Pregnant With His Heir, Buried by His Lies

After we sealed the blood-oath that bound our two bloodlines beneath the Moon Goddess, I went to collect the promise-tokens from the old mark-carver who kept his den on the edge of the eastern hunting grounds, the one who had forged the bonding-tokens for three generations of Valecrest Lunas.

What I found in the velvet-lined box made my blood run cold.

There were two tokens. One was mine. The other bore the mark of Thornecroft.

Vesper Thornecroft.

My intended, Dorian's, childhood she-wolf. The daughter of a rival pack's Beta-enforcer.

I carried the tokens home to the great estate at the heart of Valecrest territory, the legitimate seat of the bloodline, the one that appeared in the spirit network and at every Pack Gala under the full moon. I meant to question him. To demand answers with whatever dignity I had left.

Instead, I crossed the threshold of the heavy oak doors to find Dorian guiding a pup-bearing Vesper across the stone hall, his hand pressed to the small of her back with a tenderness I had never once been given.

The instant I stepped through the doorway, the two of them carried themselves as though they were the rightful heirs to this den. As though I were the trespasser on marked ground. Dorian's voice held the cold authority of a wolf who had never once been denied.

"Vesper needs someone to tend her now. You'll prepare her meals. Nourishing, nothing too rich. She's delicate." His dark eyes swept over me without a flicker of warmth. "She'll take the master den. Go gather your things."

I did not answer.

I no longer cared about the tokens.

I turned toward the east wing, toward the room that had been mine for nine years of this hollow arrangement.

My communicator shattered the silence. My mother's voice came through trembling, fractured by sobs.

"Seraphina... your father. They beat him. They crippled him. Come to the healer-clinic. Now."

I was out the door before the link went dark.

At the healer-clinic, I learned the truth.

It was Dorian.

My father, Garrick Duskmoor, the old patrol-warden who had walked the Valecrest borders for thirty years, had simply glanced up as Vesper passed. Nothing more. A moment's eye contact.

Dorian had erupted. He had his enforcers hold my father down while he beat him with his own hands, snarling that he was a degenerate, a deviant, a wolf who dared lift his eyes to what belonged to the Pack Heir.

I linked him from the clinic corridor, my voice steady despite the fury burning through my veins. Somewhere beneath my ribs my wolf paced, low and silent, hackles rising.

His response was ice.

"Your father frightened Vesper. His eyes were wandering, like some half-feral rogue. What if he'd upset the pup?" A pause. "How can you be so heartless, Seraphina? She's carrying a child, and you take his side?"

I said nothing.

I severed the link.

Then I called another number.

"The mating ceremony is off. Pull back the territorial claims we signed over to the Valecrest fronts. In seven days, I want both of them finished."