Once a Rejected Luna, Now a Rising Queen

“No. Just something… unexpected happened this time. But it won’t be long now. I’ll contact you then.”

Just as I ended the call, the infirmary door creaked open, heavy door groaning against the stone floor.

Draven stood there, silhouetted in the doorway, his golden wolf eyes glowing faintly beneath the flickering sconces. His gaze locked onto mine, as if stunned by something he hadn’t seen in years—my smile.

A real one.

No bitterness. No anguish. Just silence, serenity.

His brow twitched, barely noticeable—but I caught it.

“Freya’s having a rough time with the bond and pregnancy. Morning sickness,” he said, his voice low, clipped. His hand curled into a loose fist by his side. “I have to get back to her.”

He didn’t ask who had called me.

Because if he did, that would mean he still gave a damn.

And admitting that would be a crack in his carefully maintained Alpha pride.

He snatched his suit from the chair and tossed it over his shoulder. “Something urgent at the southern border. I’ll return tomorrow.”

The door shut before I could reply.

I turned to the IV bag pumping wolfsbane antidote into my veins and started counting the drops.

One drop.

Two drops.

Just like I used to count the lies he told me during our seven-year mating.

In Draven’s world, “tomorrow” was a day that never arrived.

--

Three days had passed. He never came.

Instead, I was bombarded with glowing video-scrolls from packmates—footage of Draven at the Alpha Summit, with his hand curved protectively over Freya’s swollen belly. Feeding her honeyed elk meat at the banquet. Kissing her bump under the stars at Blackridge Lake, the same place where he once promised me eternity.

On the day of my discharge, a new Blackthorn Pack broadcast lit up my phone.

Draven had posted a series of nine bonded-mate photos.

He was kneeling in the middle of a wild moonbloom field, his cheek pressed to Freya’s stomach. The caption read:

“Awaiting our little moonflower.”

The comment feed gushed with praise. Freya is glowing! What a perfect Luna!

He hadn’t blocked me.

I tapped the heart emoji anyway.

Seconds later, my device vibrated. Alpha Draven’s name lit up.

I didn’t answer.

I slipped the phone into my hoodie jacket and handed my release paper.

As I walked past the maternity wing of the hospital's hall, I heard a voice that stopped me cold.

“Luna Freya Hart, your mate is so devoted,” a nurse giggled. “He hasn’t missed a single soul check, the alpha always makes sure he's with you every prenatal check-up! Even brought you a heatstone for the chill of the scan.”

I froze. My hand drifted protectively over my flat stomach.

There was a time when Draven had been just as anxious for me. Just as tender.

I’d been pregnant once.

But I never got the chance to tell him.

Because the day I returned from a healing mission, I found him and Freya entwined on the floor of our room, their snarls and moans echoing off the walls.

When she spotted me, Freya faked a whimper and curled against him. “Please, don’t misunderstand, Luna Rayven,” she sniffed. “Alpha Draven was just… relieving his stress, I was just helping him.”

I was so stunned, I forgot how to breathe. I opened my mouth to speak—to tell him he was going to be a father.

That I didn’t need anyone else to carry our bloodline.

But a sharp, brutal pain lanced through my womb.

By the time I collapsed, I was already bleeding out.

Draven Blackthorn never knew.

How would he know? When he was too busy growling at me, cradling Freya like a fragile pup.

“Ella, what the fuck is wrong with you?! You scared her! You can’t even keep a pup alive. You're useless, why don't you just fucking die already?!”

I felt his words had slashed deeper inside me than any claw.

Now, standing in that corridor, the smell of antiseptic and iron in the air, I nearly retched.

“Why are you here?”

That familiar growl snapped me back to reality.

Draven was there again—unannounced. Freya clung to his arm, her belly prominent.

I took a step back. “I’m just signing my discharge papers.”

“You look pale, Ella,” Freya said sweetly, her fingers toying with his ceremonial Alpha tie. “Draven, can’t we bring her home? She donated blood to me. She was so selfless.”

Alpha Draven pinched her cheek. “You’re always so compassionate.”

Then he turned to me, his voice cool. “Get in the car. Don’t make my Luna wait.”

I wanted to refuse.

But the marriage documents I needed were still in the packhouse's study, so I followed in silence.

The home that was once mine now stank of foreign magic and Freya’s cloying perfume—sickly sweet, like decayed lavender and lust spells.

In the study, I began to search the drawers. But beneath one set of scrolls, something caught my eye.

A torn lace strap of underwear. Black. Slick with old scent.

Freya appeared behind me, her cheeks flushed.

“Oh! How is that still here?” she gasped. “So embarrassing…”

Draven strolled in, saw the strap, and chuckled. “Must’ve slipped her mind.”

I stared at the desk.

I remembered the first year of our mating, when I made Draven a packed lunch, I left it there with a note.

He'd come home raging—furious that I’d “tainted” his sacred study space.

But now, Freya's girl juice was smeared across his desk, and all he did was smile like it was the most amusing thing.

Like she had already replaced me.

And maybe… she had.

But I was no longer the same she-wolf he’d once broken.

Now, I had nothing left to lose.

Not the pup he never knew about.

Not the love he threw away.

And certainly not my wolf, who had begun to stir inside me again, for the first time in months.

She was waking.

And this time, I know, we would rise together.