Chapter 2

The news of the Alpha’s death had spread like wildfire through the Silver Moon Pack.

Tears and despair were my constant companions as I was left to care for his aging parents, fend off nosy pack members, and deal with the financial mess Graham Wright had left behind. Unraveling the web of debts took ages, and in the end, I was rewarded with a lifetime of poor health and regret. My aura, already diminished from the forced abortion Graham had demanded, grew weaker with each passing day.

Then he reappeared, clutching a photograph of a woman I didn’t recognize. It felt like waking from a nightmare, only to find the Alpha glaring at me with resentment. In all those years apart, he had been living with Phoebe Snyder, his Beta and true mate. They had a pup together, but without the proper paperwork, they struggled to enroll him in the pack’s school, and he eventually fell in with a rogue pack. Graham held me accountable for everything, while Phoebe’s life ended tragically early, having waited in vain to become his Luna.

"It’s all your fault, all your fault..." Graham sobbed at my bedside, his alpha tone crackling with anger and guilt. He cataloged my alleged shortcomings, admitting he shouldn’t have treated me so poorly. He shattered my life, leaving me a widow in spirit for a lifetime. Despite being the Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack, he chose to run away with his lover and have a pup out of the mate bond rather than confront his mistakes and sever our bond properly.

His errors were just excuses for his own shortcomings. He had no right to point fingers at me. I was the collateral damage in this bond.

I averted my eyes, trying to bury the memories that weighed heavily on my heart. My colleague, a low-ranking Omega like me, wisely refrained from probing further. I tossed aside my coffee cup and slowly made my way to the pack’s registry office, where mate bonds were officially recognized or dissolved.

Graham had been waiting for quite some time, casting anxious glances at the door before refocusing on his phone. I smiled as I stepped inside, only to discover Phoebe had gotten there ahead of me. She stood shyly behind Graham, using him as a shield. Onlookers noticed the peculiar pair and teased them not to be so jittery. Graham’s face flushed with embarrassment. He didn’t correct them or respond, behaving like a self-conscious mate, sneaking occasional glances at Phoebe.

The truth was glaring, though I’d been blind to it in the past. Observing them now from an outsider’s vantage point, his feelings were unmistakably apparent.

"Alpha," I said, feigning indifference as I approached Graham. Phoebe murmured something and edged closer to him, clearly uneasy.

"Lucille, this is my Beta, Phoebe Snyder. Since I’m often occupied with pack affairs, she’s been assisting me directly," Graham explained, his tone formal but laced with a subtle softness when he mentioned her name.

Mentioning Phoebe seemed to erase the last bit of annoyance from his expression, leaving only remorse. The woman behind him had changed too; in my previous life, Phoebe had been confident and daring when she first joined the pack. Now, she lingered behind Graham, occasionally shooting me defiant looks. I knew those looks well; they were definitely defiant.

Things were taking an intriguing turn, but what caught my attention more was Phoebe showing up at the registry office herself, saving me the trouble of concocting a reason to drag Graham back.

Now Graham, without the mate bond officially binding him, was faced with a decision: would he embrace the love he’d been waiting for all along, or would he stick with our bond, only to run off later with his true mate?