Maya POV
I spent the morning scouring my skin until it turned raw. I tried to scrub the scent of him from my pores. I packed away the photos on the mantle, turning their faces to the wall.
Every item that even faintly smelled like him felt like poison.
I hid the evidence in a cloud drive, encrypted with a password Liam would never guess.
Suddenly, the front door opened.
Liam walked in, holding a bouquet of Moonflowers. My favorites.
"Hey, beautiful," he said, flashing that smile. The smile that used to make me melt. Now, it just looked like a mask painted over a rotting skull.
He moved to hug me. My body went rigid instinctively. I stepped back.
He paused, confused, his arms falling to his sides. "Everything okay?"
"I'm just... tired," I lied, forcing a weak smile. "Pack business."
"You work too hard," he crooned. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek black credit card. "Here. Go buy yourself something nice. You deserve it, my Luna."
A black card.
He was buying my silence before I had even spoken. He was paying penance for his guilt.
"Thanks," I said, my voice flat.
His eyes flickered with annoyance-just for a second-before the mask slipped back into place. "I have to head out. Emergency border patrol. I might be late."
"Of course," I said. "Go."
He leaned in and kissed my cheek. I wanted to scrub the skin off with steel wool the moment he pulled away.
He left. I watched from the window as his car disappeared down the drive. He wasn't going to the border. He was going to her.
My stomach churned again. It wasn't just disgust. It was a physical sickness that had been plaguing me for days.
A delivery drone buzzed at the window, startling me. I opened the latch and retrieved a small package. No return address.
Inside was a velvet box. I flipped the lid.
An engagement necklace.
It was old silver, heavy and ornate, bearing the Goldstein family crest. It was the necklace the Alpha gave to his true chosen mate. I had never received one. Liam had always claimed it was "lost."
Underneath it was a printed photo of an ultrasound. A red circle was drawn explicitly around the fetal heartbeat.
And a note, handwritten in elegant script:
Liam says this is his 'transition' gift to you. You don't matter anymore, Maya. He loves me. And our child.
The room spun violently.
I looked at the necklace. I looked at the note.
My hand went to my stomach. The nausea. The fatigue. The missed cycle I had ignored because of stress.
I ran to the bathroom again, heaving. I dug through the cabinet for a pregnancy test I had bought months ago, hoping for a surprise back then.
I sat on the cold tile floor, waiting.
Three minutes felt like three centuries.
I flipped the stick over.
Two pink lines.
Pregnant.
I was pregnant with the child of a man who was planning to replace me.
The world tilted on its axis. I wasn't just losing a husband. I was bringing a life into a war zone.
