Even after three years bound by the Moon, Alpha Moises Blackwood and I still didn’t share a bed most nights.
He always had a ready excuse—something about hating the feeling of another body beside him while he slept.
But I wasn’t stupid.
It wasn’t people he couldn’t stand.
It was me.
I was a Luna only in title—never marked, never claimed, never welcomed under his covers. His wolf never brushed against mine. His scent never wrapped around me the way true mates instinctively did. I was an obligation he never meant to honor, a placeholder wearing a bond he treated like an inconvenience.
Yet with Veronica?
He was soft with her. Patient. Tender in a way he had never once been with me.
He probably had a whole explanation rehearsed for why she needed my room—something noble, something polite—but the moment I said “okay” without arguing, something shifted in his expression, like he didn’t expect compliance.
“No problem,” I said, keeping my tone airy. “Most of my things are still in there anyway. I’ll clear them out.”
What did it matter? Whether I moved out today or next week, the result was the same.
I wasn’t staying.
And I think he knew it too. Because when I mentioned I was taking everything with me, something—an instinct, maybe—flickered in his eyes. Like a protest almost rose to his lips.
But Veronica, ever eager to be center stage, chimed in with her honeyed voice before he could speak.
“Thanks, sis. You’re such a lifesaver… Luna Lyriana.”
I didn’t respond.
Didn’t trust my voice not to crack.
Instead, I bent down, wrapped my arms around the heaviest box, and turned toward the stairs. The weight strained my muscles and my fingers trembled from trying to hold it steady.
A shard of glass—hidden beneath the edge of a carpet—slid under my foot.
My balance vanished.
I crashed down hard.
My knee hit the floor first, skin splitting on impact. Razor-thin pieces of glass dug into my leg and palm, slicing deep enough to pull a gasp from my lungs. Pain jolted through me, bright and hot. My wolf whimpered quietly under my skin, distressed but exhausted.
Still, I made no sound.
Moises didn’t even glance my way.
Veronica hooked her arm around his, leading him toward the stairs like she was guiding her Alpha.
Maybe she was.
So I stayed there on the floor—on my knees, wounded, surrounded by broken glass and the weight of everything I’d been swallowing for years—while tears slipped silently onto the tiles.
There was a time when I thought those tears mattered.
When I thought someone—him—would notice.
But not anymore.
In the Blackthorn Packhouse, Moises never let Veronica lift anything heavier than a teacup.
“Our Veronica’s a little princess,” he’d always say with affection. “She deserves delicate treatment.”
And me?
Before they discovered I wasn’t the maid’s daughter, I scrubbed floors until my fingers cracked open. I hauled laundry, polished corridors, carried crates heavier than my own body.
I learned early:
No one was coming to help me.
If something hurt, I kept moving anyway.
Becoming the true-born Blackthorn daughter changed nothing.
Becoming Moises’s wife changed nothing.
Becoming the Blackwood Pack’s Luna changed nothing at all.
It took me the rest of the day to pack. Slowly. Methodically.
Box after box.
Memory after memory.
Pain tucked away in cardboard and tape.
By sunset, everything was loaded onto a truck.
“You didn’t need to get rid of so much,” Moises muttered as he walked past me. He sounded mildly annoyed, like my cleaning inconvenienced him. “Veronica’s only staying temporarily. Once she leaves, you’ll move back in. What was the point of dumping everything?”
To him, I probably seemed strange—too quiet, too calm.
“They’re things from the past,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I figured it was time to clear them out.”
He watched me, brows knitting slightly, like he was trying to decipher something on my face.
“You’re not wasteful,” he said slowly.
No.
I wasn’t.
I grew up with scraps, leftovers, hand-me-downs. I knew the value of everything I touched. None of the items I threw away were meaningless.
But I smiled faintly and replied, “Sometimes you need space for something new. You can’t hold onto what’s old forever.”
Like people, I thought.
Like bonds.
Like a marriage built on pretense.
He didn’t push further. If he did, it would only call attention to how little he noticed.
“There’s an auction tonight,” he said, changing the subject abruptly. “The organizers asked me to attend. You’ll join me. And Veronica too.”
I opened my mouth—ready to refuse—but he cut me off sharply.
“You’re my Luna, yes, but you’re also my assistant. I can’t show up without my secretary.”
A bitter laugh nearly escaped me.
So that was all I was tonight.
The assistant.
A functional role.
A title on paper.
A placeholder.
My throat tightened with unsaid truths—And what is she? Your mistress? Your Luna-to-be? What am I in this farce?—but I swallowed them down.
I nodded once.
One last performance.
One final duty before I walked away for good.
Night draped over the sky like velvet as we entered the auction hall. Crystal lights shimmered overhead, illuminating wolves draped in silk and tailored suits. Power hummed in the air like electricity. Wealth glittered from every surface. Secrets clung to the walls like perfume.
Moises walked ahead with perfect posture, letting Veronica thread her arm through his like she belonged there.
Calista, tonight’s host, greeted him with a radiant smile.
“Alpha Moises Blackwood! Your seat is ready. This way, please.”
She motioned toward a table set for two.
“I heard you’re married?” Calista said cheerfully. “The second seat is for your wife.”
There it was.
The moment I’d always known would come.
Silence stretched—sharp, suffocating.
Moises’s marriage had been kept quiet, hidden from society, tucked into the shadows the same way he’d tucked me away.
Two women. One seat meant for a wife.
And he didn’t even pause.
“I’m not married,” he said coolly. “Not sure who started that rumor.”
My heart didn’t shatter—it had broken so many times it no longer knew how.
But something inside me tightened—a cold, slow burn that spread through my ribs. Not shock. Not heartbreak.
Just clarity.
Calista’s brows lifted. “Then who are they?”
Moises took Veronica’s hand without hesitation.
“This is Veronica Blackthorn, daughter of Alpha Magnus of the Blackthorn Pack.”
Recognition flickered in Calista’s eyes.
Then Moises glanced at me like my presence annoyed him.
“And she,” he said blandly, “is my secretary.”
Not a flicker of emotion crossed my face.
I’d braced myself for this—for public erasure, for the brutality of being verbally unmade.
But preparation didn’t make the pain any duller.
I stayed standing behind them, straight-backed, chin lifted, every ounce of dignity stitched into the bones of my posture.
A Luna only in title.
A mate only on paper.
A ghost wearing flesh.
They took their seats.
I remained behind them—like staff.
A sudden stab of pain pierced my lower abdomen, sharp enough to make my hand tremble as it pressed against my stomach. I forced my breathing steady, each inhale weighted with betrayal.
I turned away from them, each step heavy, like wading through cold water. The room blurred at the edges as I walked toward the restroom—not gracefully, not with strength, but with the quiet, desperate retreat of a wolf backing away from a battle she knew she could no longer win.
For now.
