The night Damon Blackthorne brought his pregnant mistress into our home, the whole pack was drinking to our ninth year as bonded mates.

I remember the silence first.

It came so quickly that it felt unnatural, like a door slamming shut inside every chest in the hall. A moment earlier, warriors had been laughing over cups of dark wine. Children of the senior families had been chasing each other between the long tables until their mothers hissed them back into their seats. The musicians in the upper gallery had been playing the old moon song, the one a Luna was supposed to dance to with her Alpha at the end of the feast.

Then the guards at the great doors stepped aside, and all of that stopped.

I sat at Damon's right hand in a silver gown that had taken two maids and one patient seamstress half the afternoon to fasten. The dress was not new. I had worn it on the night Magnus Blackthorne, Damon's grandfather, first called me the spine of Nightfall Pack. I had chosen it because this was supposed to be a night of memory. Nine years of mate bond. Nine years of treaty. Nine years of me standing beside Damon even when his shoulder was turned away from me.

Across the hall, the fire threw gold over the black stone walls of Ravenhold Keep. The Nightfall banners hung above us, black wolves stitched in silver thread. Beside them hung the moon-white tapestry I had woven from my own wolf's shed fur, a gift to Damon's ancestors and to the pack that had once taken in what remained of Moonvale.

It had cost me months of work. No one had asked how many nights I had sat alone combing loose silver fur from my wolf's coat, how many times my weakened spirit had trembled from the effort. A Luna did not do things so people would ask. A Luna gave until giving became the shape of her body.

Damon rose from his chair.

He was beautiful in the cruel way winter could be beautiful. Tall, dark-haired, broad through the shoulders, dressed in black formal leather with the Alpha chain across his chest. His golden eyes moved over the room without warmth. They had once made me feel chosen. Tonight they made me feel counted.

The woman beside him kept one hand over her belly.

Selene Marlowe was wrapped in cream wool trimmed with white fur. Her pale hair had been braided loosely, as if she had been too tired to sit still. Her blue eyes shone with tears that had not yet fallen. She looked fragile, frightened, and perfectly aware of every gaze in the room.

I knew her scent before Damon said her name.

Lavender. Sweet milk. The faint sharpness of healer's tonic.

For three years she had been at the edges of my marriage. A healer's assistant who needed Damon's help carrying trays. A singer who grew dizzy after feasts and somehow always leaned against his arm. A soft voice in the background whenever I called him from the war camps and he did not answer.

I had called myself jealous. I had called myself tired. I had called myself unfair.

I had never called her what she was.

Damon lifted a hand, and the last murmurs died.

"Her name is Selene," he said. "She is carrying my child. From tonight on, she will live in Ravenhold Keep."

The words were clean. That was what I hated most. He did not stumble. He did not lower his eyes. He did not dress the betrayal in apology or shame.

She is carrying my child.

I felt the hall turn toward me.

No one moved their chairs. No one gasped loudly. They were too well trained for that. But I felt their attention strike my skin. Elders, warriors, wives, servants near the walls. Every one of them waiting to see whether the barren Luna would break.

Barren.

They never said it to my face. They did not need to. I had lost my first child five years ago on the eastern ridge, when vampires cut through our flank and I held the line long enough for Damon's warriors to regroup. Seven weeks. Too early for the pack records, the healer said. Too early for a name.

Not too early for my body to remember.

Not too early for Damon to stop touching me as if I were something that might fail him again.

I set my wineglass down before my hand could shake.

Damon turned to me.

"Elara."

Once, I would have heard my name in his voice and searched for tenderness. I knew better now.

"Yes, Alpha?" I said.

A muscle shifted in his jaw. He hated when I called him that in the tone I used for council meetings. It reminded him that a mate could step backward and become a subject.

"Selene's pregnancy has weakened her wolf," he said. "She needs the main suite. You will move to the East Spire tonight. It will be quieter for you."

Quieter.

The East Spire was where widowed aunts were sent when their hearing went and their sons no longer wanted them underfoot. It had narrow windows, old drafts, and a view of the northern cliffs. No Luna of Nightfall had ever lived there while her Alpha still breathed.

Selene looked down at the floor. A tear slipped onto her cheek.

Damon continued. "She will also need guidance. Moon baths, meal rites, healer visits. You know the old ways. You will assist her until the child is born."

For a moment, I heard nothing.

Not the fire. Not the wind pressing at the high windows. Not the little intake of breath from Mara, my maid, who stood near the side wall with both hands clenched in her apron.

He was not only giving my room to the woman carrying his child. He was ordering me to serve her.

A part of me waited for the pain to arrive like it used to. Hot, frantic, humiliating. I had cried for less in the first years of our bond. I had cried when Damon forgot dinner. I had cried when he left for war without saying goodbye. I had cried when I smelled another woman's perfume on his shirt and let him tell me it came from a crowded infirmary.

This time the pain came cold.

It settled behind my ribs and made everything very clear.

My wolf stirred inside me. She was weak now, a silver thing curled in the dark, but she lifted her head.

Enough, she seemed to say.

I rose.

The hall tightened around me.

Damon watched with the faint impatience of a man expecting a familiar scene. He thought I would ask how he could do this. He thought I would remind him of our vows. He thought I would shame myself in front of the pack, and then he would grow stern, and I would apologize for making a public matter emotional.

I smoothed the front of my gown.

"As you command," I said.

Selene blinked.

That small surprise almost made me smile.

I turned away from the high table. My shoes made soft sounds against the stone. Every step felt separate from the last. I passed the first row of tables, then the second. A young warrior I had once nursed through fever lowered his eyes. His wife did not. She watched me with pity so naked I nearly thanked her for at least being honest.

Behind me, Damon gave a short laugh.

"Let her go," he said. "She has always been dramatic. By morning she will remember where she belongs."

A few men chuckled because their Alpha had chuckled.

I kept walking.

The corridor outside the hall was colder. Blue torches burned in iron brackets. My breath came easier there, away from the wine, the meat, the staring faces, and Selene's careful tears.

At the bend in the corridor, I stopped.

My knees wanted to fold.

I put one hand against the stone wall and waited until the weakness passed. Not grief, I told myself. Not yet. Grief was a luxury for women with locked doors and time.

I had neither.

My room still smelled of cedar and moonflower soap when I entered. The main suite had been mine for nine years. A wide bed with carved posts. A writing desk where I had answered petitions Damon never read. Shelves of treaty books. A small balcony where I had waited after battles, counting riders until his black horse appeared.

A life could look solid until someone told you to pack it.

I went to the wardrobe and pushed aside formal gowns, winter cloaks, and silk robes Damon had bought after arguments. Behind them, wrapped in plain brown cloth, waited a travel bag.

I had packed it three nights ago.

Two dresses. My mother's journals. A pouch of coins. The Moonvale signet. A folded draft of the Mate Bond Severance Deed I had written after the battlefield and hidden because hope was a stubborn, stupid thing.

My fingers touched the document through the cloth.

The first breath I took after that felt like mine.

A scratch came at the window.

I stilled.

Another scratch, sharper this time.

When I opened the latch, a black raven hopped onto the sill, rain shining on its wings. A tiny roll of parchment was tied to its leg with green thread.

Crosswind green.

Adrian.

I untied it with fingers that were steadier than they should have been.

If tonight is the night, send the bird back empty. I will come.

One line. No questions. No blame. No demand that I prove I had suffered enough to deserve help.

My throat closed.

Adrian Cross had been my friend before Damon was my mate. He had left the north under a stain that was never his, and I had been too young, too married, and too afraid to challenge the Blackthorne version of the truth. Still he had written to me once a year. Never telling me to leave. Never calling me foolish for staying. Only reminding me that somewhere beyond Nightfall, I was still Elara Vance.

I looked at the travel bag.

Then at the raven.

"Not yet," I whispered.

There were still keys in the Luna's office. Records. Seals. Proof. A woman who left with only pain could be dragged back by law. A woman who left with evidence had a chance.

I folded Adrian's message and tucked it into my sleeve.

At my throat, my mother's Celestial Locket rested warm against my skin. I closed my hand around it.

Downstairs, the feast roared back to life.

Tonight Damon had brought home his heir.

Tonight I began taking back my life.

Pregnant With The Alpha’s Twins, Claimed By His Rival — Chapter 6: I Had Already Planned to Leave

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