I Was Rejected While Carrying His Baby, But the Alpha King Chose Me

Three months.

That was how long I had carried Ethan's child. Three months of hiding morning sickness behind closed doors, of pressing my palm to my stomach when no one was watching.

And now my stepsister stood at the top of the grand staircase, smiling down at me like she'd already won.

"Aurora," Isabella sang. "You look pale. Is the baby giving you trouble?"

I gripped the banister. "What do you want, Isabella?"

She tilted her head. Her blonde hair was pinned up perfectly, the way she always wore it to pack dinners. The way she wore it when Ethan was in the house.

"Want?" She laughed softly. "Nothing. I just came to say congratulations."

She held out her hand.

I didn't take it.

So she took mine.

Her fingers clamped around my wrist, sharp nails biting into my skin. Before I could pull back, she yanked me forward and shoved.

The world flipped.

My shoulder struck the first stone step. Then my hip. Then my back. Each landing cracked through my bones. I curled around my belly on instinct, arms locked tight, as I tumbled to the bottom.

The cold floor slammed into my cheek.

For a second, there was nothing. No sound. No air.

Then the pain came.

It ripped through my stomach like claws, low and deep and wrong. I gasped and wrapped both hands over my belly.

*No. No, no, no. Please, baby. Stay with me.*

"Are you insane?" I choked out. I pushed up on one trembling elbow. My arm buckled. I tried again. "You could have killed—"

"The baby?" Isabella floated down the stairs, one slow step at a time. Her silk dress whispered against the stone. "Yes. That was the idea."

She stopped above me and crouched, close enough that I smelled her rose perfume.

"Sister," she said sweetly, "did you honestly believe a wolfless nobody deserved to give the Alpha an heir?"

Every muscle in my body went rigid.

Wolfless.

The word had followed me since I was twelve. Since my first full moon came and went and nothing answered inside me. No voice. No shift. No wolf.

My father had looked at me like I was a stain on his name. My stepmother had moved my bedroom to the servants' wing. And Isabella, perfect Isabella with her gorgeous silver-white wolf, had laughed.

"Ethan chose me," I whispered.

"Ethan was forced to take you." Her smile sharpened. "Your mother's old bargain with his father. That's all you ever were. A debt."

Another wave of pain tore through me. I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood.

Footsteps echoed from the main hall.

Heavy ones. Familiar ones.

Isabella's face changed in a heartbeat. Her lips trembled. Her eyes went glossy. She stumbled backward against the wall with a tiny cry.

"Ethan!"

He came around the corner, tall and broad in his dark suit, his Alpha aura rolling ahead of him like a storm front. Ethan Blackwood. Alpha of Silver Ridge. My mate.

Relief flooded my chest so fast it hurt.

"Ethan." I reached for him. My fingers shook in the air between us. "Ethan, please. The baby—our baby—something's wrong."

He stopped.

He didn't kneel. Didn't run. He just stood at the edge of the hall and studied me on the floor, his gray eyes flat and unreadable.

Then his brows pulled together.

"Again?" he said.

The word hit harder than the stairs.

"What?"

"This again, Aurora?" He exhaled through his nose and turned his head. "Isabella. Are you hurt?"

My stepsister pressed a hand to her chest. "I'm fine. I tried to help her down the stairs, I swear. She grabbed me and then she just… fell."

"That's a lie," I rasped. "She pushed me. Ethan, look at me. She *pushed* me."

He finally looked.

I wished he hadn't.

His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking under his skin. "If you can't stand your own sister being in this house," he said quietly, "then don't use your pregnancy as a weapon."

"A weapon?"

"You think carrying my child locks you into the Luna seat?" His voice dropped colder. "It doesn't. It never will."

I stared at him.

Somewhere above us, a servant gasped. Someone else whispered. I heard the shuffle of feet on the upper landing, half the household gathering to watch the wolfless Luna bleed on the floor.

My eyes burned.

I didn't argue. I didn't explain.

What was the point? I had tried for two years. Every bruise Isabella left, every cruel word, every "accident." He had never once believed me.

So I just lay there and let the tears slide sideways into my hair.

Ethan looked away first.

"Call the healers," he barked over his shoulder.

The house exploded into motion. Doors banged. Someone shouted for a stretcher. Isabella slipped closer to Ethan, her small hand settling on his sleeve.

He didn't shake it off.

I closed my eyes.

*I'm sorry,* I told the tiny life inside me. *I'm sorry I couldn't protect you better.*

A warm wetness spread beneath me. I knew what that meant. I'd read enough books in those quiet weeks to know.

The healers arrived in a rush of white coats and herb smells. Hands pressed to my wrist. A voice counted my pulse out loud.

Then an old voice cut through all of it.

"Wait."

Elder Corwin. The oldest member of the pack council. He leaned on his carved cane at the foot of the stairs, his cloudy eyes fixed on the floor beside my hip.

"Move back," he ordered the healers. "All of you. Now."

They froze.

Ethan frowned. "Elder, she needs treatment—"

"I said *move.*"

The old man lowered himself to one knee, his joints cracking loud in the sudden silence. With a shaking finger, he pointed at the stone.

I turned my head.

A single drop of my blood sat on the gray floor.

It wasn't red.

It shimmered silver, glowing faintly, like a piece of the moon had fallen and cracked open.

Isabella's grip on Ethan's sleeve went white-knuckled.

Ethan took one step forward. Then another. The color drained from his face.

Nobody breathed.

Elder Corwin stared at the drop like it might rise up and bite him. When he finally spoke, his voice cracked down the middle.

"Impossible…" he whispered. "The Moonborn bloodline was wiped out decades ago."