I gasped, jerking awake. I was still on the floor of Kason's room. The morning sun sliced through the curtains, illuminating the dust motes in the air. Kason was sitting on the edge of his bed, holding an ice pack to the side of his head. The wound from the silver lamp was healing, but slowly. It looked angry and red.

He had thrown a small cardboard box at me.

I looked down. It was a box of emergency contraceptives.

"Take them," Kason said. His voice was raspy, but he wasn't looking at me. His gaze was fixed on the wall, his jaw tight as if he were holding back a scream. There was a tremor in his hand that he quickly hid by gripping the ice pack tighter.

"What?" I croaked, my throat dry.

"For last night," he said, standing up. He winced slightly. "I don't remember much after you... attacked me. But you smell like sex and fear. I won't have a bastard child complicating my life."

I stared at him in horror. Nothing had happened. I had knocked him out. But I saw a flicker of something in his eyes-not just cruelty, but a desperate need to rewrite the narrative. If he convinced himself we had slept together, then in his twisted mind, I still belonged to him.

"Nothing happened, Kason," I said, my voice trembling. "I hit you. You passed out."

"Don't lie," he sneered, but the words lacked his usual fire. He rubbed his chest, as if his wolf were clawing at him from the inside. "Just take the pills. I don't want you breeding."

He turned away abruptly, marching to the bathroom. Before he slammed the door, I heard a ragged intake of breath, like a drowning man surfacing for air.

I left the pills on the floor. I grabbed my shoes and ran.

Two days passed. I stayed in the basement, barricading the door with old furniture. I only went out when I knew Kason was away on pack business.

The Mating Ceremony-my wedding to Hadley, though Kason didn't know that part-was in less than two weeks. I just had to survive until then.

I spent the afternoon at the pawn shop in the human town, selling the few gold earrings I had left. I needed cash for a taxi to the airport when the time came.

That evening, there was a mandatory pack party to celebrate the upcoming full moon. As an Omega, I was required to serve drinks.

I was carrying a tray of champagne through the crowded hall when it hit me.

A sharp, twisting pain in my abdomen. It felt like someone had shoved a hot poker into my stomach. I doubled over, dropping the tray. Glass shattered. Champagne sprayed everywhere.

"Clumsy bitch!" someone shouted.

I fell to my knees, clutching my stomach. It was Rejection Sickness. My body was physically rejecting the Oneal Pack, rejecting Kason's leadership, and craving the bond with Hadley. The distance from my True Mate was making me physically ill.

The crowd parted. Kason walked through. He looked down at me, annoyed.

Then, he stopped. He sniffed the air.

When a she-wolf is pregnant, her scent changes. It becomes sweeter, milky. But when a wolf is sick from rejection, the scent sours and becomes chaotic.

To an untrained, arrogant nose like Kason's, the biological shift was confusing. He smelled a change in my hormones. He smelled the nausea.

His eyes went wide. He looked at my stomach.

"You..." He pointed a shaking finger at me. "You're pregnant."

"No," I gasped, sweat pouring down my face. "It's... it's not..."

"I told you to take the pills!" Kason roared. The music stopped. The whole pack was watching. "You tried to trap me! You think carrying a pup will make me leave Dalia?"

Dalia pushed through the crowd. "She's pregnant? With whose baby? Probably some Rogue she met in the woods!"

"It's yours, isn't it?" Kason grabbed my arm, hauling me up. I screamed in pain. "You want to use a child to steal the Luna title!"

"I'm not pregnant!" I cried, tears streaming down my face. "I'm sick! Let me go!"

"We're going to the Pack Doctor," Kason snarled, dragging me toward the exit. "And we are getting rid of it. Tonight."

"No! Kason, please!" I begged, digging my heels into the floor.

He didn't listen. He threw me over his shoulder like a sack of grain and marched out of the hall, leaving a trail of shattered glass and rumors behind him. He was driving me to the clinic, convinced he was solving a problem, unaware he was about to shatter the last fragile remnant of our history.

Chapter 5

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