Isla's POV
I wake to the sound of my husband having a nightmare.
Not about me dying—though I almost did, twice. Not about the silver blade I took to my chest to save his life. Dante Blackthorn's nightmares are always about business deals gone wrong or pack problems he might face. Never about losing me.
Because you can't lose something you never wanted in the first place. "Dante." I touch his shoulder in the darkness of our bedroom. Five in the morning, and his skin is cold despite the blankets. He's always cold. "You're dreaming."
He jerks awake, steel-gray eyes finding me in the dim light. For half a second, I think I see something warm flicker there. Then it's gone, replaced by the ice I've known for seven years.
"I'm fine." He rolls away from me, putting his back between us like a wall. "Go back to sleep."
I stare at that wall—at the strong shoulders I used to think would protect me, at the dark hair I once dreamed of running my fingers through—and feel nothing. The mate tie that should connect us pulses weakly in my chest, like a dying heartbeat.
I gave up trying to revive it three years ago.
"It's Lyra's birthday," I say to his back. "The party starts at noon. You promised you'd be there."
"I have meetings."
"You always have meetings."
"Then you know better than to expect miracles." His voice is flat, uncaring. The same tone he uses with pack members who waste his time.
I'm his mate. The mother of his children. And he speaks to me like I'm an annoying appointment he can't stop.
I should be used to it by now. Seven years is a long time to swallow sorrow. But today—Lyra's seventh birthday—something feels different. Wrong. My wolf is moving inside me, whining a warning I don't understand.
I slip out of bed before I do something stupid, like cry. I stopped crying over Dante Blackthorn two years ago. Crying needs hope, and hope is a luxury I can't afford anymore.
The pack house is already buzzing with activity when I reach the kitchen. Pink balloons, streamers, a cake made like the unicorn Lyra loves. My daughter deserves every bit of this joy, even if her father can't be bothered to show up.
"Luna Isla!" Beatrice, our head omega, smiles at me. "The decorations look great. Little Lyra will be so happy."
Luna. They call me that like it means something. Like I have power here.
But a Luna's power comes from her Alpha's respect, and Dante respects his expensive car more than he respects me.
"Where's Kieran?" I ask, noticing my five-year-old son isn't underfoot like normal.
Beatrice's smile falters. "The Alpha took him early this morning. Some father-son thing, he said. " My stomach drops. Dante never does "father-son things." He barely admits Kieran exists unless someone important is watching.
"Did he say when they'd be back?"
"Before the party, I'm sure." But Beatrice won't meet my eyes.
That feeling of wrongness gets stronger. My wolf is nearly howling now, clawing at my ribs. Something is happening. Something bad.
I head toward Dante's office, telling myself I'm being paranoid. The door is cracked open, and that's when I smell it.
Perfume.
Not mine. Never mine. This scent is darker, spicier—the kind of perfume that reveals itself. The kind Serena Vale wears when she visits for "pack business."
Serena. Dante's childhood friend. The she-wolf who looks at my husband like he's prey and at me like I'm an obstacle she'll finally remove.
I push the door open wider. The office is empty, but her smell is everywhere, thick and cloying. On the chair. On the desk. On the— No. No, no, no.
On the couch where Dante sometimes naps.
My hands are shaking. I'm being crazy. I'm being a jealous, anxious mate who sees threats where there are none. Serena is his friend. She's been his friend since they were kids. Just because she visits often doesn't mean—
A file box sits on his desk, open. I shouldn't look. Good mates trust their Alphas.
But I stopped being a good mate around the time my good Alpha let me bleed alone after Kieran's birth while he attended a territory meeting.
The folder holds bank statements. Large payments to a property on the border region. Monthly payments for the past six years. Since before Kieran was born.
Six years. The same amount of time Serena's visits became more regular.
My vision blurs. The mate bond in my chest twists into something sharp and painful, like it's finally waking up after years of sleep just to hurt me.
"Luna?" Marcus, Dante's Beta, stands in the hallway. His face tells me everything I need to know. The pity in his eyes proves what I've been too stupid to see.
"How long?" My voice doesn't sound like mine. It's too cold. Too quiet.
"Isla—"
"How. Long."
Marcus looks away, and that's answer enough.
The party starts in seven hours. My daughter's birthday. I should be frosting cupcakes and wrapping gifts and pretending everything is fine, the way I've pretended for seven years.
Instead, I hear myself say: "Where are they right now?"
"Don't do this to yourself."
"Where. Is. My. Husband?"
Marcus's jaw tightens. "The border clearing. But Isla, please—"
I'm already moving. My wolf is in control now, moving me forward with purpose I haven't felt in years.
I need to see it. I need to know for sure that the last seven years of dedication, of sacrifice, of making myself smaller and smaller to fit into Dante Blackthorn's ice-cold life—that all of it meant nothing.
The forest blurs around me as I run. My heart pounds. The mate bond burns.
And then I smell them.
Sex. Heat. Pheromones so thick they coat my mouth.
I reach the clearing just as my husband pulls another woman against a tree, his face alive with passion I've never, ever seen directed at me.
But that's not the part that kills me.
That comes when a small voice calls out from the trees: "Mommy! Daddy said you'd come back!"
And my five-year-old son—the boy I carried, birthed, bled for—runs straight past me into Serena's eager arms.