Pain greeted me before anything else.
It tore through my body the moment my eyes fluttered open—violent, merciless, like fire racing through bone and sinew. It felt as though my wolf had been dragged across scorched ground, her spirit scraped raw. This wasn’t just fractured limbs or damaged flesh. This was older than that. Deeper. A suffering that sank into the marrow and wrapped around my soul, forcing a broken cry from somewhere inside me.
My wolf whimpered faintly, her presence barely there, dimming like a coal on the verge of dying out. The emptiness she left behind terrified me more than the pain itself.
A woman leaned over me—human, unmistakably so. No pack scent clung to her, no familiar warmth of shared blood or wolf energy. Her touch was cautious, practiced, but foreign. When she pressed my shoulders gently back against the narrow cot, my instincts flared weakly, my wolf stirring in fragile protest at the absence of kin.
“Easy,” she murmured softly. “Don’t try to move. You’ve suffered a fractured ankle, severe bruising along your ribs, and multiple lacerations and burns from the collision. You need stillness. Rest.”
Her voice drifted past me, distant and unreal.
Collision?
Memory struck like a lightning bolt.
Lucien’s face.
Evelyn’s smile.
The falsified bond.
The Elders who turned away.
My brothers’ laughter as my world collapsed.
My feet pounding against the earth as I fled into the storm—
And the truck that came screaming toward me when my wolf failed to answer my call.
“How long…” My throat burned as I forced the words out. “How long have I been here?”
“Nearly a full day,” the doctor replied quietly, pity softening her gaze. Then she hesitated, and in that pause, dread coiled tight in my chest. When she spoke again, her words shattered me far worse than the crash ever could. “There was… another injury. You were pregnant. About two months. The trauma caused you to lose the child. I’m truly sorry.”
The room went hollow.
Pregnant?
My wolf let out a soundless scream, raking herself against my ribs as if she could claw reality apart. I hadn’t known. Not even once had Lucien touched me in a way that honored the Moon or the sacred bond wolves were meant to share. Ours was a union of ink and deception—no howls, no blood oath, no rites beneath the ancient oak.
And yet… my body had still carried life.
A cub that would never feel moonlight.
Never draw its first breath.
Never know warmth.
“I… I didn’t know,” I whispered, every word tearing me open anew.
The doctor asked gently if there was someone she should call. The thought made my chest ache.
Lucien—my husband in name only—had already chosen my sister as his true mate before the pack.
Silas and Bastian—my brothers, bound by blood—had stood by and laughed as I was erased.
Still, I was sinking, and even the drowning reach for something.
“My phone,” I croaked.
I tried calling him. Again. And again.
No answer.
No matter how many times I dialed, his voice never came. Eventually, the doctor returned and placed a woven basket beside my bed. “Someone brought this earlier,” she said. “Meals, healing herbs, and flowers. He said he’s the one who pulled you from the wreck. A doctor as well—though not human like me.”
Unease slid down my spine.
Someone had dragged me back from the edge when even my wolf had fallen silent?
Once alone, I reached for my phone again. My breath hitched as the screen lit up—not with missed calls, but with images flooding the pack feed.
Lucien.
Evelyn.
Silas and Bastian.
All of them smiling beneath unfamiliar lights, arms entwined, plates overflowing with food and drink. Celebration radiated from every frame.
The caption burned into my eyes:
“At last—time away with our real family. Long overdue.”
Real family.
The words ripped something apart inside me. My wolf howled in agony, a sound trapped entirely within my chest.
—
By morning, Lucien finally called.
His voice was laced with poorly masked alarm. “Arwen! Why didn’t you inform us you were hospitalized? We would’ve rushed back immediately.”
Us.
They came together—Lucien, Silas, and Bastian. Concern sat stiffly on their faces, but their scents betrayed them all.
Deceit.
Guilt.
And clinging to Lucien’s skin, the unmistakable sweetness of Evelyn’s perfume.
“I called you,” I said quietly. “More than once. Where were you?”
“Pack matters,” Lucien answered too fast.
Pack matters.
As though yesterday hadn’t been our anniversary.
As though he hadn’t abandoned me without a second thought.
He reached for my hand, murmuring reassurances that rang hollow, but before I could find the strength to pull away, Bastian burst through the doorway.
“Evelyn collapsed!”
Lucien stiffened. His eyes widened—and just like that, his hold loosened. He let me slip from his grasp, my injured body hitting the cold stone floor as he sprinted from the room without looking back.
Pain flared viciously as I lay there, discarded yet again. My wolf whimpered, unable to rise.
Then arms wrapped around me—firm, steady, nothing like Lucien’s.
Strong. Certain.
Through blurred vision, I saw him. Dark hair. Eyes glowing like smoldering embers.
“Theo Ravenscar?” I breathed. The healer from my past. The wolf who once watched over me… and vanished.
He brushed damp hair from my face, his touch anchoring. “You always did have a talent for running straight into disaster,” he said quietly, his voice calm and deep, carrying the resonance of the Moon itself.
I shuddered as his scent surrounded me—cedarwood and rain-soaked earth. Home. My wolf stirred, recognizing him instantly.
Theo leaned closer, his gaze unwavering.
“Arwen,” he said softly, “come with me. Leave this pack, these chains. Run beneath the Moon’s cover—and live free at my side.”
