’t pull me back.
...
I went to the consulate the next morning. My hands shook so badly I almost dropped my documents.
“Hello,” I said quietly. “I want to apply for an exit permit.”
The clerk didn’t even look surprised. Just stamped everything like I was already gone.
“Processing time is thirteen days. Please wait for confirmation.”
When I walked out, voices followed me, low whispers sharp with curiosity.
“Wait! That’s Luna Clara Willoughby, right?”
“She’s applying to leave the pack?”
“No way. Alpha Samuel is obsessed with her. Like insane obsessed! Didn’t he drain half his blood for her after that accident?”
“I heard when she went missing once, he turned the whole city upside down. He nearly killed three guards.”
“Then why is she leaving him?”
A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
Because that was what everyone saw, a devoted Alpha and his precious Luna. They never saw what lived behind closed doors, how his voice changed when Ivy called him, how his hands once held me like I was sacred then began to hold me like I was optional.
I remember how it started. He saw me at a pack gathering years ago and decided I was his. No asking. No warning. After that, he flooded my life with gifts, jewelry, rare herbs, and entire territories placed under my name. He lit the sky with fireworks across the pack border for three nights straight just because I smiled once.
When I said I liked chestnut cake, he crossed frozen mountain roads alone to bring it to me. His hands were bleeding from frostbite when he arrived, yet he still smiled like it was worth it.
When my parents died in a rogue attack, he abandoned a war meeting with three allied packs just to come to me. He held me until grief had nothing left to take.
“I’m here, Clara,” he whispered back then. “You are mine. I will always protect what is mine.”
I believed him. I believed him so completely I gave him everything, my name, my life, my body, my bond.
Even after our twins were born, a son and a daughter, even after we buried their tiny bodies when they only had two winters in this world, I stayed. That was where something inside me finally stopped healing.
Nine months ago, I started noticing things. Her scent on him, on our couch, on the sheets I used to fold for him. At first I told myself I was imagining it, that my mind was turning on itself.
Then I heard her voice inside my home. Everything after that fell apart without sound.
I stood on the sidewalk gripping my papers because they were the only thing keeping me upright.
“Clara,” I whispered to myself, “how long are you going to stay dead while still breathing?”
No answer came.
So I got into the cab, told the driver to take me to the Willoughby Estate, not because I was going back to him, but because I was finally done pretending I still belonged to a man who had already given me away.
...
The moment I stepped into the villa, I felt it.
The air was off. Thick. Heavy. There was a scent clinging everywhere, sweet but rotten underneath. My wolf stirred uneasily.
My stomach turned before my eyes even found them.
Samuel was standing near the wall, adjusting silver ribbons and flowers for decoration.
And beside him… Ivy Rose.
She stood too close. Smiling. Watching him with that soft, claiming look that made my skin crawl.
When the door shut behind me, the sound echoed louder than it should have.
Samuel turned.
For a second, his hands stopped moving. Then he stepped down slowly and walked toward me, already changing his face. The cold Alpha everyone feared was gone in a blink.
His eyes softened. His lips curved.
That same smile.
The one I used to think was only for me.
“Clara,” he said gently, reaching for me. “Baby, why are you wearing so little? It’s cold tonight. You’ll get sick. Didn’t you go out with your friends? Why come home early? I was setting something up for you. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
A surprise.
My eyes lifted to his neck.
There it was. A fresh mark sitting right where my teeth used to leave mine.
My chest tightened so hard I thought I would break right there.
“Clara,” Ivy’s voice were sweet but sharp underneath, “you’re really lucky, you know that? My step-brother Alpha Samuel cares about you so much. He prepared all this just for your fifth anniversary.”
Her hand lifted and pointed. My gaze followed without thinking and there were gifts stacked neatly on the sofa. Boxes wrapped in silk, ribbons tied perfectly.
And underneath them, a dark, damp stain spread across the fabric.
That smell. That same smell that hit me the moment I walked in.
My fingers curled at my sides.
So this is what he calls love…?
Right here… next to the gifts he bought for me?
The pain didn’t come all at once. It spread slowly, sinking deeper until it reached somewhere I couldn’t touch.
I stayed quiet. What else was there to say?
Samuel walked closer. He opened a small velvet box and took out a delicate silver necklace, a moonstone hanging at the center. My Luna stone.
He stepped behind me and brushed my hair aside.
“Happy anniversary, Clara,” he murmured softly. “I had dinner prepared for us tonight. Just you and me. I thought… maybe it would make you smile again.”
His fingers were warm against my skin as he fastened it.
I felt cold. So cold I couldn’t even feel my own heartbeat properly.
I pulled away.
