AMARA'S POV

My husband replaced me while I was gone.

Twelve months of war and sleeping with my blade as my only companion, dreaming of the day I could finally hold my son again.

That day finally arrived, but I never expected my son would call another woman "Mommy" and call me "Witch."

I stood in the throne room doorway, my heart threatening to burst through my ribs. There he was—my son, red-haired and beautiful, sitting on the floor playing with wooden blocks. He'd grown so much.

The bag of toys I'd carried across battlefields slipped from my trembling fingers and hit the marble floor.

I'd ridden through the night in blood-covered armor, the lone survivor of a war that had claimed every warrior who'd followed me.

Nothing mattered except holding my baby again.

I dropped to my knees, arms spread wide, tears already streaming down my dirt-streaked face.

"Baby," I whispered, my voice breaking on the word. "Mama's home."

He looked up from his wooden blocks, and for a heartbeat, the world held its breath.

His bright green eyes swept over me slowly, taking everything in. The torn armor. The dried blood. The bandages. The fresh scars. The hollow exhaustion etched into my face.

I must have looked like something dragged straight out of a nightmare, because the moment his gaze finally met mine, he screamed.

"Witch! Ugly witch!"

The word punched through my chest and tore something vital inside me. My son scrambled backward, his small hands slipping on the marble.

His face was twisted in pure terror, like I was the monster from his bedtime stories come to life.

"No, baby, please—" The words tumbled out desperately as I crawled toward him. "It's me. It's Mama. I know I look scary but it's me, sweetheart—"

But he fought me with everything his small body had. His fists beat against my chest, his nails scratched at my face, and he sobbed like I was trying to hurt him instead of love him.

"Let go! Let go of me!"

I couldn't breathe. The throne room walls seemed to close in around me. This wasn't real. This couldn't be real.

I'd survived twelve months of sleeping in mud and blood, of killing men who tried to kill me first, all so I could come home to this moment.

And now my own son didn't know who I was.

My wolf howled inside me, a sound of pure anguish that had nothing to do with physical pain and everything to do with a mother's heart shattering into pieces too small to ever put back together.

"Mama!" Jules suddenly cried out, his tear-streaked face lighting up with relief so profound it made my chest tighten with desperate hope.

He remembers. Thank the Goddess, he finally remembers—

Then he shoved himself out of my arms with all the strength his little body could muster and ran away from me, straight into the embrace of a woman standing in the doorway behind me.

Odessa, my mate’s cousin, stood there looking nothing like the sweet, timid girl who'd held my hand through labor pains.

She wore royal silks from my wardrobe, the deep elegant purple that had always been my color. Jewels from my family's treasury sparkled at her throat. Her hair was styled in the elaborate braids of a Luna.

I watched, frozen on my knees, as my son ran straight into her waiting arms.

"Mama, don't let the scary lady hurt me," Jules whimpered into her neck, clinging to her like she was the only safe thing in his world.

"Odessa." My voice came out as barely a whisper. Relief tried desperately to push through the agony, because at least she was here. She'd help me fix this nightmare. "Thank the Goddess you're here. Please, tell him it's me. Tell him I'm his mama—"

"Stay away from him." Her voice was ice cold, nothing like the gentle girl I remembered.

I froze where I knelt, my hands still reaching out into empty air. "What?"

"I said stay away. You're frightening him."

The words made no sense. This was Odessa. Sweet, kind Odessa who'd been like a sister to me. Who'd promised to watch over Jules while I was gone.

"Odessa, please—I don't understand. Why doesn't he know who I am? What's happening?"

"What's going on here?"

That voice made my heart leap in my chest despite everything. Elian. The man I'd loved since I was seventeen years old, when he was just a guard in my father's army.

The man I'd chosen over every noble suitor my father had paraded before me. The man I'd made interim Alpha so I could lead our warriors to war.

He'd fix this. He had to fix this.

I turned toward the sound of his voice, relief flooding through me. Elian strode into the throne room looking every inch the powerful Alpha I'd left behind.

He'd changed in my absence—filled out through the chest and shoulders, grown more commanding in his bearing.

Our eyes met. For one perfect, terrible second, I saw shock flicker across his handsome face. Recognition. Then something else that might have been guilt.

Then it was gone, replaced so quickly I might have imagined it. His expression shifted into something cold and empty.

"Elian?" I forced myself to stand on shaky legs, reaching for him with one trembling hand. "What's happening? Why doesn't Jules know me? Why is everyone acting like—"

He stepped back. One single step away from me.

My hand hung suspended in the air between us. The bond between us, the one that had kept me sane through twelve months of bloodshed, suddenly felt like it was strangling me.

My wolf whimpered, wounded by the rejection radiating from our mate.

"Elian, please—I don't understand. I came home. I won the war for us. For our pack. Why won't you—"

He walked past me, straight to Odessa, and I watched as he cupped her face in both his hands with a tenderness I hadn't seen from him in over a year. Then he kissed her.

Time stopped. The world stopped. Everything stopped except the sound of my heart shattering.

He kissed her. In front of me. In front of our son. In front of the Goddess herself.

My legs gave out beneath me. I hit the marble floor hard, the impact sending pain shooting through my knees, but it was nothing compared to the agony tearing through my chest.

The bond between us twisted and writhed, and I realized with horrifying clarity that this wasn't a mistake. This was a choice. He was choosing her.

When he finally pulled back from the kiss, he looked at Odessa like she was his entire world. Like she was everything he'd ever wanted. Like I had never existed at all.

"Elian, stop!" The words burst from my throat as I scrambled back to my feet. "What are you doing? She's your cousin! How could you kiss her like that? In front of me? In front of Jules?"

"She's not my cousin." The words came out casual, matter-of-fact, like he was commenting on the weather.

"What?" I looked frantically between them, searching for something that made sense. "What are you talking about?"

My son was handed to a maid who stepped away quickly, then Odessa laughed wickedly and walked toward me.

"The cousin story was a convenient lie, Amara. A cover so that no one in the pack would question why I was always here in your home. Why I was always so close to your family." She paused. "Why I was always in your husband’s bed."

The implication drove all the air from my lungs in one brutal rush. My wolf snarled viciously inside me, wounded and betrayed.

"How long?" My voice came out cold and flat, dangerous. "How long has this been going on?"

Elian moved to stand behind Odessa, his hand settling on her waist with casual possessiveness. The gesture was so natural that bile rose in my throat.

"We discovered we were fated mates the night you went into labor with Jules," he said without remorse. "The bond snapped into place while you were screaming in the birthing room, covered in blood and sweat. While you were bringing our son into the world, the Moon Goddess was showing us our future together."

The night Jules was born. While I was in agony. While I was giving him his son.

"The timing was perfect, really," Odessa continued, her smile cruel and triumphant. "You were so exhausted, so drugged from the pain medication I gave you—yes, I gave you extra, just to be sure—that you didn't question anything. You trusted me completely when I helped deliver your baby. Poor Amara didn’t even question why I showed up an hour late and smelling like her mate—wanna know a secret? Elian fucked me face down on your mattrimonial bed while you screamed for him in the labour room."

The betrayal crashed over me in waves, each one higher and more devastating than the last. My wolf howled inside my mind with such raw agony I thought I might shatter.

The words hit like blows, but I forced myself to stay standing.

"Fine. Keep your fated mate. Keep your lies. I don't care anymore—it's pathetic that I wasted years on a spineless coward like you. But Jules is my son. Give him to me and I'll leave. That's all I want."

"You think you can just take him?" Elian's laugh was cold. "You have no claim here anymore."

"The pack would never allow this," I said furiously. "I'm the previous Alpha's daughter. This pack is my birthright. My father built it from nothing—"

"The pack held a council three months ago," Elian interrupted smoothly. "They voted unanimously to strip you of your title as Luna. To remove you from the line of succession."

"That's impossible—"

"It's not impossible when their Luna abandons them," Odessa said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "When she leaves for an entire year without coming home once. Not even for Jules's third birthday. Not even when he was sick with fever crying for you. The pack needed a Luna who was actually here, so they made me their Luna instead."

"And me their true Alpha," Elian added. "Not interim or temporary. Your father's throne, your birthright, they are all mine now. Permanently."

The throne room spun.

"You convinced me to leave!" I said, my voice shaking. "You said the pack needed me at war. You said the rogue attacks were getting worse—"

"Funding those rogues bought me enough time to erase you from this pack," Elian said, examining his nails. "Honestly, you should have died out there and saved us all this trouble."

I couldn’t breathe. This reality crushed my lungs. My heart. My wolf. He'd paid for the war. The war that almost killed me.

My voice came out small, broken. "Did Jules at least get my letters? Did he know his mom never forgot him?"

"Oh, those adorable little letters?" Odessa clapped her hands together. "We made the most beautiful bonfire! Watching all your love curl up and turn to ash—honestly, it was therapeutic."

My wolf threw itself against the inside of my chest, trying to break free, trying to fight.

The throne room was spinning around me, the walls tilting at impossible angles.

"Tomorrow morning at dawn," Odessa continued pleasantly, like she was discussing dinner plans, "the pack will gather in the central square to witness your execution. For abandoning your duties as Luna. For abandoning your son. For failing everyone who ever depended on you."

"No!" I took a step forward and immediately guards materialized from the corners. "I didn't abandon anyone! You're the ones who—"

"Guards," Elian said simply, calmly. "Take her away."

I moved on pure instinct.

Years of combat training flooded back into my muscles. I ducked under the first guard's reaching hands, drove my elbow hard into the second guard's throat, spun away from the third with practiced grace, but there were too many of them.

And I was exhausted, wounded, running on nothing but desperation and a mother's love.

They overwhelmed me through sheer numbers, hands grabbing my arms and shoulders, pulling me down.

"Jules!" I screamed toward my son, putting everything I had into that one word. "Baby, Mama loves you! I never left you! I was fighting for you!"

But I felt the sharp sting in my neck before I registered what it was. Wolfsbane.

The poison hit my system like liquid fire, spreading through my veins with vicious speed.

My wolf threw her head back and howled with unadulterated agony, weakening, dying as the wolfsbane severed the bond between us.

My legs gave out completely. Only the brutal grip of the guards kept me from collapsing fully to the floor.

They began dragging me backward toward the exit, my boots scraping uselessly against the marble.

Through the wolfsbane haze, I watched Elian and Odessa turn away hand in hand.

But while my ex-mate walked away, Odessa paused at the doorway. Turned back. Her smile was the cruelest thing I'd ever seen.

"Oh, Amara?" Her voice floated sweetly. "There's one more thing you should probably know. It's such a shame you never got to meet your daughter. The twin you didn't even know you had."

The word barely registered through the wolfsbane coursing through my system. Daughter. Twin.

"There were two babies that night, Amara. Two cries in that birthing room." Her smile widened until it looked almost gleeful. "A boy and a girl. But you were so exhausted from the delivery, so heavily drugged from all the pain medication I gave you, that you didn't even notice when I took her away."

The darkness swallowed me whole before I could scream.