From the Ashes: The Broken Luna Returns

"Choose one," the Rogue leader laughed, holding a silver knife to my throat. Beside me, my husband Connor, the Alpha, looked between me and Gemma. I begged him through our mind-link. I was his mate. I was his Luna. But Connor turned his back on me. "Haven is strong," he said coldly. "Gemma is fragile. I choose Gemma." He walked away with another woman in his arms, leaving me to die in a factory filled with poisonous silver dust. To survive, I forced my broken body to shift and jumped into the freezing industrial river. I survived the water, but the life inside me didn't. The "miracle pup" we had tried three years for... was gone. When I dragged myself back to the Pack, bleeding and empty, Connor didn't smell my grief. He only cared that I had "scared" Gemma. He even used his Alpha Command to force me into submission when I tried to expose her lies. "You are jealous and heartless," he spat at me. He was right. My heart was dead. So while he was out hunting for his "missing" mistress, I set the Pack House on fire. I threw a single item into the safe zone for him to find in the ashes: the ultrasound photo of the son his betrayal had killed. Then, I turned my back on the flames and walked away to find the man who would treat me like a Queen.

Chapters

Chapter 5

Haven POV:

I managed to drive myself back to the Pack House. The pain in my stomach came in waves, like a tide pulling out to sea. I needed to tell him. Even if he hated me, he would care about the pup. No wolf could ignore their own offspring. It was instinct.

The Pack House was quiet. The guards let me in, but they wouldn't look me in the eye. They knew. The Alpha had stripped me of my authority publicly.

I walked up the grand staircase, holding the banister for support. I felt dizzy.

I headed toward his study. The door was slightly ajar.

"You have to get rid of her, Connor," Gemma's voice floated out. It wasn't the weak, trembling voice she used in public. It was demanding. "She almost killed me."

"I know," Connor's voice was soothing. "I've already contacted the lawyers. I'm drafting the rejection papers."

I froze. My hand hovered over the doorknob.

"But what about the George Pack?" Gemma asked. "If you reject her, the alliance she built with the western packs will crumble. Elliott George will attack."

"Let him come," Connor growled. "I don't care about politics right now. I care about you. You're the only one who understands me, Gemma. Haven... she's cold. She's forgotten how to be a woman."

"I haven't," Gemma purred.

I looked through the crack in the door.

Gemma was sitting on the heavy oak desk—the desk where I had signed the contracts that made this company a billionaire enterprise. Her legs were wrapped around Connor's waist.

She was kissing him. And he... he was kissing her back. Passionately. Desperately.

He wasn't pushing her away. He wasn't thinking about his duty. He was betraying me in the most absolute way possible.

"I love you, Connor," she lied. I could smell the deception from here, bitter like sulfur.

"I think... I think I love you too," Connor whispered.

My world shattered.

The pain in my stomach exploded. It wasn't a cramp anymore. It was a severance.

I felt the tiny spark of life inside me flicker. The connection to the pup—that small, warm light I had just begun to know—snuffed out.

Blood ran down my legs. Hot and sticky.

I opened my mouth to scream, to howl, to tear the door down. But the Alpha Command from earlier still echoed in my muscles, and the shock paralyzed my throat.

I slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor.

Inside the room, they continued. I could hear the sounds of their betrayal. The groans. The friction of skin.

I sat in a pool of my own blood, just outside the door.

"Madam?"

I looked up through hazy eyes. It was Martha, the head Omega. She was holding a basket of laundry. Her eyes went wide when she saw the blood.

"Oh, Moon Goddess! Madam!" She dropped the basket and rushed to me.

"Hush," I whispered, grabbing her wrist with a bloody hand. "Don't... call... him."

"But—"

"No," I gasped, the darkness encroaching on the edges of my vision. "He made his choice. Get me out of here. Please, Martha. Just get me out."

Martha nodded, tears streaming down her face. She was strong for an Omega. She scooped me up, avoiding the study door, and carried me down the back stairs.

As we exited the house into the cool night air, I looked back one last time at the window of the study.

The light was still on.

Goodbye, Connor Jones.

You didn't just kill our marriage tonight. You killed your heir. And you killed the white wolf.

I let the darkness take me.

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