My body slammed to the ground, soil and dried leaves scraping against my bare skin as Vincent's massive wolf form towered over me. His muzzle was covered in my blood, eyes glowing with a hatred I'd never seen before.
"Vincent, please!" I begged, my hands desperately trying to cover the wounds in my stomach. "Why are you doing this? Our baby..."
He shifted back to human form, his naked body splattered with my blood. The man I'd loved for three years looked down at me with disgust.
"You still don't understand, do you?" He crouched beside me, grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking my head back. "There was never going to be a happy ending for us, Seraphina."
My vision blurred with tears as pain radiated through my body. "I don't understand... I've been nothing but loyal to you..."
Vincent laughed—cold and hollow. "Loyal? Like a pathetic dog. Did you really think I loved you? You were nothing but a convenient vessel. The daughter of powerful werewolves, adopted into our pack. I needed your bloodline for strong offspring."
"But I'm pregnant now," I whispered, feeling warm blood seeping between my fingers as I clutched my stomach. "You have your heir—"
"Too late." His fingers tightened in my hair. "Three years, Seraphina. Three years of forcing myself to touch you, to pretend you were enough. I've found my true mate now."
The world seemed to stop. "True mate? Who—"
"Does it matter? She's everything you're not. We've waited long enough." He dragged me closer to the cliff's edge, my body leaving a trail of blood on the ground. "But we couldn't risk you telling the pack elders about the pregnancy, claiming rights for your offspring."
Realization dawned with sickening clarity. He'd brought me here to kill me—to kill our baby. My eyes widened as his claws extended once more.
"No! Vincent, no—" My scream tore through the night as his hand plunged into my abdomen again, twisting inside me with precise cruelty.
Something vital ripped inside me. A different kind of pain—deeper, more devastating—burned through my core as I felt him tearing out a piece of my womb.
"There," he said, holding something small and bloody in his hand. "No more heir."
My vision darkened at the edges as I stared at the tiny form of my unborn child in his palm. My baby. Murdered before it could take its first breath.
"Why?" It was all I could manage through my tears.
"The elders wouldn't approve of me rejecting you for my true mate. But now?" He shrugged. "I'll tell them you lost control during a full moon run and fell to your death. A tragic accident."
The cool night air hit my face as he dangled me over the edge of the cliff, my blood dripping into the darkness below.
"Goodbye, Seraphina."
He released my hair, and I fell.
Wind rushed past me as the darkness swallowed me whole. I didn't scream. There was nothing left inside me but a hollowness where my heart used to be.
My last thought before hitting the ground was of the tiny, bloody form in Vincent's hand.
My baby.
Gone.
***
Pain. Endless, pulsing pain. It consumed every inch of my body, anchoring me to a reality I no longer wanted to be part of.
I wasn't supposed to wake up.
"She's coming around," a voice murmured nearby. "Get the Alpha."
I tried to open my eyes, but only one responded. The other remained sealed shut, throbbing with agony. The ceiling above me was unfamiliar—rough wooden beams and shadows.
"Where..." My voice was barely a whisper, my throat raw.
"You're safe, girl." An elderly woman appeared in my limited field of vision. "We found you by the river three days ago, half-dead."
River. The cliff. Vincent.
My hands flew to my stomach, finding thick bandages where my baby had been.
"My child," I choked out. "My baby—"
The woman's face fell, her eyes filling with pity. "I'm sorry. There was nothing we could do."
A strangled sound escaped me—half sob, half scream. I clawed at the bandages, needing to see, to know for certain.
"Don't!" she said, grabbing my wrists. "You'll tear your stitches."
"Tell me," I demanded, my voice stronger now, fueled by desperation. "What happened to my baby?"
She hesitated, then sighed heavily. "Whatever happened to you before you fell... your womb was destroyed. The pup didn't survive. I'm sorry, but you'll never bear children again."
The words hit me like physical blows. Never bear children. My baby, murdered. My future, stolen.
"Who..." I struggled to form coherent thoughts through the fog of grief and pain. "Who are you? Where am I?"
"You're with the River Valley pack. I'm their healer, Elara." She dabbed my forehead with a cool cloth. "And you are?"
I opened my mouth to respond, then stopped. Seraphina was dead. The Luna who had loved so foolishly, who had trusted so completely—she had died on that cliff.
"I don't remember," I lied.
Elara's eyes narrowed slightly, but she nodded. "The head trauma could explain that. Rest now. Our Alpha will want to speak with you when you're stronger."
She left me alone with my thoughts, with my grief, with the hollow space inside me where life would never again take root.
I raised a trembling hand to my face, feeling rough bandages and tender, swollen flesh. My fingers traced a long, jagged line from my hairline down across my eyebrow.
I was scarred. Broken. Empty.
And Vincent was alive, celebrating with his true mate while I lay here, shattered beyond repair.
For the first time since waking, I felt something other than pain.
Rage.
Cold, crystalline rage that pulsed through my veins like ice water.
He would pay. They would all pay.
***
Two weeks passed in a haze of pain and nightmares. My body healed slowly—too slowly. Without a she-wolf to accelerate my recovery, I remained weak, my wounds closing at a human pace.
I learned from whispered conversations that the River Valley pack had found me washed up on their territory, barely alive. They'd taken me in out of mercy, but that mercy was wearing thin.
"She's eating our resources," I overheard one council member tell the Alpha. "No wolf, no pack to claim her. She'll be nothing but a burden."
"We can't just throw her out," the Alpha argued. "Look at her face, her condition. She'll never survive alone."
My fingers traced the scar that now ran from my hairline down across my left eye to my cheekbone. The wound had been deep, leaving a raised, angry line that pulled at my skin. Another scar marred my right cheek—smaller but no less visible.
I was no longer the beautiful Luna of the Autumn Forest pack. I was a disfigured nobody.
That night, I slipped out of the pack's infirmary. They had shown me kindness, but I wouldn't be their burden. And I had unfinished business.
With what little strength I had recovered, I made my way through the forest, guided by the stars and the burning need for answers. For three days, I traveled, resting when I had to, pushing my broken body beyond its limits.
Finally, I reached the borders of what had once been my home.
The Autumn Forest pack territory stretched before me, familiar yet now foreign. I pulled the hood of the cloak I'd stolen lower over my face and slipped through the trees, careful to stay downwind of any patrols.
Night had fallen by the time I reached the main village. Lights blazed from the community hall, laughter and music spilling into the darkness.
A celebration?
I crept closer, keeping to the shadows, and peered through a window.
My heart stopped.
There, in the center of the room, stood Vincent—my mate, my Alpha, my betrayer—beaming with pride. Beside him stood Amelia, my best friend, wearing a ceremonial dress and a radiant smile.
"Today marks a new beginning for our pack!" Vincent's voice carried through the glass. "I present to you your new Luna, my true mate, Amelia!"
The crowd cheered as he pulled her into a passionate kiss.
My best friend. My mate. Together.
The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity. The strange behavior, the secrets, the distance. While I had devoted myself to being the perfect Luna, they had been lovers behind my back.
For how long? Months? Years? Had they been laughing at me all along?
I stumbled back from the window, bile rising in my throat. The betrayal cut deeper than Vincent's claws ever could.
I waited in the forest until the celebration ended, watching pack members stagger home drunk and happy. Finally, the lights in the Alpha house—my former home—dimmed except for the bedroom.
Our bedroom.
Moving like a ghost, I slipped through the back door using the key I'd kept hidden in a hollow tree for emergencies. The house smelled different now—Amelia's scent intertwined with Vincent's where once mine had been.
I climbed the stairs silently, my heart a dead weight in my chest. Outside the bedroom door, I paused, listening to their voices.
"Do you think anyone suspects?" Amelia asked, her voice breathy with what I recognized as post-coital satisfaction.
"About Seraphina?" Vincent laughed—a sound that once brought me joy now twisted my gut with hatred. "They all believe she had an accident. Poor, clumsy Luna, so devastated by her infertility that she wasn't careful during her run."
"Three years we waited," Amelia sighed. "Worth it, though. The pack respects you more for trying to make it work with her before accepting your true mate."
"I just wish she hadn't told me about the pregnancy that night. Made things messier than they needed to be."
My fingers curled into fists, nails cutting into my palms.
"Do you think she suffered when she fell?" Amelia's voice held no concern, just morbid curiosity.
"Who cares? She's gone, and good riddance. No more having to pretend her scars were beautiful, no more forcing myself to touch her when all I wanted was you."
Scars? I had no scars before that night. Had he been lying about finding me beautiful all along?
"And her obsession with those creepy crows," Amelia added with a laugh. "Remember how she thought she could communicate with them? Goddess, she was strange."
"Let's not talk about her anymore," Vincent said. "She's dead. We're together. The pack is stronger without that weak, foreign blood tainting our bloodline."
Something snapped inside me. The rage I'd been nursing exploded into something darker, something primal. Power surged through my veins—not the power of a wolf, but something else. Something ancient and merciless.
I pushed open the door.
They froze mid-embrace, naked on the bed—our bed—staring at the hooded figure in their doorway.
Slowly, I lowered my hood.
Amelia screamed.
Vincent's face drained of color. "No... it's not possible. You're dead!"
"Not quite," I said, my voice eerily calm even to my own ears. "Though not for your lack of trying."
"Seraphina?" Amelia clutched the sheet to her chest, her eyes wide with horror as she took in my scarred face. "Your face... what happened to you?"
"Ask your mate," I spat the word like poison. "Ask him about how he tore our unborn child from my body before throwing me off a cliff."
Vincent was already shifting, his features contorting as he prepared to attack. "You should have stayed dead!"
I laughed—a cold, broken sound that seemed to chill the air around us. "Yes, I should have. But then I wouldn't get to return the favor."
Something strange happened then. As Vincent lunged toward me, halfway through his shift, the shadows in the room seemed to deepen, to move. A crow's caw echoed in my mind, though no bird was present.
And I felt something awaken inside me—something that had nothing to do with a wolf.
Vincent faltered, his eyes widening with fear as darkness gathered around me like a cloak.
"What are you?" he whispered.
I smiled, feeling the pull of my scars stretching the expression into something grotesque. "I'm your worst nightmare."
And I lunged.