Rejected While Carrying His Heir

I am the Luna of the Blood Moon Pack, but my title feels like a cruel, twisted joke. I suffer from a curse no healer can fix: Wolf-Human Dissonance. While my inner wolf burns with absolute devotion for my fated mate, my human lips are cursed to speak only venom.

The wooden wolf totem felt heavy in my palms. I had spent months meticulously carving it for our Marking Anniversary, pouring every ounce of my silent love into the intricate fur and sharp eyes. When Dominic walked into our bedroom that morning, the dark circles under his eyes made my chest ache.

My inner wolf, Lyra, wagged her tail frantically, pacing at the forefront of my mind. *Mate!* she purred, her spirit practically vibrating with joy. *Tell him we love him! Happy anniversary!*

I smiled softly, stepping forward to hand him the gift. I opened my mouth, praying to the Moon Goddess that just this once, my human voice would align with my soul. I just wanted to say, 'I love you.'

Instead, my throat tightened. A familiar, sickening twist hijacked my vocal cords. My hand flew to my neck, my fingers digging into my skin as I tried to physically choke back the poison, but the curse was absolute.

"Another year wasted on a weak leader," I sneered. The words dripped with cold, unfeeling malice.

Dominic froze. The exhaustion on his handsome face twisted into raw, unfiltered anger. He ran his hands roughly through his dark hair, a habit he only exhibited when I pushed his patience to the absolute brink.

"Is that right, Daphne?" he growled, his voice thick with a hurt he tried to mask with dominance. "Parker spent all morning telling me pack morale is down because of my leadership. I come to my mate for a single moment of peace, only to get this?"

He snatched the intricately carved totem from my trembling hands and hurled it violently against the stone wall. It shattered into jagged, worthless splinters. He didn't look back as he stormed out, slamming the heavy oak door behind him. I dropped to my knees among the broken pieces of wood, clutching my throat as Lyra whined in silent, suffocating agony.

By evening, the silence in our shared quarters was unbearable. I couldn't speak my truth, so I wrote it down. *I love you. I am so sorry. The words aren't mine.* I folded the note tightly in my fist, determined to find him and force him to read it.

I tracked his familiar, intoxicating scent of rain and cedarwood across the territory. It led me away from the main pack house, toward the secluded guest cabins near the dark tree line. But as I got closer, my senses snagged on something wrong. Woven deeply into his cedarwood was another scent. It smelled exactly like my natural floral pheromones, but grossly exaggerated—cloyingly sweet, heavy, and entirely synthetic.

My hand shook as I pushed the heavy cabin door open.

The apology note slipped from my numb fingers.

Dominic was in bed. Tangled in the sheets with him was Mila Graham, a subordinate she-wolf who had always shadowed my every move. Her skin was flushed, and she was pressing her face into his neck, emitting that sickeningly sweet, fake scent of arousal that she had somehow stolen from me.

*No!* Lyra screamed in my head. The pain of our sacred mate bond being violated hit me like a silver blade driven straight through my ribs. Inside my mind, my fierce inner wolf dropped heavily to her belly, tucking her tail and howling in sheer, submissive grief. She was utterly shattered.

But the curse took hold. The dissonance violently ripped my human reaction in the exact opposite direction.

Instead of sobbing, I threw my head back. A cold, piercing laugh tore from my lips. My hands came up of their own accord, and I began to applaud.

*Clap. Clap. Clap.*

The slow, mocking sound echoed in the small room, freezing the air in horror.

Dominic scrambled out of the bed, his chest heaving. For a split second, I saw guilt flash in his dark eyes. He expected me to be broken, to cry, to show any sign that my heart was bleeding out on the floorboards. But my face was locked in an arrogant sneer, and the cruel laughter kept spilling from my mouth, even as my soul screamed for him to stop.

"You find this funny?" Dominic's voice was a low, dangerous rumble. His Alpha aura flared, instantly suffocating the small space.

I desperately tried to shake my head, to point to the crumpled note on the floor, but the dissonance forced a harsh scoff from my lips.

That was the breaking point.

"ENOUGH!"

The Alpha Tone hit me like a physical blow. The invisible soundwave of pure, unadulterated dominance crashed into my shoulders. My knees slammed into the hardwood floor with a bone-jarring crack. The sheer pressure of his aura wrapped around my windpipe, crushing it. I gasped for air, paralyzed, unable to move, unable to speak.

Dominic stalked toward me, his eyes flashing between deep brown and feral gold. He didn't look at me like his fated mate. He looked at me like a traitor.

"I am finished with you, Daphne," he growled, the vibration of his voice making my teeth ache. "I am tired of a mate who hates me. Who mocks me even when I seek comfort elsewhere because she refuses to give it."

He reached back and pulled a fake-cowering Mila to his side. She buried her face in his bare chest, shooting me a triumphant, wicked smirk over his shoulder.

"I need a Luna who knows how to submit," Dominic declared, his Alpha aura pressing me entirely flat against the floorboards. "Mila is my Chosen Mate now. You are nothing."

I lay there, suffocating under the crushing weight of his command, while my inner wolf slowly died in the dark cages of my mind.