THESSALY POV
"I'm not going to that dinner," I told Alpha Thorne flatly. "And you can't make me."
He stood in the doorway of my temporary room—they'd moved me after the fire destroyed the Luna suite—looking tired and older than I'd ever seen him.
"It's not a request, Thessaly. The pack needs to see you. They need to know their future Luna isn't hiding in fear."
"I'm not their future ANYTHING," I snapped. "I'm a pregnant girl who doesn't even know which of FIVE males is the father. I'm not exactly Luna material."
"You're Lunaris royalty. That makes you more qualified than anyone."
I laughed bitterly. "Yesterday I was scrubbing your floors. Today I'm supposed to smile and play nice with the same wolves who tortured me for seventeen years? No thanks."
Alpha Thorne's expression softened. "I know this is hard—"
"You don't know ANYTHING about what this is like for me!"
Silence.
He nodded slowly. "You're right. I don't. But please, Thessaly. Come to dinner. Show the pack you're strong. Show them their future."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I'll respect your choice. But those four males downstairs will be devastated. They're desperate to prove they've changed."
I didn't care about those four males. Except I did. My stupid wolf cared SO MUCH it physically hurt.
"Fine," I said through gritted teeth. "One dinner. But if anyone says ANYTHING—"
"They won't." The Alpha's voice was steel. "I'll make sure of it."
That's how I ended up wearing a dress Senna had "borrowed" from Rowena's closet—she'd been exiled that morning, shipped off to some remote territory where she couldn't hurt anyone. The dress was too fancy, too tight, made me look like someone I wasn't.
But Senna had smiled when she helped me into it. "You look like a queen."
I felt like a fraud.
The dining hall went completely silent when I walked in.
Every single wolf stopped eating, stopped talking, stopped BREATHING to stare at me.
I lifted my chin and walked to the high table like I belonged there, even though my hands were shaking.
Alpha Thorne sat at the head. Caspian and Lucien flanked him on one side. Three empty chairs sat on the other side—for me, Dax, and Kieran apparently.
I sat down between Caspian and Lucien because that's where my chair was, not because I wanted to be close to them.
Both of them went completely still when I settled into my seat.
"You look beautiful," Caspian whispered.
I ignored him.
Dax and Kieran took their seats. Now all four of my mates surrounded me, and I felt like I couldn't breathe.
The pack watched us. Whispered. I heard fragments of conversations:
"—servant girl—"
"—white wolf—"
"—pregnant already—"
"—five mates, can you imagine—"
My face burned with humiliation.
Alpha Thorne stood and the room went silent again. "We are here tonight to formally welcome Thessaly Ravine as a member of Silvercrest's leadership. She is Lunaris bloodline—royal wolves who ruled before our pack existed. She deserves our respect and our loyalty."
Some wolves nodded. Others looked skeptical. A few looked downright hostile.
"Let's eat," the Alpha said, sitting back down.
Servants brought food. I ate mechanically, tasting nothing. My four mates watched me constantly. It was suffocating.
"Are you feeling alright?" Dax asked quietly. "With the pregnancy—"
"Don't," I cut him off. "We're not talking about that here."
He flinched but nodded.
Halfway through dinner, a ranked wolf named Garrett—one of Kieran's warrior friends who used to laugh when people pushed me around—raised his wine glass.
"A toast," he called out, his voice carrying across the room. "To our new... what are you exactly, Thessaly? Luna? Princess? Or just a very convenient discovery?"
The room went dead silent.
Convenient. Like I'd PLANNED this. Like I'd somehow faked being royalty.
"Careful, Garrett," Kieran warned, his voice low and dangerous.
Garrett smiled, clearly drunk. "I'm just saying what everyone's thinking. Yesterday she was nobody. Today she's the most important wolf in the territory? And PREGNANT with a mystery baby?" He laughed. "Sounds like someone's playing a very clever game."
Lucien moved so fast I didn't even see it.
One second he was sitting beside me. The next, he had Garrett by the throat, lifted completely off the ground, slamming him against the wall with enough force to crack stone.
"Say one more word about my mate," Lucien snarled, his eyes blazing ice-blue, "and I will RIP OUT your tongue and feed it to you."
Garrett choked, his face turning purple.
The entire pack watched in shock.
I stood slowly, my chair scraping against the floor.
"Lucien," I said quietly. "Put him down."
"He insulted you—"
"I don't need you to fight my battles." My voice was ice. Cold. Final.
Lucien looked at me, desperation and pain warring in his eyes. "But he—"
"Put. Him. Down."
For a long moment, I thought Lucien would refuse. His wolf was too angry, too protective, too desperate to prove he could defend me.
Then he opened his hand.
Garrett fell to the floor, gasping and coughing.
I walked over to him slowly. Every eye in the room followed me.
"You want to know if I'm playing a game?" I asked Garrett quietly. "You want to know if this is convenient for me?"
He looked up, fear flickering across his face.
"I spent seventeen years being TORTURED by this pack," I continued, my voice shaking. "Seventeen years being called worthless, pathetic, a waste of space. You PERSONALLY watched wolves beat me and did NOTHING. You laughed when they spit in my food. You thought it was FUNNY."
Garrett's face went pale.
"So no, this isn't convenient. I didn't ask to be royal. I didn't ask for these mate bonds. I didn't ask to be PREGNANT with a baby I don't even want yet!" My voice cracked. "I wanted to be FREE. That's all I ever wanted. And instead, I'm trapped here with all of you, forced to pretend I'm not dying inside every single second."
Tears ran down my face. I didn't bother wiping them away.
"So if you think I'm playing a game," I said, staring Garrett down, "you're wrong. This is my NIGHTMARE. And you're all part of it."
I turned and walked out of the dining hall.
Behind me, absolute silence.
I made it to the hallway before the sobs hit. I pressed my back against the wall and slid down, crying so hard I couldn't breathe.
Footsteps approached. I knew without looking it was my mates—all four of them.
"Don't," I choked out. "Just... don't."
"Thessaly—" Caspian started.
"I hate this!" I screamed. "I hate all of you! I hate this bond! I hate being pregnant! I hate—"
I couldn't finish. The sobs took over completely.
Warm arms wrapped around me. Caspian pulled me against his chest, and I was too broken to push him away.
"I know," he whispered into my hair. "I know you hate us. We deserve it. But please, let us help. Even if you never forgive us, even if you reject the bonds—just let us help you through this."
"I can't do this alone," I sobbed. "I'm so scared. I don't know how to be a mother. I don't know how to be royalty. I don't know how to—"
"You're not alone," Lucien said, kneeling beside us. "You have us. Whether you want us or not."
Dax and Kieran knelt too, surrounding me.
For the first time since my wolf woke up, I let myself lean on them. Just a little.
It felt good. Safe. Right.
My wolf purred.
We sat there in the hallway for a long time—me crying, them holding me, none of us saying anything.
Then I felt it.
A sharp pain in my stomach. Not like before with the poison. Different.
Worse.
"Something's wrong," I gasped. "The baby—"
Another pain, sharper this time. I doubled over with a scream.
"HEALER!" Caspian roared. "We need—"
"The healer's DEAD," Kieran reminded him desperately. "Rowena killed her!"
The pain got worse. I could feel something happening inside me, something breaking or dying or—
"The baby's rejecting her body," a voice said.
We all looked up.
Thaddeus stood at the end of the hallway, his silver eyes glowing in the darkness.
"What?" I gasped through the pain.
"Royal pregnancies are complicated," Thaddeus said, walking toward us calmly. "The baby needs to bond with its father. Skin to skin contact. Immediately. Or both mother and child will die."
"Which father?" Dax demanded.
"That," Thaddeus said with a cold smile, "is the question, isn't it? You have five minutes to figure out which of you four got her pregnant. Choose wrong, and she dies."
The pain doubled. I screamed.
And my four mates stared at each other in horror, knowing one of them could save me.
But they had no idea which one.