A Luna's Duty

Genevieve

Four days blurred into one relentless, grueling loop inside the pack hospital. Tessa had successfully delivered seventeen pups over those ninety-six hours. Seventeen pups meant seventeen mothers screaming through contractions, seventeen sets of vitals to constantly monitor, and seventeen tiny bodies to clean, weigh, and wrap. She practically lived inside the sterile white walls, abandoning the expansive Luna suite entirely. The suite was a twenty-minute casual stroll from the medical center, located closer to the pack’s town than the main packhouse. The distance made sense, as the hospital was built to cater to the majority of the pack members who lived in the town, but right now, a twenty-minute walk felt like climbing a jagged mountain. Instead, she survived by sleeping in her small office, curling up on the stiff leather couch to catch whatever micro-naps she could manage.

Maddox was scheduled to return from his trip today around lunchtime. Under normal circumstances, Tessa knew exactly how his arrival would play out. The very second he finished the initiation rituals for the new pack members and allocated their homes, he would expect her naked and waiting in his bed. His dominant biology rarely allowed him to go more than two days without sex on any given week. There had been only one exception in their eight years together—a single week where he had been too angry to bring his rage into her bed. But when that week ended, he had crawled between her sheets and eaten her out with such relentless hunger she thought he would never stop. He had pushed her into multiple climaxes, fucking her until she passed out from the sheer physical toll, only to wake up alone. That was their established dynamic.

Today, however, Tessa was physically and mentally obliterated. She had pulled a grueling all-nighter, her body running purely on caffeine and fumes. She had delivered three pups in the past seven hours alone, while Miriam handled another two. Her eyes kept drooping, her vision blurring as she stared at the glowing computer screen.

Just as she sat down at her desk, her phone buzzed. A text message from Maddox lit up the screen: *I’ll be home in a few hours.*

Tessa frowned, staring at the uncharacteristically brief words. She felt a flicker of confusion. He never sent updates like this. She brushed the anomaly aside, assuming he was just giving her a strict timeline to prepare for his aggressive sexual demands. Well, today was going to be different. Her body was far too drained to endure a harsh, demanding session beneath his heavy frame, and she still had a mountain of official pup registrations to file. He would just have to understand that sex was off the table.

She checked the digital clock on the wall. It was just hitting eight in the morning. She set a strict alarm on her phone, knowing she needed to reboot her system. She would grab two hours of sleep, rely on her Alpha-bloodline endurance to drag her through the rest of the day, and go to bed early tonight. She collapsed onto the leather couch and fell into a dead sleep.

When the alarm blared, she forced herself up, stretched her stiff limbs, and downed a scalding cup of black coffee from the breakroom. She felt exhausted, but functional. Taking her seat at the desk, she resumed her paperwork, meticulously documenting the birth weights, times, and the physical condition of the mothers.

Suddenly, without warning, a vicious, sharp pain sliced through her left arm.

Tessa hissed, her hand shooting to grip her bicep. The sensation was exact and brutal, feeling exactly as though an invisible blade had been dragged directly up her flesh. She held her breath, expecting to feel warm blood soaking through her sleeve. It lasted only a few agonizing seconds before vanishing completely, leaving behind a dull phantom ache. She rubbed her arm, shaking her head. It was an alien sensation, something her biology had never registered before. Dismissing the strange glitch, she turned her focus back to the baby files.

She attached the digital newborn photos to the documents, a soft smile touching her lips at each one. She loved the pups. The hospital wards were her entire universe. Born as the despised bastard daughter of an Alpha, she had essentially been raised inside the medical corridors by her grandmother, a stern pack nurse. Her mother had died in childbirth, leaving Tessa to face the consequences of her birth alone.

Her very existence was a walking, breathing reminder of her father's supposed infidelity. She was vehemently hated by her legitimate half-siblings and despised by the reigning Luna. The Luna’s agony and feelings of betrayal had painted a target on Tessa’s back from day one. Tessa had dropped out of school at sixteen, tired of the relentless daily bullying from a half-sister who shared all her classes. Her father, the Alpha, never cared that she quit. He never bothered to send her to Alpha College. Since she wasn’t a legitimate heir, she wasn’t worth the investment, and she never asked to go.

Instead, she made herself invisible, avoiding the packhouse and anchoring herself to the hospital wards. Yet, the truth of her conception remained a cryptic puzzle. Her grandmother had pulled her aside one night, telling her not to believe the rumors. Her mother hadn’t been a willing mistress. She hadn’t wanted to be bedded by the Alpha. But in the next breath, her grandmother had warned Tessa not to blame her father either, claiming he hadn’t truly wanted to bed her mother. It left Tessa deeply confused. If neither had consented, if neither had desired the encounter, how had she been conceived?

Tessa pulled herself from the tangled memories as her stomach let out a hollow rumble. It was midday. Maddox wasn’t back yet, though the text had promised his arrival hours ago. She assumed his group had stopped somewhere along the road for lunch.

She grabbed a quick bite and was walking down the corridor back to her office when the atmosphere shifted. She sensed Maddox officially crossing the pack border. The heavy, dominant weight of his presence rolled over the territory.

The mind-link snapped open instantly in her head.

*Genevieve, meet me in the foyer.*

His voice was clipped, harsh, and strictly business. He forcefully severed the mental connection before she could even draw a breath to formulate a response.

Dutifully, Tessa changed her route. She walked out of the hospital wing and headed to the grand foyer of the packhouse. The expansive room was mostly empty, save for a group of pack children sitting on the floor playing a board game. She took a seat beside them, crossing her legs and helping the youngest boy move his piece across the painted map while she waited. The kids smiled up at her, and she smiled back, enjoying the brief moment of peace.

The peace shattered as the heavy main doors swung open.

Maddox strode in, his broad shoulders rigid. Beside him walked a tall, strikingly beautiful woman. She was nearly as tall as he was, her sharp stilettos clicking aggressively against the tile floor. The stranger was visibly annoyed, her jaw set, practically vibrating with a dark, possessive energy.

Tessa stood up, brushing off her scrubs to formally greet her Alpha. As she rose, she locked eyes with the woman. Pure, unfiltered anger burned in the stranger's gaze, directed right at Tessa. The hostility was thick enough to choke on.

The she-wolf stepped intimately close to Maddox, closing the distance between their bodies. She lifted her hand in a blatant, deliberate attempt to curl her long fingers possessively around his thick, muscular forearm.

Maddox frowned deeply. With a rigid, uncompromising motion, he physically brushed her hand away, stepping out of her reach.

"I’ve explained this to you, Vivienne," Maddox stated in a flat, heavy tone. "No touching at this time."

Waves of furious hostility rolled off the woman, her rejection painting the air with a bitter scent.

Tessa stood quietly, her sharp mind piecing the clues together instantly. The puzzle solved itself. The phantom pain in her left arm hours ago made perfect sense. Maddox had found his true, Goddess-Gifted mate at the initiation ball. The stabbing pain had been the physical backlash of the mate bond reacting to Vivienne touching him while he was still bound to Tessa.

However, because Maddox was legally bound by the ironclad rules of their mating alliance, he was strictly forbidden from physically claiming, marking, or even touching Vivienne until he officially and verbally rejected Tessa. The alliance contract demanded absolute adherence, and Maddox never broke the rules. He wouldn't risk the political fallout.

"Brant, please take Vivienne to get some lunch," Maddox commanded, his voice echoing across the foyer. He physically motioned for his Delta to lead the furious she-wolf away, clearing the room of her suffocating presence.

As Brant escorted Vivienne down the hall, Maddox’s intense, dark gaze snapped immediately back to Tessa. He didn't offer a shred of guilt or hesitation.

"Genevieve, my office please," he stated with casual detachment, already turning his broad back to walk away.

Tessa looked at his retreating figure. A heavy, unavoidable sense of finality settled into her bones, mixing perfectly with her clinical detachment. Her pulse remained steady. She felt no panic, no sudden rush of heartbreak. She knew exactly what this cold summons meant. The time had come for him to reject her, severing their bond so he could finally bed his actual mate.

"Yes, Maddox," she answered simply.