He Chose His Mistress: The Pregnant Luna's Escape

The air here was different.

It didn't carry the metallic tang of rain and deception that plagued the Thorne lands; instead, it breathed of ancient pine, crisp mountain drafts, and the soothing, medicinal scent of the lavender my mother tended in the south gardens.

I lay in the private medical wing of my family’s estate. My burns were healing, knitting together under the constant, expensive attention of the best Healers my father’s fortune could command.

My mother, Elizabeth, sat by my bedside. She held a small silver paring knife, peeling a red apple with a rhythmic, hypnotic precision.

"You need to eat, Olivia," she said softly, offering me a slice on the tip of the blade. "For the little one."

I turned my head away. The nausea wasn't physical anymore; it was spiritual. It was a sickness of the soul. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Michael shielding Serena. I felt the phantom heat of the soup scalding my skin.

"I'm not hungry," I whispered.

"He called again," Mother said, her voice hardening as the knife sliced through the apple's skin. "Michael. He wanted to know when you were coming back to the Thorne Pack."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him you were recovering from the 'miscarriage' and needed your family," she said, severing another slice with precise, lethal force. "He sounded... relieved."

*Relieved.*

Of course he was. He thought the problem—my child, his heir—was gone. He thought he had won.

Later that afternoon, I managed to stand. The Healer tried to protest, stepping in my path, but I drew myself up.

"I am the daughter of Alpha Hayes," I said, my voice weak but laced with steel. "I need fresh air."

I walked slowly into the private gardens. The high, manicured hedges provided a wall of privacy, blocking the view from the main house. I needed to breathe. I needed to feel the solid earth beneath my feet.

Then, voices drifted over the hedge.

Familiar voices.

I froze.

"You promised me, Michael!"

It was Serena. Her voice was shrill, stripped of the sugary veneer she wore in public. "You said once the baby was gone, you would announce it! You said you would make me Luna!"

I pressed myself against the leaves, peering through a small gap in the foliage. They were standing near the stone fountain. Michael looked exhausted, dark circles bruising the skin under his eyes, but he was holding her hands tightly.

"I can't just yet, Serena," Michael pleaded. "Her father is still alive. If I kick Olivia out now, the Hayes Pack will pull their funding. We need that money to finish the new warrior barracks. Just be patient."

"Patient?" Serena ripped her hands away. She grabbed the diamond necklace hanging around her neck—a necklace I recognized instantly. It was the one Michael had bought for my birthday two years ago, claiming he had "lost" it before he could give it to me.

"I am tired of wearing her cast-offs!" Serena screamed. She tore the necklace from her throat and threw it onto the cobblestones. The clasp snapped. Diamonds scattered across the stone like frozen tears. "I am tired of being the secret!"

"You are not a secret to me," Michael roared, his Alpha voice vibrating in the air. "You are everything! Do you think I want to be with her? Every time I touch her, I have to close my eyes and picture you. I never loved her, Serena. Never. She was just... a means to an end. A bank account with a pulse."

I felt the blood drain from my face. I thought I had no tears left, but the sheer cruelty of his words punched the air from my lungs.

*A bank account with a pulse.*

"I would give up the Alpha title for you," Michael continued, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. "I would walk away from it all if I could. But I built this for us. For our children."

Serena looked at him, her chest heaving. Then, she burst into tears and ran off toward the guest wing.

Michael stood there for a moment, looking at the broken necklace. Then, the great Alpha Michael Thorne dropped to his knees.

He began to pick up the diamonds, one by one, with a reverence he had never shown me.

I watched him crawling on the ground for her.

A strange sensation washed over me. It wasn't pain. It wasn't anger.

It was disgust. Pure, cold, crystalline disgust.

I turned away and walked back to the house. I didn't cry. I didn't stumble.

That evening, I joined my parents for dinner. I sat at the long mahogany table, listening to the elders discuss pack politics as if I weren't there.

"Michael was always obsessed with that girl," Elder Thomas muttered into his wine glass, assuming my silence meant I was too broken to hear. "Years ago, before he met Olivia. He nearly got himself killed crossing Rogue territory just to see Serena. We thought he grew out of it."

"Obsession is a sickness," my father grunted, cutting into his steak. "It makes a wolf blind."

I looked out the window at the full moon rising above the trees. My hand rested on my flat stomach, feeling the tiny, secret flutter of life within.

*You are blind, Michael,* I thought, a cold smile touching my lips. *And soon, you will fall into the very pit you dug for yourself.*