Chapter 7

She was screaming. She demanded to know why I had destroyed her life.

She'd worked so hard to have this pup. This pup was the thing that bound her to Ethan. Once she had it, everything would be different.

She told me what had happened the night before.

She had confessed everything to Ethan.

Years ago, she had stumbled onto the fact that Ethan was infertile. She looked at this handsome, ambitious, rising Alpha and came up with a plan. If she could give him the only pup he would ever have, she'd be tied to him forever. She could use that to edge me out and take my place as his Luna.

A borderlands girl with nothing could make it. So could Serena Voss.

She hadn't done anything sordid. Her pride wouldn't let her. Instead, she had gotten a fertility procedure done in secret, using a donor, and conceived without Ethan ever knowing.

It went exactly as she'd planned. Under her careful attention, Ethan fell for her. When the pup came, he wanted to give her a name.

And compared to my uncomplaining, average-ability self trailing after him, Serena's boldness and energy were a better match for everything he wanted to build.

I had given everything chasing behind him. In the end I had only been a weight.

Serena was still ranting when she started physically grabbing at me. Ethan arrived just as we both went down. He reached out and caught me, pulling me tight against him.

"Nora, are you hurt? Is the pup okay?"

For one moment he was the eighteen-year-old Ethan again. The one who would pick me up and check me over if I scraped my knee.

Serena was curled on the ground, clutching her stomach, eyes blazing.

"Ethan, I'm your Luna. You're protecting your ex-mate — what does that mean?"

Ethan's face went cold. His voice was colder.

"Serena, didn't I warn you yesterday? Nora is my everything. Who told you to come here and cause trouble for her?"

Then he looked at me softly.

"Nora, if you're willing, I'll end the bond right now. I'll raise your pup as my own and give it everything in the Calloway Pack."

Serena exploded. She got up, grabbed a loose stone, and hurled it at Ethan's head. It split the skin above his brow, drawing a thin line of blood. Ethan steadied me on my feet, seized Serena, and shoved her back.

"Your pup is the product of a scheme. What right does it have to the Calloway Pack's legacy?"

"Serena, take your pup and get out of the legal office right now. If I ever see you threaten Nora again, I'll have you locked up."

Serena crumpled to the ground, tears and fury all over her face, watching Ethan with devastated eyes.

The same scene. The same pattern.

He had turned Pack law into a weapon for his own desires, using it to crush whoever was small enough to be crushed.

Back then I was the small one. I had needed him to survive. I let him shape me and break me and nearly drowned in the hell he'd made for me.

I was lucky. I found something good out of the good I had done.

But Serena?

Who would pull her out of this fire? Her own calculating schemes? The selfish, careless man she'd bonded herself to?

She thought that beating me was the path to an easy life. She didn't know that no one can save you but yourself.

Serena sat on the ground, still listing her grievances against Ethan, while Ethan stared at her with cold, empty eyes, unmoved by every tear she cried.

In the end, Ethan forced Serena to terminate the pregnancy. The pup was six months along. A boy.

After that, Ethan started sending supplements to the manor in a steady stream.

I accepted everything calmly. Then fed it all to Rusty, our golden retriever.

Over the next two months, Rusty's coat turned glossy and bright, and she got herself pregnant.

Serena had been forced to terminate at a late stage, and she spent two full months indoors recovering before she was seen again.

The next time I saw her, I almost didn't recognize her. She was hollow and yellowish, and her eyes were nothing but hate.

She just stood there and stared at me, talking in a flat voice.

"Nora, Ethan isn't human. I was wrong. I shouldn't have done what I did to your family."

"Nora, please talk to Ethan for me. Ask him to stop. I'm willing to leave. I'll give him back to you. I'll go."

"He only listens to you now. You say the word and he'll do it."

It came out in pieces. Apparently, Ethan had never come to terms with the infertility diagnosis. His temper had turned vicious. When he was drunk, which was often, he took it out on Serena.