POV: Serephina
The scent hit me the moment I walked through the front door.
Heavy. Musky. Wrong.
My wolf whined inside my chest, a sick feeling spreading through my stomach. I'd been doing border patrol for twelve hours straight, my paws still aching from running through frozen mud. All I wanted was to kiss my son goodnight and collapse into bed.
But that smell...
I knew that smell.
My hands started shaking as I climbed the stairs. Each step felt like walking through water. The scent got stronger—thick and sweet like overripe fruit mixed with sweat. Sexual pheromones. The kind that flood the air when wolves are mating.
Coming from the Alpha's quarters.
My quarters.
No. Please, Moon Goddess, no.
I'd survived seven years of Kael's cold shoulders. Seven years of sleeping alone while my husband found excuses to stay away. Seven years of pretending I didn't notice the way other she-wolves looked at him, or how he never touched me unless the pack demanded an heir.
But this? Walking in on it?
My wolf howled inside me, begging me to turn around. To run. To not see what I already knew was happening.
I kept walking.
The bedroom door stood half-open, golden light spilling into the dark hallway. Sounds drifted out—sounds that made my chest cave in. A woman's breathy moans. A man's low growls. The rhythmic creak of our bed.
Our bed.
The bed where I'd given birth to Thaddeus after three days of labor that nearly killed me. The bed where I'd cried myself to sleep more nights than I could count. The bed where I'd waited, month after month, year after year, hoping my mate would finally look at me with something other than disgust.
I should have run. Any smart wolf would have run.
I pushed the door open wider.
Kael had her bent over the bed—our bed—his hands gripping her hips as he thrust into her with a passion I'd never seen in seven years of marriage. Her auburn hair spilled across my pillows. Her moans filled my room. And Kael...
Kael looked alive.
His ice-blue eyes blazed with heat. His face twisted with pleasure. His whole body moved with desperate hunger, like he was starving and she was the only food in the world.
He'd never looked at me like that. Not once. Not ever.
I must have made a sound—a gasp, a whimper, something—because Lyssandra's amber eyes snapped to mine. She smiled. Actually smiled at me while my husband rutted her like an animal.
"Kael," she purred, not even trying to hide. "We have an audience."
He didn't stop. Didn't even slow down. Just glanced over his shoulder with those cold, cold eyes and said, "Serephina. We'll discuss boundaries later."
Boundaries.
Like I was the problem. Like I was interrupting something private instead of watching my mate destroy what was left of my heart.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. My wolf screamed at me to shift, to fight, to do something—but my body wouldn't move. I just stood there like a statue, tears burning down my face, watching the man I'd loved for seven years choose someone else.
Again.
And again.
And again.
"Mommy! Mommy!"
The voice shattered through my paralysis.
Thaddeus.
My five-year-old son came running down the hallway, his black hair messy from sleep, wearing his favorite wolf pajamas. My heart lifted despite the agony tearing through my chest.
"Baby—" I started, reaching for him.
He ran right past me.
Straight through the bedroom door. Straight to the bed. Straight to her.
"Mommy, you're back!" Thaddeus threw his little arms around Lyssandra's waist, beaming up at her like she hung the moon. "I drew you a picture at school today! Wanna see?"
The world tilted sideways.
Lyssandra—still catching her breath, still half-naked, still smelling like sex with my husband—pulled on a silk robe and scooped up my son. My son. The child I'd nearly died bringing into this world. The baby I'd hemorrhaged for. The boy I'd rocked through nightmares and fever and growing pains while his father found better things to do.
"Oh, sweetheart, I'd love to see it!" Lyssandra kissed the top of his head, and Thaddeus giggled.
He looked so happy. So comfortable in her arms.
He looked the way I'd always dreamed he'd look with me.
"Thaddeus," I whispered, my voice breaking. "Baby, it's Mommy. I'm right here."
My son turned his head. His ice-blue eyes—Kael's eyes—looked at me like I was a stranger. No recognition. No warmth. Nothing.
"Who's that sad lady?" he asked Lyssandra, pointing at me.
The floor opened up beneath my feet.
"That's just Serephina, honey," Lyssandra said sweetly, stroking his hair. "She's... nobody important."
Nobody important.
My knees hit the floor. I didn't remember falling. Didn't remember the sob tearing out of my throat. Didn't remember my wolf howling inside me with a grief so deep it felt like dying.
Seven years. I'd given seven years to this pack, this mate, this family. I'd survived the cold, the loneliness, the humiliation. I'd nearly died giving birth. I'd poured every drop of love I had into that little boy.
And he didn't even know my name.
"Serephina." Kael's voice was annoyed, like I was a servant interrupting his evening. "You're upsetting Thaddeus. Leave."
Something inside me didn't crack.
It exploded.
I ran. Shifted mid-stride—bones snapping, fur erupting, my small gray wolf bursting through shredded clothes. I hit the stairs at full speed, crashed through the front door, and ran into the forest like hell itself was chasing me.
Maybe it was.
I ran until my paws bled. Until my lungs burned. Until I couldn't remember which direction was home—not that I had a home anymore.
Finally, I collapsed beside a frozen stream, sides heaving, and howled my agony at the moon.
"Why?" I screamed at the Moon Goddess. "Why give me a mate who hates me? Why let me love a son who doesn't know me? WHY?"
The forest went silent.
Then I heard them.
Footsteps. Multiple sets, heavy and deliberate, crunching through snow. The sharp metallic scent of silver chains. Wolves moving in formation.
Hunters.
I struggled to stand, but my legs wouldn't hold me. Too exhausted. Too broken.
Six enforcers emerged from the trees, silver chains glinting in the moonlight. Garrett, Kael's beta, led them. His face was apologetic but determined.
"Luna Serephina," he said formally, and the title sounded like mockery. "You're under arrest for abandoning your post and neglecting your duties as Alpha's mate."
"What?" I couldn't process his words. "I didn't—I was just—"
"The Alpha has filed a formal complaint." Garrett nodded to his men. "You're charged with dereliction of duty. The sentence is trial by the Council."
They moved fast. Silver chains wrapped around my neck, my legs, burning through my fur like acid. Wolfsbane oil coated the metal—I could smell it, feel it weakening my wolf, forcing me back to human form.
I knelt there naked and shivering, chains burning my skin, while Garrett looked away uncomfortably.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "Orders."
They dragged me back through the forest. Not toward the pack house.
Toward the dungeons.
"Wait—no—" Panic clawed up my throat. "Garrett, please, there's been a mistake—"
"No mistake." His voice was flat. "The Alpha wants you locked up until the Council meets. Probably in three days."
Three days in the dungeons. The place where rogues went before execution.
We passed through the pack house courtyard. Wolves stopped and stared—some shocked, some pitying, some satisfied. Through the windows, I could see the bedroom. My bedroom.
Kael stood there with Thaddeus on his hip and Lyssandra at his side. The perfect family.
Thaddeus waved.
Not at me. He was waving at Lyssandra as she kissed his forehead.
And Kael... Kael looked right at me with those ice-blue eyes and felt nothing.
The enforcers shoved me down stone steps into darkness. A cell door clanged shut. The chains bit deeper into my skin.
I was still screaming when I heard new footsteps on the stairs. Slow. Measured. Ancient.
Isolde Varnoth descended into the dungeon like a queen walking into her throne room. Kael's grandmother. The pack matriarch. The woman everyone feared.
She smiled at me through the bars. Not a kind smile.
A smile that promised pain.
"Hello, child," she purred. "We need to talk about what you really are."