He delayed our ceremony seven times, the eighth time I cancelled it

The baby?

David died a year ago. Then whose child Celeste had been carrying?

Her words kept echoing in my head while Albus roared at me. I could see the hate and disdain in his eyes for me. Even if we were not connected anymore, the way he easily believed that I could do something like that, ached my heart.

“If anything happens to Celeste, you just forget about the moon ceremony, Diana.” He spat, his voice, sharp and cold.

The audacity!

He didn't know he was threatening me with something that I would care about the least. Our bonding ceremony.

“I didn't touch her, Albus," I said, my voice dead and hollow. I looked at Celeste, who was tucked safely against his chest, watching me over his shoulder with a tiny, triumphant smirk that Albus couldn't see.

"She tripped," I added, though I knew it was useless. “You know me. I will never-”

"Enough!" Albus barked. "I was going to let you go to the outhouse to cool off, but now? You’re going to the cellar. You’ll stay there until you’re ready to apologize to Celeste for this 'accident'."

I looked at the man I once called my mate, and then at the woman playing the victim in his arms. The pain I expected to feel didn't come. Instead, there was only a cold, sharpening clarity.

“The cellar,” I whispered, “You can't do this to me, Albus. I’m innocent.”

Albus didn’t listen to one word from me. He hadn't just sent me in the cell, he had personally dragged me down the stairs, his grip so tight I knew my skin would be mottled with bruises by morning.

Hours passed. The cold seeped through my clothes, settling into my bones. I huddled in the corner, staring at the sliver of moonlight filtering through a high, barred vent, when the sound of clicking heels echoed against the stone floor outside.

The door creaked open. It wasn't the guard with bread and water.

Celeste stepped in, draped in a plush cashmere shawl that I recognized—it was a gift Albus had bought for me during our honeymoon that I had never been "allowed" to wear because it was "too delicate."

She looked radiant, the dim light catching the expensive diamond earrings dangling from her lobes.

"It’s quite chilly down here, isn't it, Diana?" she said, her voice dripping with mock sympathy.

"Get out," I rasped, my throat raw.

"Oh, don't be like that. I came to thank you," she smirked, walking closer until she could look down at me. She placed a hand over her still-flat stomach, a gesture of pure possessiveness.

"Albus was so worried about the 'stress' you caused me that he spent the last three hours massaging my feet and whispering how much he wishes I was his Luna instead of a 'vicious woman' like you."

The question I had been stifling finally burst out. "David has been dead for a year, Celeste. Wolf pregnancies don't last twelve months. Whose baby is it?"

Celeste’s smirk widened into a predatory grin. She leaned down, whispering so close I could smell Albus’s scent—cedar and rain—clinging to her skin.

"Does it really matter? Albus and David, both are the Alphas. He has been ‘comforting’ me for his brother," She chuckled, a low, chilling sound. "And, he's been doing it long before David’s funeral, Diana. This child is an Alpha's heir. His heir."

My heart didn't break, it turned to ice. The betrayal was so absolute it was almost absurd.

‘Comforting’

They call their absurd act ‘Comforting’ and the fact that they had their affair even when David was alive and yet every time he left me for her, he used his dead brother's name, made me feel like throwing up.

He has been using his brother's death to hide his absurdity.

She turned on her heel, the heavy door groaning as she pushed it shut. "Sleep well, Diana. Or don't. Albus told the guards not to bring you any blankets. He said you needed the cold to 'freeze out your cruelty'."

The lock clicked again.

As the silence swallowed the cellar once more, a wave of dizziness hit me. The air here was thin, and the dampness was settling into my lungs. My wolf was silent, suppressed by the silver-laced stones of the cellar walls.

I looked at my trembling hands. If Albus kept me here for days without food or warmth, I wouldn't make it to my escape. I wouldn't make it to the border. I would die in this dark hole, a forgotten footnote in the story of an Alpha and his mistress.

I can't die here, I thought, a desperate fire flickering in my chest. I won't let them win.