Chapter 5
I thought that would be the hardest part.
It wasn’t.
The hardest part was the three days that followed.
Not because Dominic kept calling, though he did.
Not because Megan started sending messages from unknown numbers, though she did that too.
I know where you are.
You think running makes you noble?
He’ll choose me publicly this time.
The hardest part was the quiet.
No pack duties. No polished smile at breakfast. No pretending not to notice whispers. No rehearsing my tone before asking my own husband where he’d been.
Just quiet.
And in that quiet, my body began telling truths I had been too exhausted to hear before.
The nausea. The headaches. The weakness in my wolf that had started months ago and gotten worse. The strange metallic taste after tea at pack functions. The way I had stopped sleeping deeply around the same time Megan became a permanent shadow in Dominic’s orbit.
On the fourth morning, Harper came into the kitchen holding a lacquered wooden box.
“I found this in the trunk your father sent after he died,” she said. “I should have given it to you years ago. I thought waiting would protect you.”
Inside were my mother’s journals, tied with faded blue ribbon, and a silver vial no bigger than my thumb.
I frowned. “What is that?”
Harper’s face had gone grim. “Moonbane extract.”
A chill slid down my back.
Moonbane was not a romance-novel poison. It didn’t make wolves collapse dramatically onto marble floors. In small doses, it did something quieter and crueler. It dulled instincts. Weakened a shift. Blunted the bond. Used medicinally, it could calm a wolf after severe injury.
Used regularly on a healthy wolf, it made her doubt herself.
I picked up the vial with careful fingers.
It was empty.
“This was in Mom’s things?”
“No,” Harper said. “It was wrapped in the journal page your father marked. Read.”
I unfolded the page.
My mother’s handwriting moved across it in a slanted rush.
If anything happens to me, watch what they give the women. It will never be enough to prove in blood, only in pattern. A weak wolf is easier to manage than a dead one.
The room went silent around me.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Harper sat opposite me. “Your mother suspected it in her first year with Blackwood. Not from me. Not from our pack. From visiting councils. Old families. Men who wanted gentle Lunas instead of powerful ones.”
My mouth had gone dry. “You think someone poisoned me.”
“I think someone kept you diminished,” she said. “And I think the timeline matters.”
I thought of every tea tray Megan had personally pressed into my hands with bright false concern. You look tired, Elara. Drink this. Dominic works you too hard. I thought of the wellness tonic Dominic’s mother had insisted I take after I missed a cycle last winter. I thought of the way my wolf had grown quiet, then quieter, until I’d started believing she was the problem.
Not them.
Me.
I pushed back from the table too fast.
Harper rose immediately. “Easy.”
I shook my head. “No. No, I need to think.”
I went upstairs with one of my mother’s journals and read until my eyes blurred.
By evening, my anger had changed shape.
It was no longer hot and frantic.
It was cold enough to cut.
That night, Ryan called.
I almost didn’t answer.
He had been Dominic’s Beta for seven years. Loyal, efficient, unreadable. The man who stopped meeting my eyes once the whispers started.
But curiosity won.
“Elara,” he said, and his relief was immediate and genuine. “Thank God.”
I sat straighter. “Why are you calling me?”
“Because you’re in danger.”
I let out a humorless breath. “That’s a little late.”
“I know.” His voice roughened. “I know, and I’m sorry. I should have come sooner.”
“Come with what?”
Silence.
Then: “Megan is not pregnant.”
I stood up so fast the chair scraped the floor.
“What?”
“She told Dominic she was. Six weeks ago. Same week he started pressuring legal to prepare the rejection papers.”
Everything inside me went still.
I closed my eyes. “How do you know?”
“Because I found the clinic invoice,” Ryan said. “It was for hormone therapy and falsified lab work, billed through one of the shell companies she’s been using to siphon money out of the pack.”
I pressed my palm to the wall.
A memory surfaced with vicious clarity.
Dominic, two weeks ago, standing in our bedroom doorway with unusual stiffness in his shoulders. We need to discuss succession. We may need to make practical decisions.
I had thought he meant our future.
He had meant replacing me.
“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked.
“Because yesterday she panicked.”
The words came clipped, urgent. “When you disappeared, Dominic went to legal. He found out the rejection was already signed. She thought that solved everything. Then this morning I intercepted a message from Dr. Vale.”
Dr. Vale had overseen Luna health assessments for years.
Ice slid down my spine.
“What message?”
Ryan’s answer came like a blade.
That your bloodwork from last month indicated early pregnancy, and the result had been flagged confidential at Megan’s request.
For a second, I couldn’t hear anything but my own pulse.
Not because I was surprised I was pregnant. I knew that.
Because somebody else had known too.
Somebody in that pack had looked at proof of my child and chosen to hide it from me.
My hand curled so tightly around the phone my knuckles hurt.
Ryan kept speaking, words spilling faster now, as if he’d run out of room for hesitation.
“She wanted you gone before the council found out. Under pack law, a Luna carrying a confirmed heir can’t be privately rejected. There has to be a tribunal. Asset review. Lineage witness. Financial disclosure.”
Financial disclosure.
That was it.
Not just jealousy. Not just sex. Not just cruelty for its own sake.
A cover.
I sank slowly onto the bed.
“How much does Dominic know?”
Ryan was silent for too long.
“Ryan.”
“He knew about the false pregnancy,” he said at last. “He didn’t know about your test. He thought Megan’s claim would force the council’s hand if he moved quickly enough. He’s been trying to keep the embezzlement quiet because the money trail touches his office.”
I laughed once. It sounded broken. “So he only lied, cheated, and tried to discard me before a financial audit. What a relief.”
“Elara—”
“No.”
My voice sharpened. “Do not soften this for me.”
“I’m not.” He exhaled harshly. “I’m trying to tell you there’s more. Your father left a sealed instruction with the council. It names you as beneficiary to the eastern territory holdings if you ever carry the first direct heir.”
I stared at the darkening window.
There it was.
The real center of the web.
Not Megan.
Not even Dominic.
Land. Succession. Power.
The oldest love language of cowards.
“When is the tribunal?” I asked.
He paused. “Tomorrow night. Dominic petitioned for an emergency hearing after I informed him the rejection is invalid until reviewed.”
I almost admired the nerve of it.
He had hidden things from me. Betrayed me. Let me be humiliated. Then, when the law stopped favoring him, he had called a hearing to regain control.
“Don’t come back alone,” Ryan said quietly. “Bring counsel. Bring Harper. And Elara…”
I waited.
“I avoided your eyes because I was ashamed,” he said. “Not because I didn’t know. Because I did.”
That hurt more than I expected.
After the call ended, I sat for a long time with my hand over my stomach.
My child had already been treated like leverage before anyone had even spoken to me.
I thought I would cry.
I didn’t.
Instead, I went downstairs and told Harper everything.
Harper listened without interrupting, and when I finished, she rose, crossed to the cabinet, and took down the long velvet box that held her ceremonial knives.
“We’re not killing anyone,” I said automatically.
“Pity,” she muttered.