The Vanishing Act

Morning broke with an eerie stillness that offered no comfort. I forced myself out of bed, determined to push through my usual Luna duties and ignore the lingering sting of Valerie’s threat from yesterday. But by midday, a strange detail caught my attention. Valerie was missing from the pack house.

I stepped into the main corridor to track her down, yet the halls were completely empty of her presence.

"Have you seen Valerie Thorne around today?" I asked a passing maid, unable to mask the tension in my voice.

The young woman immediately shook her head. "She hasn't been anywhere near the pack house since dawn. Not a single person has seen her."

I let out a slow breath. A small, foolish part of me hoped she had actually taken my advice and crawled back to whatever hole she came from.

I returned to my daily tasks. It didn't matter that Cade had blindly crowned her as his new Luna. I still had my own responsibilities to this pack, and I refused to abandon them. It was the right thing to do. Night fell, bathing the territory in bright moonlight, and a thorough check of the grounds confirmed she was still gone.

I went to sleep hoping the peace would last.

But the next day passed, and then the next, with no sign of her. I soon noticed that the personal maid Cade had assigned to Valerie was also missing. My initial relief morphed into a creeping unease as an entire week dragged by without a single trace of them.

"Have you seen Valerie lately?" I asked an elderly werewolf merchant who operated near our borders, living under the quiet guise of a servant.

"Unfortunately, no. I hear she has vanished completely," the old man replied. He leaned in closer, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "The rumor going around is that the previous Luna finally did away with her. Everyone knows about the bitter arguments between you two, and now we have a missing Luna."

He straightened back up, leaving me standing there in stunned silence.

A cold shock washed over my skin. Was that truly what my own people believed? My stomach churned as Valerie's previous warning echoed in my ears. She had made her intentions perfectly clear—she wanted me completely driven out of this territory.

Was this entire disappearance just another one of her twisted schemes?

I didn't offer the merchant a response. I simply gave a polite nod and hurried back toward the pack house. There was absolutely no way to contact Valerie or her missing maid, and Cade was still away. I felt utterly stranded, debating whether to dispatch a messenger to the territory he was visiting or just wait for him to come back. He was going to lose his mind when he found out.

My racing thoughts were violently interrupted by the sudden, overlapping howls of Beta soldiers echoing across the courtyard.

I rushed out the front doors with a few of my maids trailing behind me to see what was happening.

My steps faltered at the sight before me. Cade was marching across the grounds, his expression hard and furious. Cradled tightly in his arms was Valerie. She looked thoroughly battered, her clothes torn and her skin covered in dark bruises. Two Beta soldiers followed closely behind, carrying her missing maid.

I ran straight toward him. "What—"

Before the question could even leave my mouth, Cade lashed out. He shoved me backward with a brutal force, sending me crashing hard into the packed dirt.

"Cade!" I cried out, scraping my palms against the ground in shock.

"Don't you dare call my name!" he roared.

He paced furiously in front of me, his broad chest heaving with every ragged breath.

"I specifically told you not to harm her. I warned you, Maeve, but your heart is completely rotten."

"How could you say something like that to me?" I pleaded, my voice cracking as tears blurred my vision. "I am the one carrying your child."

"Don't even think you can use that bastard to manipulate me!" he shouted, his voice echoing across the silent courtyard. "It definitely won't work."

The sheer cruelty in his tone shattered whatever fragile hope I had left.

"What have I done to deserve any of this?" I begged, letting the tears spill freely down my face.

He let out a harsh scoff. "Are you seriously going to play dumb right now?"

"I don't understand what you're talking about," I stammered, genuinely lost.

"You sold Valerie off to a pack of rogues!" he snarled, stepping closer. "You paid them to have their sick ways with her and kill her when they were done. You knew exactly what you were doing. Rogues are outlaws. They answer to no one, and they have no mercy."

"I did no such thing, Cade! I swear it by the moon goddess!" I cried out, desperately defending myself against the vile accusation.

"Damn you, Maeve. I never imagined you would turn into something this vile, let alone conspire with rogues." He turned his back to me and waved a hand at the waiting guards. "Take her and throw her in the dungeon. I refuse to look at the face of this treacherous ex-Luna for another second."

"Please, Cade, you have to listen to me!" I scrambled forward, dropping to the dirt and grabbing him by the ankle.

He ruthlessly kicked my hand away.

The guards seized my arms, hauling me upward. I sobbed and begged for mercy as they dragged me across the dirt, stripping away every last shred of my dignity in front of the entire pack.

They locked me in a freezing, pitch-black cell and left me there without a single drop of water or scrap of food. The cold seeped into my bones. I wrapped my arms securely around my stomach, terrified for the life growing inside me. I had to protect my baby at all costs.

Two agonizing days bled together in the dark. I was shivering on the hard floor when the heavy scrape of the prison gates jolted me awake.

I forced my head up, my body weak and trembling, and saw Cade standing on the other side of the iron bars.

My chest tightened with a desperate burst of hope. It was the very first time he had come down here since ordering my imprisonment.

"Do you finally believe me?" I asked, using the wall to pull my battered body up. "Please, Cade, help me."

I reached my hand through the bars toward him, but he stepped back, evading my touch as if I were covered in a deadly plague.

I froze, completely stunned. "What..."

"I want absolutely nothing to do with you ever again," he stated, his voice devoid of any warmth. "I came down here to tell you to your face. I reject you as my Luna, and I reject you as my mate."

The invisible bond tying our souls together snapped with a violent, agonizing tear. The physical pain was blinding.

"But I carry your child!" I wailed, sagging against the bars. "Our child!"

Hot, fresh tears streamed down my face, dripping steadily onto my filthy dress as the reality of his rejection ripped through my chest.

He stared at me with dead, empty eyes. "Child? For all I know, it took you three years to finally conceive. That bastard might not even be mine. Besides, I can have as many pups as I want with Valerie."

I collapsed to the ground, banging my fists against my own chest as if I could physically beat away the suffocating agony consuming my heart, but the torment only deepened.

"You promised you would protect us!" I screamed through my sobs. "You lied to me! You betrayed your own family for her!"

"Save your breath for your trial tomorrow," he spat down at me. "You will be judged for your treacherous crimes, you monster."

He turned on his heel and walked away, disappearing into the shadows of the corridor.

I lay on the filthy ground, staring into the dark. The man I had poured my entire heart and soul into was gone. He was truly dead to me. In that cold clarity, a primal instinct took over. If I stayed in this cell, my baby and I would not survive the trial tomorrow.

I dragged myself off the floor and began running my bleeding hands over the back wall of the cell. I pressed against the mortar until I felt a loose brick shift under my weight. Hooking my fingers around the rough edges, I yanked it free. I spent the next hour desperately tearing at the surrounding stones, scraping my skin raw until the hole was finally wide enough for me to squeeze through.

I pushed myself out into the crisp night air, standing freely just outside the back of the pack house.

Moving entirely on adrenaline, I scavenged a discarded cloak from the laundry lines to disguise myself and sprinted straight for the border. I pushed my failing body for hours. The bright moonlight illuminated the endless stretch of trees, but my lungs burned with every step, and starvation was taking its toll.

My breathing turned into shallow, ragged gasps.

Stay strong, Maeve, I chanted in my head, stumbling through the thick underbrush. Do not pass out.

I ducked behind the massive trunk of an ancient oak, leaning my heavy head against the bark to catch my breath.

A low, vicious snarl ripped through the quiet woods.

I snapped my head up. A massive werewolf stalked out from the shadows, its glowing eyes locking directly onto me.

I shoved off the tree and bolted blindly into the dark. My pregnant, starved body couldn't move fast enough. The ground blurred beneath my feet as my vision began to narrow into a dark tunnel.

Keep moving. Do it for the baby.

I ignored the warning signs of my failing muscles and pushed harder, completely losing track of my surroundings.

My foot hit something unnatural.

A loud snap echoed through the trees just as a heavy rope net violently whipped up from the dirt, entangling my limbs and yanking me high into the air.

I swung wildly above the forest floor, completely trapped.

"We caught her," a deep, gravelly voice announced from the darkness below.

I peered through the thick ropes, my pulse racing. Several towering men stepped into the moonlight, and sheer terror flooded my veins. They were not Cade's guards.

I recognized the unfamiliar crest branded on their leather armor. They belonged to a ruthless pack that had been locked in a bloody feud with Cade's territory for generations. In my blind, desperate panic to escape execution, I had crossed the wrong border. I had stumbled directly into the domain of an Alpha King—a brutal, terrifying warlord who was infinitely more powerful than Cade.

A man who would not hesitate for a single second to sever the head of Cade's former Luna.

What the hell had I just done?