Emma's POV
The chocolate chip cookies are still warm in the bag when I push open my front door.
"Liam's going to love these," I whisper to myself, smiling despite the exhaustion pulling at my bones. Three hours with Mom at the hospital, watching her sleep through another round of treatment, and all I want is to hold my son and pretend everything's normal.
The house is silent.
Too silent.
Usually, Declan has the TV on. Or he's on phone calls for pack business, his Alpha voice echoing through the halls. But today there's nothing except—
I freeze.
Is that giggling?
My wolf stirs inside me, uneasy. Something's wrong, she whispers. Something's very wrong.
I set the cookies on the kitchen counter with shaking hands. Maybe Declan's watching something funny upstairs. Maybe I'm being paranoid because Mom's sick and I haven't slept properly in weeks and everything feels like it's falling apart.
But then I hear it again.
A woman's laugh. High and breathless. Coming from upstairs.
From our bedroom.
My feet move on their own, carrying me toward the stairs. Each step feels like walking through thick mud. My heart pounds so hard I can hear it in my ears. There's another sound now—low moaning, the kind that makes my stomach twist.
Please let me be wrong, I pray to the Moon Goddess. Please, please let me be wrong.
I reach the top of the stairs. Our bedroom door is cracked open, light spilling into the hallway. The sounds are louder now. Unmistakable.
My hand touches the doorknob. It's warm.
I push the door open.
Time stops.
My husband—my mate of six years, the Alpha I've loved since I was twenty-two, the father of my child—is in our bed. In the bed where I gave birth to nightmares about losing Liam. In the bed where I cried myself to sleep when Declan worked late for the hundredth time.
He's not alone.
Josie.
My best friend since childhood. My bridesmaid. The woman who held my hand through labor. The woman who helped me pick out Liam's first birthday cake.
She's naked. He's naked. They're tangled together in sheets I washed this morning, and the smell—oh goddess, the smell of sex and sweat and betrayal is so thick I can taste it.
Declan's head turns toward me. His eyes meet mine.
He doesn't look guilty. He doesn't look sorry.
He looks annoyed.
"Emma." His voice is flat, cold. "I thought you'd be gone longer."
That's it. That's all he says.
Not "I'm sorry." Not "this isn't what it looks like." Not even a lie to soften the blow.
Just irritation that I came home early and interrupted.
Josie sits up slowly, deliberately. She doesn't even bother covering herself. Her red hair spills over her shoulders, and her lips curve into a smile I've never seen before. Cold. Calculating. Cruel.
"Emma, sweetie," she purrs. "We need to talk."
My knees buckle. I grab the doorframe to stay upright. My wolf is howling inside me, clawing to get out, to fight, to make them hurt the way I'm hurting.
But I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't do anything except stare at the two people I trusted most in the world destroying me without even trying to hide it.
"How long?" The words scrape out of my throat like broken glass.
Declan sighs like I'm being difficult. He reaches for his pants. "Does it matter?"
"HOW LONG?" My voice cracks, and I hate how weak I sound. How pathetic.
Josie answers instead, still smiling that terrible smile. "Three years."
The room spins.
Three years.
Three years of "girls' nights" where Josie stayed over. Three years of "helping with Liam" while Declan worked late. Three years of her listening to me cry about my distant husband, offering comfort, saying "he does love you, he's just bad at showing it."
Three years of lies.
"You—" I look at Josie, at the woman who knows every secret I've ever told, every fear, every dream. "You were my best friend."
"I was your mistake," Josie says simply. She stands up, completely comfortable in her nakedness, and walks toward me. "You had everything, Emma. The Alpha mate. The Luna title. The perfect life. But you're too weak to keep it. Someone strong needed to step in."
"Get out." Declan's command cuts through the air. Not to Josie.
To me.
"What?" I whisper.
"You heard me. Get out. We'll discuss this later when you're not being hysterical."
Hysterical. He's in bed with my best friend, and I'm being hysterical for caring.
Something inside me breaks. Not my heart—that broke the moment I opened the door. Something deeper. The part of me that spent six years trying to be the perfect wife. The perfect Luna. The perfect mother.
The part that believed love could fix anything.
I stumble backward out of the room. My legs barely hold me as I run down the stairs, past the kitchen, past the chocolate chip cookies that Liam will never eat. I make it to the downstairs bathroom before I throw up.
When there's nothing left in my stomach, I sit on the cold tile floor and stare at nothing.
My phone buzzes. A text from Josie: Don't make this harder than it needs to be. Declan and I are in love. Real love. Just sign the papers.
Papers?
Another text comes through. This time with an attachment. Divorce papers. Already prepared. Already signed by Declan.
They planned this. They've been planning this.
I'm still staring at my phone when I hear the front door open. Footsteps. Small, running footsteps.
"Mama?"
Liam.
My son. My baby. My everything.
I try to stand up, to wipe my face, to be strong for him. But before I can reach the bathroom door, I hear Josie's voice.
"Come here, sweetheart! Mommy's home!"
My blood turns to ice.
I step into the hallway just in time to see my four-year-old son run past me—actually run PAST me like I'm invisible—and throw himself into Josie's arms.
"Mommy!" Liam squeals with joy. "You said you'd make pancakes!"
Josie catches him, swinging him around, her eyes finding mine over his shoulder. Her smile is pure poison.
"Of course, baby boy. Mommy always keeps her promises."
"Liam," I choke out. "Liam, I'm your mother."
My son turns to look at me. His little face—Declan's gray eyes, my blonde hair—scrunches up in confusion.
Then he says the words that destroy what's left of me:
"No, you're not. Josie's my mommy. Daddy said so."
He turns back to Josie, hugging her tight. "Can Emma leave now? She makes Daddy sad."
The world goes black at the edges. I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't process that my own son—the boy I almost died bringing into this world—doesn't even recognize me as his mother.
Declan appears at the top of the stairs, fully dressed now, his Alpha face back on. "Emma, we need to talk. Privately."
But I can't stop staring at Liam in Josie's arms. At how comfortable he looks. At how she's stroking his hair the way I used to.
"How long has he been calling her Mommy?" My voice doesn't even sound like mine.
Declan's jaw tightens. "A few months."
"A few months." I laugh, and it sounds insane even to me. "You've been letting our son call your mistress Mommy for MONTHS?"
"Don't be dramatic," Josie says, kissing the top of Liam's head. "Children adapt. He needed a proper mother figure, and you've always been so... distant."
Distant. I've been distant. Not the Alpha who missed every birthday. Not the mate who couldn't remember our anniversary. Me.
"Mama's crying," Liam says, pointing at me. But he doesn't sound concerned. He sounds annoyed. "Why is she always crying?"
"Because she's sad, baby," Josie coos. "But don't worry. She'll leave soon, and then it'll just be our happy family."
Our happy family.
I look at the three of them—Declan on the stairs, Josie holding Liam, my son looking at me like I'm a stranger—and realize the horrible truth.
I already lost.
I lost months ago, maybe years ago, and I was too stupid to see it.
The mate bond—the sacred connection blessed by the Moon Goddess herself—feels like a noose around my neck. Declan's emotions should flow through it. His love, his pain, his everything. But there's nothing there. Just cold emptiness.
Like he cut me off a long time ago.
"I want a divorce," I hear myself say.
Declan actually looks relieved. "Good. That'll make this easier. My lawyers will contact you tomorrow."
Tomorrow. Like it's a business deal.
I turn to walk away, to grab my purse and leave this nightmare, when Josie's voice stops me cold.
"Oh, and Emma? Don't bother trying to take Liam. The pack courts always side with the Alpha. Especially against an unstable mother."
I spin around. "Unstable? I'm not—"
"Aren't you?" Josie tilts her head, false sympathy dripping from every word. "You've been so stressed lately. So emotional. Forgetting things. Everyone's noticed. Even the pack doctors are concerned."
My stomach drops. "You didn't."
Her smile is all the answer I need.
They've been building a case. Planting seeds with the pack. Painting me as unstable, emotional, unfit.
"You can't take my son," I whisper.
"We already did," Declan says simply. He walks down the stairs, takes Liam from Josie, and the three of them stand together like a real family. Like I'm the outsider.
"Get your things and leave, Emma. My Beta will make sure you get out safely."
"This is my house too—"
"This is the Alpha's house. You were just living here as my mate." His gray eyes are ice-cold. "You're not my mate anymore. So you're not welcome."
The front door opens. Marcus, Declan's Beta and supposed friend, walks in. He won't meet my eyes.
"Luna," he says quietly. "I'll help you pack."
"Don't call me Luna," I snap. "Apparently, I never really was."
I walk upstairs on numb legs. Pack a bag with shaking hands. The whole time, I can hear them downstairs. Laughing. Playing. Being a family.
Without me.
When I come back down, suitcase in hand, Liam doesn't even look up from the cartoon Josie put on for him.
"Liam," I try one more time. "Baby, I love you."
He glances at me briefly. "Okay. Bye, Emma."
Emma. Not Mama. Not even a hug.
Just "bye, Emma."
I walk out of my house—no, Declan's house—into the cold night. The door closes behind me with a final click.
Marcus sets my suitcase in my car without a word. Before he walks away, he whispers, "I'm sorry."
But sorry doesn't fix anything.
I sit in my car outside the house where I spent six years trying to build a life. The lights are warm inside. Through the window, I can see Declan, Josie, and Liam on the couch together. They're laughing at something on TV.
They look perfect.
They look happy.
They look like a family.
My phone buzzes. Another text from Josie. This time it's a photo.
A pregnancy test.
Positive.
The message below reads: Told you I'd give him everything you couldn't. Even a second child. Maybe this one will actually call me Mommy from the start.
I drop my phone. It clatters to the car floor.
Through our bond—the bond that's supposed to be sacred and unbreakable—I feel absolutely nothing from Declan. It's like he's not even there. Like he severed it completely and I'm just too broken to realize it.
No. Wait.
I press my hand to my chest, searching for that golden thread that's supposed to connect mates forever.
It's there. Barely. A thin, dying strand.
But there's something else. Something dark wrapped around it. Like black vines choking a flower.
Magic.
Someone put magic on our bond.
Before I can process that, headlights flood my car. Another vehicle pulls into the driveway. A black SUV with Silverpine Pack symbols.
The door opens and an older woman steps out. Margaret Thorne. Declan's mother.
She walks straight to my car and knocks on the window.
I roll it down, confused.
"You need to leave pack territory," she says without preamble. "Tonight. Don't come back."
"I just need time to—"
"There is no time." Her eyes are hard. "My son is Alpha. His word is law. You've been declared rogue, effective immediately. If you're still here by sunrise, the pack warriors will remove you by force."
Rogue. The worst thing you can call a wolf. It means no pack, no protection, no home.
"He can't just—"
"He can. He did. The pack council voted unanimously." She leans closer. "You have no friends here, Emma. Everyone knows you weren't good enough for an Alpha. They're relieved he finally found someone worthy."
She walks away, leaving me sitting there with my world destroyed.
I start my car with numb fingers. Drive away from the only home I've known for six years. Away from my son. Away from everything.
In my rearview mirror, I watch the house—watch them—disappear.
I don't know where I'm going.
I don't know what I'll do.
I don't know how to survive this.
All I know is that Emma Thorne—Luna of Silverpine Pack, devoted wife, loving mother—died tonight.
And I have no idea who's left.