The Luna You Betrayed Is No Longer Yours

_Rowena's POV_

The word hung in the air between us.

Divorce.

I had said it clearly and steadily without flinching. And for one suspended moment, the entire room went still, Grandmama Maelis, Elira, the pack members along the walls, all of them holding their breath like they were waiting to see which way a flame would lean.

Kaelen's expression didn't crack. But his eyes sharpened.

"You want a divorce." He said it the way someone repeats a word in a foreign language, like the meaning hadn't fully landed yet.

"I do," I said. "We never completed the bond. The marriage was never consummated. There's nothing legally binding us that can't be undone cleanly." I kept my voice even. "You have what you want. Let me go."

Something moved across his face, it was not guilt, or regret. Something closer to offense.

"You're being dramatic," he said.

Dramatic.

Three years of running his pack, managing his accounts, holding his family together while he made promises to another woman three states away, and the word he reached for was dramatic.

"Kaelen." Grandmama Maelis's voice cut in before I could respond. "Enough of this. Rowena, sit down."

"I'd rather stand, Grandmama."

Her jaw tightened. "You are Luna of this pack. You will conduct yourself accordingly."

"I am conducting myself accordingly," I said. "I'm asking for a legal dissolution of a marriage that was never properly formed. That's not drama. That's common sense."

Elira made a small sound and then said nothing, the way she always said nothing when it mattered.

Elvira, Kaelen's sister, from her corner of the couch, tilted her head. "I don't see why you're making this so difficult. Virella is already here. She's already pregnant. What exactly do you think you're protecting?"

I looked at her. "My name."

That landed. Even Elvira didn't have a quick answer for it.

Kaelen stepped forward. "I told you - you keep your title. You keep your standing. Nothing about your position in this pack changes."

"Everything about my position changes," I said. "The moment you brought her in here and called her your wife, you changed it. I'm not asking for compensation, Kaelen. I'm asking to leave."

"No."

The word was flat and immovable.

I stared at him. "You don't want me. You've made that perfectly clear. So why...."

"Because I said no." His voice dropped into that register, the Alpha command, the one that pressed against the air in the room like a physical weight. "This conversation is over."

His command did not break me.

Kyra stirred deep within, claws scraping against the walls of my consciousness. My father and brother had fallen in battle. My pack had been reduced to ashes. But that did not mean I had forgotten the Alpha blood that ran through my veins.

My lip curled. My canines ached to show.

And then Virella moved.

It was subtle, I had to give her that. A soft exhale, barely audible. One hand pressing to her stomach. Her head dipped forward just slightly, like something had shifted inside her.

No dramatic gasping, no performance. Just the quiet suggestion of a woman in discomfort, perfectly timed.

Kaelen turned before anyone else did.

"Virella." His voice changed completely, the command stripped out of it, something almost soft underneath. He crossed to her side in three steps. "What's wrong? Is it the baby?"

"I'm fine," she murmured, leaning lightly into his arm. "Just... the stress. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause all of this."

She didn't look at me when she said it.

And just like that, the room reoriented itself around her. Grandmama Maelis rose from her chair. Elira's helpless expression shifted to concern. Even Elvira straightened, the mocking curiosity fading from her face.

And Kaelen-Kaelen looked at her as though she were the only person in the room.

I watched it all.

Three years I had given this pack. Three years of holding them together, of sleepless nights and endless negotiations, of bleeding for people who had never once looked at me the way they now looked at her.

A cold smile touched my lips.

I turned and walked out of the hall.

Let Kaelen refuse. Let him command. Let him pretend this marriage was something worth keeping.

It did not matter.

I would have my divorce.

**

I wasted no time.

The moment I returned to my chambers, I set Velvet and Grace to work cataloging my dowry.

I unlocked the strongbox where my mother had stored every document she had transferred to me upon my marriage. She had always been meticulous. Every asset tracked. Every transaction recorded. Property deeds, investment accounts, pack infrastructure funds, the medical endowment-anything she had moved into Moonreign Pack's name when I married Kaelen was documented in her neat, slightly slanted handwriting.

I turned to page four.

Moonreign Pack-Pre-Wedding Financial Assessment.

Before agreeing to the match, my mother had commissioned a discreet third-party evaluation of the pack's finances. I had read it once, years ago, then set it aside. It had seemed irrelevant then. We were married. We were building a future together. The numbers belonged to the past.

Now I read it again.

When I married into the Varkos family, Moonreign Pack had been three months away from collapse. Kaelen's father had died young, leaving behind debts that his family had spent years draping in fine clothes and careful illusions. The estate. The cars. The servants. All of it held together by borrowed credit, wounded pride, and the quiet hope that something-someday-would turn their fortunes around.

What turned them around was my mother's money.

The Ashthorne funds-transferred in full on my wedding day-had cleared every outstanding debt, covered two years of operating expenses, and established the medical fund that still paid for Grandmama Maelis's monthly treatments.

I set the document down. A plan was already taking shape in my mind.

He doesn't know the full picture, Kyra said.

"He knows part of it. Not all."

"Then he's going to be very surprised."

"Yes." I ran my fingers over the papers my mother had left me-her final gift, though I had never expected to use it this way. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to this."

I drew a breath.

"Grace."

"Yes, my Luna?"

"Freeze every fund originating from the Ashthorne accounts. All of them. Assets, endowments, recurring transfers. Nothing moves without my written authorization." I paused. "And find me a family law attorney. Someone outside the pack. Someone who owes Kaelen nothing."

Grace's eyes lit up. She gave a sharp nod and turned, moving quickly-as if afraid I might change my mind if she did not act fast enough.

I looked out the window. Night had fallen. But the chill in my chest had settled into something cold and steady.

Let Kaelen try to stop me.

Without my money, the pack would feel the weight of its choices within a month.