He Buried His Luna, Then She Returned Royal

Three days after Lucian confined me, pain woke me before dawn.

It began as a cramp low in my belly. I curled beneath the blankets and called for the guard. By sunrise the cramp had become a blade twisting through my spine.

“Please,” I shouted through the door. “Get Miriam. Something is wrong with the baby.”

The guard on duty, Owen, shifted uneasily on the other side. “Alpha’s orders say no one enters without permission.”

“Then ask him.”

“I sent a runner.”

Hours passed.

No runner returned.

I tried the windows. Silver bars had been fixed across them. The north rooms had once held dangerous rogues during winter storms; now they held the Luna of Frostfang.

By noon, my nightdress was damp with sweat. My wolf, small and pale as a frightened pup, scratched at the walls of my mind. She could not heal what was happening. Each wave of pain forced me to my knees.

I crawled to the door and pressed my cheek to the cold wood.

“Owen. Please. You watched me grow up.”

Silence.

“My mother gave your family land after the flood.”

His breath caught. “I’m sorry, Luna.”

“Don’t be sorry. Open the door.”

“I can’t defy the Alpha.”

A wet warmth spread between my legs.

I looked down and saw blood.

The scream that left me did not sound human.

I beat the door until my knuckles split. I called Lucian’s name through the bond, flinging pain, fear, and desperate love toward him.

The bond gave me an answer.

Pleasure.

His pleasure. Vanessa’s scent. A pulse of heat so intimate and brutal that I understood exactly why he had not come. While I begged him to save our child, my mate was in another woman’s bed.

Something inside me tore.

I folded over my belly. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to the life slipping away. “I’m so sorry.”

The bleeding did not stop until evening.

When the door finally opened, Vanessa entered first.

She wore a pale blue dress and Lucian’s claiming chain around her neck. He followed with Miriam and two guards. The healer rushed toward me, but one look at the sheets made her shoulders fall.

“No,” Lucian said.

It was the first honest grief I had ever heard from him.

He crossed the room and lifted me from the floor. His arms shook. My body recognized him even then—his warmth, the beat of his heart, the scent that had once meant home. I wanted to bury my face against his throat. I wanted to bite through it.

“You left me here,” I whispered.

His gaze snapped to Owen. “Why wasn’t I told?”

“I sent word, Alpha. Beta Reed said you were not to be disturbed.”

Marcus stepped in behind them. “That message never reached me.”

Vanessa began to cry. “Lucian, look beside the bed.”

A small brown bottle lay near the curtain.

I had never seen it before.

Miriam uncorked it, sniffed, and recoiled. “Black cohosh and moonbane. Enough to end an early pregnancy.”

Lucian went still.

“No,” I said. My voice was scraped raw. “She put it there.”

Vanessa covered her mouth. “Why would I enter a locked room?”

“You just did.”

“Because Lucian brought me.” Tears slid perfectly down her cheeks. “Evie told me yesterday she would rather kill the baby than let it bind Lucian to her.”

I stared.

Lucian’s grief changed shape. It became rage because rage was easier than admitting he had ignored me.

“You murdered my child,” he said.

“Our child died calling for you.”

His eyes flashed amber.

“Reject me,” I whispered.

The room fell silent.

I had imagined those words would destroy me. Instead, they felt like the last clean thing I could still choose.

Lucian’s face drained of color. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I know exactly. I, Evelyn Ashbourne, reject you, Lucian Ashbourne, as my mate and husband.”

The incomplete bond snapped.

Pain exploded through my chest. I screamed, clawing at Lucian’s shirt as my wolf collapsed. He caught me, his forehead pressing to mine. For one terrible second, his control broke, and I felt his panic pour through the dying connection.

Then pride sealed him shut.

“I accept your rejection,” he said.

The last thread broke.

I stopped feeling him.

The emptiness was worse than pain.

Lucian lowered me onto the bed as if I had become something dead. “Take her to the lower cells.”

Miriam protested. “She has lost too much blood.”

“She confessed by rejecting me.”

“No,” I said. “I freed myself.”

His mouth tightened. “Take her.”

The dungeon beneath Frostfang Keep smelled of rust, damp stone, and old fear. They put me in a cell without blankets. For days, Miriam was allowed to send water but not medicine. My fever rose. My milk came for a child who would never drink it, leaving my breasts swollen and aching beneath a filthy dress.

I learned to hate slowly.

On the fifth night, bells rang above us.

A guard laughed while passing my cell. “The Alpha marries Vanessa Reed tomorrow. Smart choice. We need a Luna like her.”

I turned my face to the wall.

Across the corridor, someone began to sing.

The old man had been muttering since I arrived, a skeletal prisoner with tangled white hair and eyes clouded by madness. He sang military marching songs, then argued with dead soldiers. Sometimes he called me Seraphine, my mother’s name.

That night, he crawled to his bars and stared at me with sudden clarity.

“You have Edward’s eyes,” he said.

I pushed myself upright. “You knew my father?”

“I recorded his wars.” His fingers closed around the bars. “Silas Crowe. Oath-scribe to the old council.”

The name stirred a memory. Silas had vanished after the Battle of Hollow Ridge, where Lucian’s father died.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Garrick wanted me dead.” Silas smiled, showing broken teeth. “Then Garrick died first.”

My pulse quickened. “He died saving my father.”

“No.” The word cracked like a whip. “Beta Garrick disobeyed a direct retreat order. He chased glory into the ravine. His charge exposed the eastern flank and cost forty-seven wolves their lives. Alpha Edward went back for him. Edward nearly died trying to repair Garrick’s mistake.”

I gripped the bars to stay upright.

“You’re lying.”

“I wrote the order. I sealed the witness crystal. Edward hid the truth because Garrick’s widow was dying and the boy was innocent.” Silas’s gaze softened. “Your father adopted Lucian from love, not guilt.”

“Where is the evidence?”

“Beneath the chapel floor. Iron box. Wolf-and-crown seal.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Silas’s clarity shattered. He began barking at the ceiling and slapping his own face.

Vanessa appeared in a white bridal cloak.

No guards followed her.

She stopped before my cell and smiled. “You always were difficult to finish.”

I backed away.

“You poisoned me. You blocked the message.”

“I did more than that.” She took a key from her sleeve. “Lucian needed a villain. You made it easy.”

The door opened.

I could barely stand, but I raised my claws.

Vanessa drew a silver dagger.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “they’ll tell the pack you died from grief.”