Claire POV

I was already stepping out of the room, my vision blurring as tears welled in my eyes when Damian’s hand clamped around my arm.

“Don’t go and make a fool of yourself,” he snapped. “Everyone’s accepted her, including my mother, even the elders.”

My heart stopped.

“They did?” My voice trembled, and the sting in my throat deepened. “The elders… your mother?”

His jaw tightened. “Yes. Evelyn spoke with her today. She made her smile. She said Evelyn reminded her of her younger self.”

I staggered back, staring at him, stunned. “Your mother? The same woman who almost died while you were away? The one I stayed up with every single night? The mother I fed when she couldn’t lift a spoon, who I bathed and carried when the healers gave up?”

I could barely breathe.

“I kept your pack breathing, Damian. I held it together while you were out fighting. I didn’t abandon it. I didn’t abandon you.”

My voice cracked as hot tears poured freely down my cheeks.

“And I appreciate that,” he said, too flatly. Too easily.

“No,” I choked out. “No, you don’t.”

“You said you loved me,” I whispered, but the pain cut deeper with every word. “You said I was your world. That you could never live without me. This is what you meant?”

He closed his eyes briefly, jaw clenched, as if I were the problem.

“Why must you make this so difficult for yourself, Claire?” he hissed.

I stared at him, broken and boiling all at once.

“This has already been decreed by the elders,” he said, voice low but firm. “Even after Evelyn was brought to the pack, she agreed to stay in her own quarters. She won’t take your place as Luna. She doesn’t even care about the title.”

A bitter laugh tore from my throat.

“So I should be grateful then? Grateful that the woman you brought home while still bonded to me doesn’t care about my title? That the mother I nursed back to life has already replaced me?”

I folded my arms, keeping my tone even. “Do you think I enjoy running this pack house? Managing a territory this size isn’t a ceremony; it’s survival. Just the healer’s herbs for your mother cost more than most wolves make in a moon.”

He said nothing, his eyes looking nonchalant.

Over the past year, I had poured my inheritance, my wealth, every ounce of it, into this pack’s needs.

My inheritance given to me by my family, my family’s pride… all given freely for a future I thought was mine.

And now I was supposed to welcome a she-wolf who would tear that future in half.

Damian finally snapped. “Enough! I’m done arguing. I only came to tell you. Whether you accept it or not doesn’t change the outcome.”

I watched him walk away—no tenderness, no trace of the wolf who once swore to protect me. Just cold Alpha command.

I stood frozen, tears streaming down, until a thought struck me. Why cry for a man who could hurt me so easily?

I stood, wiped my tears, tore off the nightgown, and snuffed out every candle in the room before yelling for my maid.

“Yes, Luna? Do you need anything?” Nora asked, worry clear in her voice.

But she saw it.

The tears streaming down my face uncontrollably. “Get the documents of all the bills I covered for this pack. Gather every record. We’re going to the Alpha King for help. I’ll use them to prove how much I’ve done for him and his pack,” I ordered.

“But... Luna, what is going on?” she stuttered.

“Alpha Damian doesn’t want me anymore!” I lashed out. “He brought in another woman and asked me to accept her. After everything I had done for him?”

“I don’t believe he would do that after everything you’ve done,” Nora fumed. She had been with me since day one. She knew of my wealth, something not even the Alpha or his pack fully knew, despite all I’d spent on them. I never let anyone know, but Nora… Nora knew.

“I don’t think I’ll be Luna of this pack anymore. The elders have accepted the other woman. Let her take the role. Let her see how much work it takes.”

“But… your mother chose this mating. And before your father died, didn’t he want you to mate and raise a family?”

At the mention of my parents, a lump rose in my throat. My mother, once so strong, died clutching my hand after the massacre.

My father, the great Alpha of the Shadow Claw pack, had fallen at the Southern Border years ago, alongside my six older brothers. None of them returned.

I was his last daughter. And though I was born female, I was never weak. At seven, I was sent to the werewolf academy to train how to fight, how to lead.

At fifteen, I returned home to find only blood... and a dying mother gasping her final wish.

She gripped me with bloodied hands and made me promise to stay with Alpha Damian, bear children, live a safe, happy life.

The irony now cut deep.

“We’re leaving,” I said. Nora packed what we needed. I’d go to the Alpha King and request freedom from this bond. I would walk away with my head high with no pity, no broken heart.

Nora sniffled. “Luna… where will we go? Back to your father’s old lands? Or…?”

A flash of blood-soaked stones, twisted bodies of my kin, and that deafening silence sliced through me. My pack was gone. Returning wasn’t an option. That place would drag every memory back, every brutal detail I fought to forget.

I swallowed it down. “Anywhere but here.”

Nora hesitated. “If you leave now… that’s exactly what they want.”

I met her eyes, burning. “Then let them have it. If I stay, their lies will strip me down to nothing.”