Chapter 1
"Tonight's Luna Ascension is canceled. Seraphina Vale will assume the duties of Blackwood's Luna," Lucas announced from the ballroom stage without looking at me.
I stood ten steps away in the white gown I had spent 417 hours sewing. Seven silver moons climbed the skirt for the seven Blackwood Lunas before me, and more than three hundred wolves had gathered to watch me become the eighth.
For three seconds, the ballroom stayed silent.
"I knew she would never be Luna. She has been married to an Alpha for three years and still cannot shift," a woman whispered behind me.
"Lucas used to punish anyone who called her wolfless, but his grandmother was alive then. Blackwood needs a Luna now, not another girl for him to protect," another guest replied with a soft laugh.
They remembered the academy locker room, where two older wolves had cornered me when I was fifteen. Lucas had found me crying behind a broken door, taken off his coat to cover my torn blouse, and dealt with the boys so thoroughly that neither returned that term.
That memory had fed my love for years. Tonight, it made the humiliation worse.
Seraphina Vale stood beside Lucas in a fitted red gown, honey-blond hair falling over one shoulder. Above her heart gleamed a silver crescent surrounded by seven diamonds: the Moon Brooch Lucas had once promised to fasten on me himself.
My stomach clenched, and Lucas finally noticed. He stepped down from the stage and caught my arm.
"You skipped dinner again, didn't you?" Lucas asked under his breath.
That familiar concern nearly broke me. Lucas remembered that an empty stomach made me sick, that I slept cold, and that coffee before breakfast left me shaking, yet he had forgotten what tonight meant to me.
I forced myself to meet his silver-gray eyes.
"Are you really giving her my place?" I asked.
Lucas's thumb moved once against my sleeve, the same quiet gesture he used when my stomach hurt. He paused long enough to hurt.
"Yes," Lucas answered.
My vision blurred, and nausea rolled through me. Lucas's arm immediately circled my waist, but I pulled away.
"Don't touch me," I said.
Lucas froze with one hand still raised. Around us, guests watched with the hungry stillness of people who had waited years to see the wolfless wife finally put in her place.
Seraphina approached with her expression composed.
"Ivy, this is a political appointment. Your marriage to Lucas will remain exactly as it is," Seraphina said.
"At least she still gets to be Mrs. Blackwood," someone murmured nearby.
When another woman laughed, Lucas turned his head. One cold look from their Alpha silenced them both.
He had always protected me from everyone else. Tonight, he was the reason they were laughing.
"Why?" I asked, keeping my eyes on him.
"The Vale family controls the European channels we need, and Seraphina has the experience to manage Pack affairs. This is the best arrangement for Blackwood," Lucas explained in a lowered voice.
I looked at the brooch on Seraphina's chest.
"And what arrangement did you make for me?" I asked.
Guilt crossed Lucas's face before he reached toward my cheek. When I turned away, he let his hand fall.
"Nothing has to change for you. You are still my wife, and you will remain at the manor. I'll handle everything else," Lucas said.
He believed he had solved the problem: Lucas would rule, Seraphina would stand beside him, and I would keep waiting at home. It had never occurred to him that I could leave.
I pulled off my wedding ring and placed it in his palm. Lucas closed his fingers around my wrist.
"Ivy, don't do this here," Lucas warned.
"You chose here," I said as I reached beneath my collar with shaking hands and unclasped the thin silver chain I had worn for six years.
A tiny wolf fang dropped beside the ring. Lucas stared at the cheap gift he had given me after the locker room attack.
"You still had that?" Lucas asked.
"I thought it meant more than it did," I said before folding his fingers over both pieces, freeing my wrist, and walking toward the ballroom doors.
At the threshold, I looked back despite myself. Lucas had taken one step after me, but a Blackwood elder stopped him.
"Alpha, the Vale family is waiting for your formal confirmation," the elder reminded him.
Lucas hesitated. I had spent half my life turning his smallest kindnesses into reasons to hope, but that single pause finally gave me an honest answer.
I made it into an empty corridor before my stomach twisted violently. I braced one hand against the wall and retched until warm blood stained my palm and the front of the gown meant for my coronation.
Forty minutes later, I sat in a twenty-four-hour pharmacy bathroom with three pregnancy tests beside the sink. Every one showed two pink lines, while my phone displayed a message from Lucas.
"Come home. Your pills are beside the bed. Don't forget to take them."
For eighteen months, he had brought me water and watched me swallow those two white pills whenever the pain made me resist. I had mistaken that attention for love; now I covered my still-flat stomach and left the pills sealed inside my bag.
For the first time in eighteen months, I chose not to take them.