For ten years, I served as the Alpha's hidden partner, using my research to make his pack rich, waiting for the day Ethan would finally Mark me. Instead, I found him on the balcony, cradling another woman's baby bump. He announced Chloe as his Luna because she was carrying his "heir." But I knew the truth. As the head researcher, I had seen Chloe's medical files-she had a hysterectomy years ago. It was physically impossible for her to be pregnant. I rushed to the banquet to warn Ethan that he was being deceived. He didn't listen. "Silence!" he roared, using the Alpha Command to force me to the ground until my knees shattered on the marble floor. He branded me a traitor to protect his mistress. But the cruelest twist wasn't his betrayal. It was the secret I carried in my own womb. I was the one pregnant with his true heir. While I lay broken in the dungeon, Ethan authorized a surgery to harvest my kidney to "save" Chloe's failing health. In doing so, he killed his own child to sustain a lie. With the last of my strength, I looked at the stone ceiling and severed our bond. "I, Ava Miller, reject you, Ethan Reed." He thought I died in that cell. He was wrong. I returned a year later, not as a servant, but as the Luna of the most powerful rival pack. And when Ethan saw me on the global stage, holding another Alpha's hand, he fell to his knees and screamed my name.
For ten years, I served as the Alpha's hidden partner, using my research to make his pack rich, waiting for the day Ethan would finally Mark me.
Instead, I found him on the balcony, cradling another woman's baby bump.
He announced Chloe as his Luna because she was carrying his "heir."
But I knew the truth. As the head researcher, I had seen Chloe's medical files-she had a hysterectomy years ago. It was physically impossible for her to be pregnant.
I rushed to the banquet to warn Ethan that he was being deceived.
He didn't listen.
"Silence!" he roared, using the Alpha Command to force me to the ground until my knees shattered on the marble floor.
He branded me a traitor to protect his mistress.
But the cruelest twist wasn't his betrayal. It was the secret I carried in my own womb.
I was the one pregnant with his true heir.
While I lay broken in the dungeon, Ethan authorized a surgery to harvest my kidney to "save" Chloe's failing health.
In doing so, he killed his own child to sustain a lie.
With the last of my strength, I looked at the stone ceiling and severed our bond.
"I, Ava Miller, reject you, Ethan Reed."
He thought I died in that cell.
He was wrong.
I returned a year later, not as a servant, but as the Luna of the most powerful rival pack.
And when Ethan saw me on the global stage, holding another Alpha's hand, he fell to his knees and screamed my name.
Chapter 1
Ava POV
The overhead fluorescent lights of the laboratory hummed, a consistent, electric drone that usually acted as white noise to sharpen my focus.
Tonight, however, it felt like a trepanation drill boring directly into my skull.
I stared into the microscope, my eyes burning grit and fatigue. I had been stationed here for thirty-six hours straight.
The Moonstone Pack needed this gene therapy. Our warriors were suffering from degrading vitality, and as the head researcher-and the Alpha's hidden partner-it was my burden to fix it.
*Ava, are the results ready? I need them for the board meeting tomorrow morning. Don't disappoint me.*
The voice echoed in my head, frigid and demanding. It was Ethan.
*Mind-Link.* The telepathic bond shared by pack members. Usually, it is a source of comfort, a communal hum. With Ethan, it was a leash.
*I'm working on it, Alpha,* I replied, carefully keeping my mental tone pliant and submissive. *It will be done.*
*Good. Stay there until it is finished.*
The connection clicked shut. No "thank you." No "how are you." Just an order.
My Inner Wolf, a creature usually dormant due to the heavy suppressants I took, gave a whimper of bone-deep exhaustion.
*He is our Mate,* she whispered weakly, curling into a ball in the back of my mind. *We should please him.*
"He doesn't treat us like a Mate," I muttered to the empty room, adjusting the fine focus knob.
My computer pinged. A notification slid onto the screen: an encrypted email from an anonymous sender.
My heart skipped a beat. I shouldn't open it. But curiosity is a dangerous, insatiable thing.
I clicked the attachment.
And the world simply stopped.
Photos. High resolution. They were taken from a distance, yet sharp enough to eviscerate me.
There was Ethan, my Fated Mate, the Alpha of the Moonstone Pack. He was standing on the private balcony of the Pack House.
But he wasn't alone.
Chloe, the daughter of a visiting Beta from the Silver Lake Pack, stood next to him. She looked radiant in a shimmering silk dress.
Ethan's hand-the hand that rarely touched me with anything other than impatience-was resting gently, reverently, on Chloe's stomach.
Her stomach was swollen. A baby bump.
The caption read: "The Future Luna and her Alpha Heir."
I stopped breathing.
My Inner Wolf let out a howl of pure agony that vibrated through my very bones. It felt like a physical blow, a sledgehammer to the chest.
*No,* I told myself, shaking violently. *This is a mistake. Ethan is my Fated Mate. The Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes.*
I clicked to the next photo.
Ethan was kissing Chloe's forehead. His eyes were closed, his expression peaceful. It was a look of tenderness I had never seen directed at me in the ten years I had served him.
Even through the digital pixels, I imagined I could smell it. The sickeningly sweet commingling of their scents.
"Luna." "Heir."
The words bounced around my empty lab like ricocheting bullets.
Ten years. I had found Ethan when I was eighteen. I felt the spark. I smelled the scent-like rain on hot asphalt. I knew he was mine.
But he told me to wait.
"The Pack comes first, Ava," he had said. "I can't mark you yet. You're an Omega. The Elders won't accept it. Just help me build the Pack, and when the time is right, I will claim you."
So I waited. I worked. I gave up my scholarship to the top medical university. I buried myself in this lab, creating patents that made Ethan rich and the Pack powerful.
And now?
I was still just "Ava the researcher." No Mark on my neck. No ring on my finger.
Tonight was the Victory Banquet. Celebrating the new trade deal whose logistics I had single-handedly orchestrated.
I wasn't invited to sit at the high table. I was told to come late, only after my work was done.
I stood up, my legs trembling. I had to see. I had to know.
I left the lab, sprinting through the dark corridors toward the Alpha's mansion.
The banquet hall was exploding with noise and the thick scent of roasted meat and expensive wine.
I slipped in through the side door, sticking to the shadows. I was wearing my lab coat over a plain grey dress, looking like a spectre haunting the living.
There he was.
Ethan stood on the raised dais. He looked magnificent in his tuxedo, power radiating off him like heat from a blast furnace.
"I want to thank everyone for their hard work," Ethan boomed, his voice amplified by the microphone. "This Pack is stronger than ever!"
The crowd cheered.
Ethan turned. He didn't look for me. He reached out his hand.
Chloe stepped forward. She wore a moon-white gown that hugged her curves and the small, distinct bump of her belly.
She took his hand. Ethan smiled. It wasn't the polite smile of a host. It was the possessive smile of a father.
"She looks beautiful," a female Omega whispered near me.
"I heard the announcement is coming tonight," another whispered back. "She's carrying the Alpha Heir. That makes her Luna by default."
"What about Ava?"
"Ava? Please. She's a lab rat in a skirt. Ethan needs a real Luna. Someone with status."
My stomach lurched. Acid rose in my throat.
My Inner Wolf was scratching at the walls of my mind, desperate to shift, desperate to attack, desperate to flee.
I couldn't breathe. The air was too thick with the scent of perfume and lies.
I turned and ran.
I burst out into the garden, gasping for the cold night air. The wind bit at my exposed skin, but I couldn't feel the chill. I felt only the searing fire of betrayal.
I leaned against an old oak tree, sliding down untill I hit the dirt.
"Ten years," I whispered to the grass. "For what?"
I remembered the night of the rogue attack three years ago. Ethan had been injured. I stayed by his bedside for three days, stitching him up, feeding him broth.
He had whispered then, *Ava, you are my only Luna. I need you.*
Lies. All of it.
Voices drifted from the balcony above me.
I froze. It was them.
"Ethan," Chloe's voice was high and sugary. "You need to announce it soon. My father is getting impatient."
"I know, my love," Ethan's voice was deep, rumbling. "Just let me handle the board. Once the gene therapy patent is filed under my name, we will have total control."
"And Ava?" Chloe asked. "She's smart. She might suspect."
"Ava does what she is told," Ethan scoffed. "She's obsessed with me. She'll believe whatever lie I feed her. Besides..."
He paused. I could hear the smirk in his voice.
"She's just an Omega. Who would believe her over me?"
"Just make sure she stays away from me," Chloe said, her voice dropping to a fake whimper. "I don't want that low-blood near our baby. She's... dirty."
"Don't worry," Ethan murmured. "Once I have the patent, I'll arrange for her to be... relocated. You are the only Luna I need."
My heart didn't break. It pulverized into dust.
*Relocated.* That was Alpha code for exiled. Or worse.
He was going to steal my life's work, install his mistress as Luna, and throw me away like garbage.
The tears dried on my face instantly. My skin went cold.
I stood up. The trembling stopped.
If he thought I was just a submissive Omega, he was wrong.
I wasn't just Ava Miller. I was the smartest wolf in this Pack.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. My fingers hovered over a contact.
Dr. Ben Carter. The Pack Doctor. My only friend.
I opened the Mind-Link, but not to Ethan. I focused my thoughts, honing them sharp as a surgical scalpel, toward Ben.
*Ben,* I projected. *Meet me in my lab. Now. Bring your medical kit. And Ben? Tell no one.*
I stared up at the balcony where my Mate was kissing another woman.
*Enjoy your victory, Alpha,* I thought. *Because it's the last one you'll ever have.*
Chapter 1
10/12/2025
Chapter 2
10/12/2025
Chapter 3
10/12/2025
Chapter 4
10/12/2025
Chapter 5
10/12/2025
Chapter 6
10/12/2025
Chapter 7
10/12/2025
Chapter 8
10/12/2025
Chapter 9
10/12/2025
Chapter 10
10/12/2025
Chapter 11
10/12/2025
Chapter 12
10/12/2025
Chapter 13
10/12/2025
Chapter 14
10/12/2025
Chapter 15
10/12/2025
Chapter 16
10/12/2025
Chapter 17
10/12/2025
Chapter 18
10/12/2025
Chapter 19
10/12/2025
Chapter 20
10/12/2025
Chapter 21
10/12/2025
Chapter 22
10/12/2025
Chapter 23
10/12/2025
Chapter 24
10/12/2025
Chapter 25
10/12/2025
Chapter 26
10/12/2025
Chapter 27
10/12/2025
Chapter 28
10/12/2025
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