Chapter 2 2

Vivian POV

I made it back to the penthouse hours before him. Now, at two in the morning, I lay perfectly still in the center of our king-sized bed, the silk duvet feeling like a shroud of ice over my trembling body.

The heavy oak door clicked open.

Even in the pitch black, I knew the exact moment Alpha Julian Sterling stepped into the room. His presence was a suffocating weight, a gravitational pull that demanded submission. But it was the scent that hit me first.

Beneath his natural, intoxicating aroma of winter storm and ancient pine, there was a thick, cloying layer of hothouse orchids. Serena Chase. The scent was rubbed deep into his clothes, his skin, his very aura. It was the undeniable stench of a claimed territory.

The mattress dipped as he sat on the edge of the bed. I kept my breathing even, pretending to be asleep. I felt the warmth of his large hand hovering just inches from my shoulder. He was reaching for me.

But as his fingers brushed my sleep shirt, my body violently recoiled. The tainted Mate-bond flared with a sickening wrongness, and I flinched away from his touch as if burned by silver.

Julian's hand froze in mid-air. The silence in the room instantly sharpened into a blade. He interpreted my instinctual revulsion as a conscious rejection. Without a single word, he stood up and walked into the en-suite bathroom.

For the next twenty minutes, the shower ran on full blast. He was trying to scrub away the evidence of another she-wolf's scent, a futile and cowardly act that extinguished the very last ember of my hope. Under the covers, my hand slipped into the nightstand drawer, my fingers tightly gripping a relabeled bottle of prenatal vitamins. My secret. My only reason to survive this.

The next morning, the kitchen was flooded with harsh, unforgiving sunlight. I stood by the massive white marble island, pouring a cup of decaf coffee. Dr. Smith's warning echoed in my skull: *Any severe emotional distress could be catastrophic.* I needed to keep my heart rate down. I needed to negotiate a peaceful transition for the sake of my pup.

Footsteps echoed against the hardwood floor. Julian walked in, dressed in a bespoke charcoal suit, looking every inch the ruthless billionaire Alpha.

I took a deep breath, gripping the edge of the cold marble. "Julian, we need to talk-"

"The three-year alliance is over," he interrupted, his voice devoid of a single drop of warmth. He didn't even look at me. "Serena is back."

The words struck me like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs. Before I could even process the cruelty of his bluntness, he stared directly into my eyes, his ice-blue gaze merciless.

"I, Julian Sterling, reject you, Vivian Miller, as my mate."

An agonizing, invisible force ripped through my chest. Even as a wolfless Omega, the severing of the Mate-bond felt like my soul was being shredded through a meat grinder. I gasped, my knees buckling slightly as a cold sweat broke out over my skin.

Julian didn't flinch at my pain. He simply slid a thick, cream-colored folder across the island. The Sterling Pack legal seal was stamped on the front, right above the bold black letters: *MATE REJECTION AGREEMENT*.

Suddenly, his phone lit up on the counter. A text message. I watched as Julian glanced at the screen, and for a fraction of a second, his rigid jaw relaxed. A fleeting, genuine softness touched his eyes-a look he had never, not once, given me in three years of marriage.

Then, he turned on his heel and walked out, leaving me to bleed out on the kitchen floor.

The silence he left behind was deafening. Trembling violently, I forced myself to open the folder. I had to know what my future held. I flipped past the financial payouts and non-disclosure clauses until my eyes locked onto a section buried near the back.

*Clause 14B: The Bloodline Proviso.*

The legal jargon blurred, but the core message burned into my retinas like acid. *In the event of a pregnancy, due to the Luna's wolfless status, the Alpha retains absolute authority to terminate the pregnancy to protect the Pack's genetic superiority. Should a pup be born, the Alpha will assume sole custody. The pup will be relocated to the Pack nursery to be raised by high-ranking she-wolves. The biological mother, Vivian Miller, will be permanently stripped of all visitation rights.*

A strangled sob tore from my throat. I collapsed into one of the barstools, the blood draining entirely from my face. He wouldn't just divorce me. If he knew about the life growing inside me, he would either kill my baby or steal it forever.

"Luna?"

I jumped. Mrs. Potts, the Omega housekeeper, stood in the doorway holding a fresh pot of coffee. Her eyes widened in horror as she took in my pale, shaking form and the rejection papers scattered across the marble altar of our dead marriage.

I slammed the folder shut. The grief instantly evaporated, replaced by a fierce, primal terror. I couldn't stay here. I couldn't let him see me again. I had to get out of this penthouse, out of this Pack, before he realized what I was carrying.