Chapter 1

"You were just the incubator, Alex. Iliana is their real mother."

With those words, Alpha Gavyn erased six years of my life.

I had raised his twins, sat up with them through fevers, and loved them as my own while he waited for his "true mate" to return.

But the moment Iliana came back, I became nothing more than a nuisance.

The betrayal didn't stop there.

My children, the ones who used to cling to my leg, looked at me with pure disgust.

"Ew," my daughter sneered. "Daddy says you're just a hairless weakling. Don't touch me!"

She shoved me down the stairs.

Gavyn didn't help me up. He stepped over my bleeding body to comfort Iliana because the smell of my blood "bothered" her.

He forced me to dive into a poisoned lake to retrieve a necklace Iliana threw away, just to humiliate me.

And when kidnappers held us both at gunpoint on a cliff, asking him to save one, he didn't hesitate.

"I choose Iliana," he said, turning his back on me. "You were just a substitute."

As I fell into the abyss, waiting for death, I felt a snap inside my chest.

Gavyn thought he was killing a latent human.

He had no idea that the fall would shatter the seal on my soul.

Mid-air, my bones didn't break-they reshaped.

A blinding white light exploded from my skin.

The Alpha didn't just discard a nanny.

He just unleashed the legendary White Wolf.

Chapter 1

Alex POV:

The air inside the Blood Moon Pack's Archives wasn't just cold; it was a physical weight, pressing against my lungs.

I stood before the high counter, clutching the application form for the twins' Coming of Age Fund. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

"I'm sorry, Alex," the clerk said. She didn't look sorry. She was a Beta, and her eyes were glued to her screen, dismissing me before I'd even finished speaking. "You can't access these funds. Bylaws are strict. Only the biological mother or the Alpha can authorize withdrawals."

"But I am their mother," I whispered, the words scraping my throat. "I raised them. I fed them. I sat up with them every night when the fever took them."

The clerk finally looked up. Her lip curled. "Raising them makes you a glorified babysitter, Alex. Not a mother. The genetic markers are undeniable. The eggs were Iliana's. You were just... the incubator."

The incubator.

The word hung there, sucking the oxygen out of the room. I turned and walked away, my legs feeling like they didn't belong to me. I knew the truth-I always had-but hearing it weaponized by a stranger made it bleed.

I needed Gavyn. He was the Alpha. If he validated me, the Archives would fall in line.

I headed for the Alpha's office. My hearing was sharper than a normal human's, a secret I kept close, letting everyone believe I was just a Latent Wolf-a dud with no spirit.

As I neared the heavy oak door, voices drifted through the wood.

"She's becoming a nuisance, Gavyn," a woman's voice purred. Iliana. She'd been back three months, playing the role of the prodigal Luna. "She actually thinks she has rights."

Then came the voice that used to anchor me. Now, it just cut the line.

"She is useful, Iliana," Gavyn said. His tone was bored, like he was discussing inventory. "The twins are difficult. They need a stabilizer. Alex is a good pacifier. She smells enough like you to keep their wolf sides calm, but she's submissive enough to scrub the floors."

I froze.

"But she has no wolf," Iliana laughed. "How can she be the Luna of the Blood Moon Pack? It's embarrassing, Gavyn. A wolf-less Luna."

"She isn't the Luna," Gavyn replied, the ice in his voice cracking my heart. "She's a placeholder. A seat-warmer until you were ready to come home. Don't worry, my love. Once the transition is complete, we'll discard her."

I couldn't breathe.

Discard.

I turned and ran. I burst out of the pack house and into the rain, sprinting all the way back to the Alpha's mansion. I needed the twins. Kaylin and Kenneth. They were my world. They loved me. They had to.

I found them in the living room. Six years old, eyes already glowing with the early signs of the shift.

"Kaylin, Kenneth," I gasped, dripping water onto the Persian rug. "Come here. Mommy needs a hug."

They looked up from their tablets. Kaylin's face twisted. It was a perfect mirror of Iliana's expression.

"Ew," Kaylin said. "You're wet. You smell like a wet dog. But you aren't even a dog, are you? Daddy says you're just a hairless weakling."

"Kaylin, don't say that. I love you." I reached out.

"Don't touch me!" she screamed.

She shoved me.

For a six-year-old human, a shove is nothing. But Kaylin was Alpha-blooded. Her strength was hydraulic.

I flew backward. My feet tangled in the rug, and I went down hard, tumbling down the marble steps into the sunken living room.

Crack.

My head hit the floor. The world went white, then red.

Through the ringing in my ears, the front door opened.

"Daddy! Mommy Iliana!" Kenneth shouted. "The nanny fell down!"

Gavyn and Iliana walked in. I tried to push myself up, but the room tilted. Blood trickled into my eye.

Gavyn looked down at me. No concern. Just irritation.

"Get up, Alex," he commanded. "You're staining the marble."

"Gavyn..." I whispered. "Help me."

He stepped over me. He stepped over the mother of his children to get to the woman who abandoned them.

"Are you okay, my love?" he asked Iliana. "Is the smell of blood bothering you?"

Iliana wrinkled her nose. "It's disgusting. Can we go? You promised me a Moonlit Dinner."

"Of course," Gavyn said. "Kids, coats. We're leaving."

"Can we get ice cream?" Kaylin asked, stepping on my hand as she ran past.

"Anything for you, princess," Gavyn said.

The heavy door clicked shut.

I lay in the pool of my own blood. And for the first time, deep in the hollow where my heart should be, I felt a vibration.

Low. Angry.

A growl.