Second Chance for the Discarded Luna

wice before I let myse

een scrubbed and polished until the floors threw back the torchlight like water. Garlands of white lilies wound around every pillar. I had chosen them myself

to be the night I t

h no pack and no name worth mentioning. I let the other Lunas whisper about me at gatherings. I let his mother look through me like glass. I said nothin

tell them that the wife they'd dismissed for three years was the daughter of the Alpha King. That the blood in my veins could call wolves

eel them sitting in my throat like stones, ready

es groa

ou flinch. The pack surged toward the courtyard, cheering, banging fists against their chests in the old salute. I stayed

st, and for one full second my he

I saw

ged there, and her cloak was open at the front because she wanted everyone to see the curve beneath it. She was pregnan

't stop. If anyth

e in an instant, replaced by something colder and more urgent. This was not how tonight was su

ked down the middle of

u look at something stuck

at it carried to the back of the courtyard, loud enough that

a fist to the ribs. I

cause some part of me was s

gh I used to fall asleep listening to. "Three years, Elena. Three years and not on

every eye in that courtyard land on me at once, and for the first time since I was a

the only mercy I got that night. "I am your Luna. You don't get to replace m

and satisfied, one hand resting on her

already carrying his child. What are you c

through the courtyard, wolf to wolf, and somet

m me like I was a servant who had interrupted something important, and so

out, "and to the woman

se pups I had helped deliver, all of them raising their drinks to a stranger with her hand on her

out, I am the Alpha King's daughter, I could burn this pack to the ground with on

idn

. Marcus wasn't rejecting me because he thought I was weak. He was rejecting me because he had already decided who he wanted, and

oked at me one last time, and for a moment I thought, fooli

s wr

enemies and traitors, not on the woman who had shared his bed for three years. "Give up

the wind coming off the courtyard, white petals scat