Chapter 3

The pack healer's fingers trembled as she examined me, her eyes wide with shock.

"Luna Eva," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the crackling of the fire in the hearth. "You're—"

"Tell him," I said quietly, knowing Caspian stood in the doorway. I could feel his presence like a storm cloud hovering over us.

The healer's gaze flickered to Caspian's imposing figure. "Alpha, Luna Eva is with child. About six weeks along."

I closed my eyes, waiting for his reaction. My wolf stirred weakly within me, protective of the tiny life growing inside us.

Silence stretched for several heartbeats before Caspian's footsteps crossed the room. When I opened my eyes, his face was a mask of fury.

"Deception," he snarled, looming over me. "You've been hiding this from me."

"I only discovered it recently," I whispered, my hand instinctively covering my abdomen.

His laugh was cold, devoid of humor. "And you thought what? That a child would change things? That I would suddenly choose you over Meadow?"

The healer backed away, clearly wanting to escape the tension filling the room.

"Leave us," Caspian commanded without looking at her.

When the door closed, he grabbed my arm, yanking me to my feet.

"You've made this much more complicated than it needed to be," he growled. "A child complicates everything."

"Please," I begged, tears streaming down my face. "Don't hurt our baby."

"There is no 'our' anything," he spat. "There never was."

The next morning, he dragged me to the pack's sacred circle. The entire pack had been summoned, their faces solemn as they formed a ring around us.

"Caspian," I pleaded as he forced me to kneel in the center of the stone circle. "Please don't do this."

"I, Caspian Ward, Alpha of the Silvermoon Pack," he began, his voice carrying across the silent gathering, "reject you, Eva Diaz, as my mate."

The ancient words of rejection sliced through me like physical blades. My body convulsed as the mate bond began to tear.

"I reject your wolf, your mind, and your soul," he continued, each word driving deeper into my heart. "I revoke my claim upon you."

Pain unlike anything I'd ever experienced ripped through me. I screamed, my body arching as if in death throes.

"No!" My wolf howled in agony as our connection to Caspian began to sever.

The pain intensified until I felt something warm and wet between my legs. Blood soaked through my dress, spreading across the stone beneath me.

"My baby," I sobbed, clutching my abdomen as cramps seized me. "My baby!"

But Caspian's eyes remained cold, unmoved by my suffering or the loss of his own child.

Three days later, still weak from blood loss and grief, I was summoned to the pack's memorial grounds. Caspian stood by the sacred fire pit, something clutched in his hands.

"What are you doing?" I asked, dread pooling in my stomach.

"These belonged to a healer who served this pack faithfully," he said, opening his hands to reveal my parents' ashes in their ceremonial urns. "But you've brought shame to your family name."

"Please," I whispered, reaching for the urns. "They're all I have left."

Caspian held them away from me, his eyes cruel. "You no longer deserve to honor them."

With deliberate slowness, he tilted the urns over the fire pit. The ashes—all that remained of my mother and father—drifted into the flames.

"No!" I screamed, lunging forward only to be held back by two enforcers.

I watched helplessly as the last physical connection to my family burned away, my wolf curling into a tight ball of submission within me.

That night, I lay in my bed, empty and hollow. My wolf had retreated so deeply I could barely feel her presence.

"I won't stay here," I whispered to the darkness. "I won't let him destroy what's left of me."

The next morning, I found paper and ink in the healing den. With shaking hands, I wrote to the neutral territory healers.

"I seek permission to serve as a rogue healer," I wrote, "to tend to those in need between pack territories."

For weeks, I secretly corresponded with them, hiding the letters in my mother's old healing journals. Each night, after Caspian retired to his quarters with Meadow, I would add to my application, detailing my skills and experience.

One night, as I gathered my mother's hidden documents—the ones that had cost her her life—I found her final letter tucked between the pages.

"Eva," it read, "if you ever need proof of Caspian's corruption, look to the old treaty agreements in his private safe."

I clutched the letter to my chest, feeling something stir within me—not quite hope, but perhaps its distant cousin.

My wolf raised her head slightly, responding to the first spark of determination I'd felt since losing our child.

"We'll leave," I promised her silently. "And we'll make them pay for what they've taken from us."