Salt in the Wound

The sugary scent warned me before her footsteps clicked against the limestone floor. A thick haze of vanilla and crushed honeysuckle drifted down the corridor, clinging to the rafters and coating my tongue like grease. It was a perfume I had smelled on Kaelen’s shirts, on his sheets, and throughout the east wing of the packhouse for months. Hearing her hurried pace behind me only made my stomach clench tighter.

I quickened my stride toward the central staircase, keeping my gaze fixed straight ahead. My damp clothes still carried the chill of the winter forest, and the sting of shifting in the frozen dirt lingered in my shoulders. I had barely begun to process the news of her pregnancy, and the last thing I needed was to entertain the woman who had shattered my life.

"Callie!" Her voice echoed across the open hall, pitched with that breathless, fragile urgency she always put on whenever pack members were near.

I ignored her, lengthening my steps toward the stairs.

"Callie, please, wait for me!" Her plea sounded louder this time, accompanied by the frantic patter of her shoes against the tiles.

Before my boot could reach the bottom riser, fingers clamped down around my left wrist.

The contact burned like acid.

An instinctive, low snarl tore from deep within my chest. I jerked my arm back to break her grip and spun around, baring my teeth as my wolf surged toward the surface. Even stripped of my mate's love, I was still the Luna of this pack. Her insolence snapped whatever composure I had left.

Daphne gasped, taking two hurried steps backward. She placed both hands over her flat stomach, splaying her manicured fingers across her silk blouse as though shielding an infant from a monster. Her brown eyes pooled with tears in an instant, wide and wounded.

Daphne looked down at her hands, letting her voice tremble so the gathering onlookers could hear every syllable. "Callie, I am so sorry! I never wanted things to turn out like this."

There it was. That calculated, fragile innocence. She looked at me as if we were bickering sisters caught in a minor misunderstanding, rather than an Alpha's wife and the mistress who had stolen her husband.

Daphne raised her face, letting a single tear slip down her cheek. "He is the Alpha. How could I deny him? You know I never wanted it to go this far, but I love him too. I love this pack as much as you do. Please do not hate me or this child."

A cold, sharp numbness cracked open inside my chest, followed by a surge of white heat.

Six years. For six agonizing years, I had poured my life into this territory. I had sacrificed my health, my dignity, and my peace of mind to govern beside a man who despised my existence. I had woken at dawn to balance ledgers, managed borders, treated wounded warriors, and smiled politely through every whispered rumor about my barren womb.

Daphne was supposed to be a passing diversion. A pretty girl Kaelen kept at his side before our mate bond snapped into place. Everyone had promised me she would fade once I came of age and took the Luna title.

She never faded. She had stayed, burrowing deeper into our lives until she stood here today, pregnant with his heir. And now she dared to stand before me, demanding that I validate her triumph and soothe her guilt.

I closed the distance between us, stepping directly into her space until she was forced to tilt her head to meet my gaze. "You are carrying the heir to this pack, yet you conduct yourself like a child. Did you honestly think I would have sympathy for you? Did you think I would console you? What did you hope to achieve by coming to me now, Daphne? Did you want to rub in my face how you got pregnant by my mate?"

Daphne offered no answer. Her lower lip quivered, and her knees gave way beneath her. She sank to the runner rug in a heap of silk, burying her face in her hands as loud, wretched sobs shook her shoulders.

Whispers rippled through the hallway. Pack members stepped closer from the dining hall and the library, watching their Luna tower over the weeping mistress. The air grew thick with judgment.

A sharp shout cut through the murmuring crowd as heavy boots pounded across the floor. "Daphne!"

Gamma Declan shoved his way past two sentries, dropping to one knee beside Daphne. He threw an arm around her shaking frame, pulling her against his side with fierce protectiveness. When he lifted his head to face me, his eyes burned with open hostility.

Declan glared up at me, his voice carrying straight to the vaulted ceiling. "She is pregnant, Luna! She carries the Alpha's child. How can you say such horrible things to her when she only wanted to make amends?"

The insubordination stole the breath from my lungs. He was a Gamma. I was his Luna. In any proper pack, speaking to an Alpha’s mate with such disrespect was grounds for immediate punishment.

Yet nobody in the corridor moved to correct him. None of the warriors spoke up in my defense. The domestic staff averted their eyes, their faces set in hard lines. In their eyes, I was merely the bitter, barren wife lashing out at an expectant mother. Six years of devotion and leadership had vanished the moment another woman conceived.

I forced my spine straight and pulled the mask of authority back over my face. I refused to grovel before a subordinate, and I refused to let them see me bleed.

I looked down at Declan, letting my voice ring clear and cold through the corridor. "You will escort Daphne to the infirmary or to her quarters, Declan. And you will ensure my top-floor quarters remain undisturbed for the rest of the night. If anyone sets foot near my door, I will treat it as direct insubordination."

Declan’s jaw clenched so hard the muscles along his cheek jumped. For a fleeting second, defiance flashed in his eyes, as if he meant to challenge my order in front of everyone. But the weight of the Luna command pressed down upon him. Bound by rank, he lowered his chin in sullen obedience.

Declan kept his eyes glued to the floor. "Yes, Luna."

I turned on my heel and walked away. I kept my chin high and my stride measured, refusing to hurry as I climbed the grand staircase. Every pair of eyes felt like a hot iron against my back, but I did not falter until I reached the top landing.

My private quarters spanned the entire top floor of the packhouse. It was the only part of the estate where the noise of the pack could not reach me, equipped with its own small kitchen, sitting room, and bedroom. Kaelen had not set foot up here in months, leaving the space as a quiet exile for a discarded wife.

I pushed open the heavy oak door, stepped inside, and clicked the iron latch into place.

The sound of the lock broke the dam.

The rigid posture I had forced myself to hold crumbled in a single second. My knees trembled so hard that I had to catch the edge of the entryway table to keep from falling onto the floorboards.

Nadine stepped out from the kitchen archway, holding a clean linen cloth in her hands. "Callie?"

Her dark hair was streaked with grey, pinned back in her usual neat knot. The moment her brown eyes found mine, the warmth on her face melted into deep, maternal pity. News of Daphne's pregnancy had already spread through the packhouse links.

Seeing that quiet sorrow shattered the last bit of my pride.

A ragged sob broke from my chest. I pushed away from the table and stumbled forward into her arms.

Nadine caught me against her chest without hesitation, wrapping her arms around me as I collapsed against her shoulder. She held me tight while I broke down, weeping into the worn cotton of her apron. Five years of silent suffering, cold nights in an empty bed, and the crushing humiliation of today's announcement poured out of me in bitter tears.

Nadine had been a mother to me ever since my own mother passed away shortly after I took the title of Luna. She had tended to my wounds, listened to my fears, and stood by my side when everyone else treated me like a ghost.

Nadine smoothed her hand over my silver hair with steady strokes. "Hush now, sweetheart. Let it out. I have you. You are going to be alright."

I clutched the back of her apron like a drowning woman clinging to a raft, my shoulders shaking with every breath.

Nadine pressed a soft kiss to my forehead, trying to soothe the trembling in my frame. "This is not the end of your life. You are strong, and you are healthy. The Moon Goddess chose you to lead this pack for a reason, and no one can take that divine bond away from you."

Her comforting words rang hollow in the quiet room. The Moon Goddess had bound me to a man who looked at me with disgust. She had tied my soul to a pack that cast me aside the second another woman grew heavy with child. What purpose was there in enduring endless cruelty for a title that brought only misery?

"I am thinking about running away, Nadine." I whispered the confession hoarsely into the fabric of her dress, unable to hold it in any longer.

Nadine’s hands froze against my back. She stiffened, pulling back slightly to look down at my face with a furrowed brow.

Nadine gripped my arms, her voice laced with distress. "Do not say such things. You are hurting right now, I know, but running is not the answer. The pack still needs you. You are their Luna. They love you."

I pulled away from her grip and wiped the wetness from my cheeks, though more tears spilled over my lashes. "They do not love me, Nadine. You did not see the hatred in Declan’s eyes just now. You did not see the contempt on the faces of the pack members in the hall. They do not care about my sacrifices. Their devotion belongs to the woman who can birth an heir."

Nadine stared at me with deep sorrow, her lips parting as she searched for words to deny the truth.

I turned toward the dark window, my voice tight with grief. "I have spent my entire youth bleeding for a man whose heart was never mine. I helped build this pack into what it is today, but none of that matters to them. They love Daphne because she gave them what my body cannot. If I stay, I will spend the rest of my days watching her raise Kaelen's child while I fade into the background like a shadow."

Nadine reached out, taking my cold hands into her warm ones. "If you run, Callie, you become a rogue. You lose your status, your protection, your family. You will be alone in the woods with nowhere to turn."

"What family do I have left? My mother is dead. My father only cares about pack politics and his standing as Beta. And Kaelen despises the ground I walk on. There is nothing left for me here." I looked directly into her eyes, letting the tears fall freely.

Nadine lowered her head, unable to argue against the harsh reality of my life.

I squeezed her weathered fingers, holding them tight between my own. "I made up my mind, Nadine, and I am sorry. I am wasting away here, unwanted, discarded, humiliated in my own pack. Don't I deserve better? Don't I deserve a chance to be happy for once?"

Nadine looked up, tears brimming in her eyes. She opened her mouth to offer an answer, but before a single word could pass her lips, the heavy double doors were kicked open from the hallway.

The lock snapped with a sharp crack, and the oak panels slammed back against the plaster wall with a boom that rattled the frames.

I spun around, a gasp tearing from my throat as my pulse spiked with terror.

Framed by the bright corridor light stood Kaelen. His broad shoulders filled the doorway, his massive frame radiating lethal tension. His dark midnight hair fell over his forehead, and his green eyes burned into mine with pure, murderous hatred.