The Alpha's Lost Luna: Too Late for Redemption

For nine years, I was the "Wolfless Wonder," the shame of the Reyes Pack. I swallowed bitter suppressants every morning to hide my identity as a rare White Wolf, enduring my husband's coldness just to stay by his side.

But tonight, Alpha Dominick shattered whatever bond we had left. He walked into the Annual Gathering with his mistress, Chastity, clinging to his arm, pregnant and smug.

When Chastity staged a miscarriage and blamed me, Dominick didn't ask for the truth. He dragged me to the hospital.

"She needs blood," he snarled. "O-Negative. Like yours."

He used the Alpha Command to force me onto the table. He watched as they drained me dry to save the woman destroying my life.

"Alpha, her heart rate is dropping!" the doctor warned. "It will kill her!"

Dominick didn't even flinch.

"Keep going," he ordered. "Take what you need until Chastity is safe."

As the machine beeped and darkness took me, the submissive wife died.

I woke up in the morgue holding cell and made a choice. I signed the divorce papers, set the penthouse on fire, and vanished into the night. He thought I burned to death.

He didn't know I escaped.

Months later, he tracked a ghost to a vineyard in London. But he didn't find the broken girl he sacrificed.

He found the White Wolf, glowing with silver magic, standing beside a new mate who actually cherished me.

Dominick fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. "Annis, come home. I command you."

I looked down at him and smiled.

"Your voice doesn't work on me anymore, Alpha. You killed the part of me that listened."

Chapter 1

Annis POV:

The scent of champagne and roasted venison was suffocating, a heavy velvet shroud over the sharp, metallic tang of my own anxiety.

Tonight was the Annual Gathering of the Reyes Pack. By rights, I should have been on the dais, wearing the Luna's crest.

Instead, I stood in the shadows near the kitchen doors, gripping a tray of empty glasses until my knuckles ached.

"Look at her," a whisper drifted from a group of high-ranking she-wolves. "The Wolfless Wonder. Nine years and nothing. It's pathetic."

"Dominick is a saint for keeping her," another sneered. "If the Goddess saddled me with a dud, I'd have rejected it on the spot."

I kept my head down. They saw the surface. They didn't see the suppressants I swallowed every morning-bitter little pills that kept my wolf in a chemical coma. They didn't know I was a White Wolf, a biological anomaly hunted for her potent blood.

To them, I was just Annis the cripple. The mistake.

The ballroom went dead silent as the heavy double doors swung open.

Dominick walked in.

My heart betrayed me, slamming against my ribs. Even after nine years of ice, he was power incarnate. Six-foot-four of corded muscle, radiating an aura that tasted like ozone and incoming storms. He was the Alpha Supreme of the East Coast.

But he wasn't alone.

Clinging to his arm, draped in shimmering red silk that accentuated a slightly rounded belly, was Chastity.

The collective gasp sucked the air out of the room.

Bringing a mistress to the Gathering was an insult. Bringing a pregnant mistress while your lawful wife stood in the corner was a declaration of war.

Dominick scanned the room. His eyes-cold, hard amber-locked onto me. There was nothing there. No warmth. No flicker of the bond.

He raised his hand. Silence fell like a guillotine.

"Annis," his voice boomed. It wasn't a request. It was laced with the Alpha Command.

The power hit me like a sledgehammer to the gut. My knees buckled. The tray clattered to the floor, shattering glass everywhere.

"Clean that up," Dominick said, his voice devoid of emotion. "And then take your place at the servants' table. You do not belong among the wolves tonight."

The servants' table.

He was demoting me. Publicly.

"Dom," I whispered, the word scraping my throat. "Please."

"Do not speak to me," he snarled. "You are a shame to this pack. A Luna must be strong. A Luna must carry the next generation. You are neither."

Chastity smirked, resting a hand on her stomach. "Easy, Dom. Poor thing can't help being broken."

Heat scorched my cheeks. My inner wolf stirred, fighting the drug-induced fog. A low growl vibrated in my chest, but I swallowed it down.

I knelt. I picked up the shards. One slice cut into my thumb, and a drop of bright red blood welled up.

Dominick's nostrils flared. He smelled the blood. For a second, his eyes darkened with instinct, but then he looked at Chastity, and the moment was gone.

I stood up, trembling, and walked out the side door. I didn't go to the servants' table. I went to our room-no, his room.

I pulled a suitcase from under the bed. No clothes. Just the essentials: my passport, a stash of cash I'd hidden in a hollowed-out book, and the last of my suppressants.

"Going somewhere?"

I spun around. Dominick stood in the doorway, blocking the light. Chastity was behind him, looking like the cat who ate the canary.

"I'm leaving, Dominick," I said, my voice shaking. "You have your heir. You have your woman. You don't need a slave anymore."

He laughed. A dark, dry sound. "You don't get to leave until I say so. You owe my family a debt, Annis. Your grandmother lost our sacred relic. You pay with your life."

"I have paid!" I screamed, nine years of abuse boiling over. "Nine years of servitude! Nine years of your bed but never your heart!"

"Give me the charm," Chastity said suddenly. She pointed to the simple silver bracelet on my wrist. My grandmother's legacy. A Moon Goddess charm.

"No," I said, clutching my wrist.

"It will protect my baby," Chastity lied, her eyes gleaming. "Dom, make her give it to me."

Dominick looked at me. "Give it to her, Annis."

"It's mine!"

"Give it to her."

The Alpha Command slammed into my mind. My body betrayed me. My hands moved on their own, unclasping the bracelet. Tears streamed down my face as I handed it to Chastity.

She took it, examined it with a sneer, and then-

Crash.

She threw it onto the marble floor. The delicate silver filigree shattered.

"Oops," she giggled. Then, her face twisted. She grabbed her throat. "Dom! My throat... it burns! She put something on it! Wolfsbane!"

It was a lie. A clumsy, theatrical lie.

But Dominick didn't check. He didn't sniff the air. He just reacted.

He backhanded me.

The force sent me flying across the room. I landed hard on the scattered shards of my grandmother's bracelet. The silver dug into my knees, burning like fire.

"You tried to harm my heir," Dominick roared, his canines extending. "Kneel! Submit!"

I knelt on the broken silver. The pain was blinding.

"I didn't..." I gasped.

"Silence!"

Chastity was fake-coughing in the hallway. Dominick turned his back on me to rush to her side.

That was his mistake.

My phone buzzed. A text from Haven.

Black SUV. North Exit. Run, Annis. Now.

My wolf, sensing the imminent threat, punched through the haze. She didn't have the strength to shift, but she gave me speed.

I didn't look back. I jumped from the second-story balcony, landing in the bushes with a bone-jarring thud. I ignored the pain in my knees and ran toward the dark car waiting in the shadows.

Annis POV:

I didn't make it to the state line.

The Enforcers blew the tires out three miles from the border. I was dragged back to the Pack Hospital, not as a Luna, but as a prisoner.

The hospital smelled of antiseptic and fear. They threw me onto a gurney and strapped my wrists down.

Dominick stormed in. He looked frantic, but not for me.

"Chastity is hemorrhaging," he said, voice tight. "Her body is rejecting the pregnancy."

"And that concerns me why?" I asked, voice hoarse.

"She needs a transfusion," Dominick said. "O-Negative. Rare. Like you."

I laughed. A hysterical, broken sound. "You want my blood? To save your mistress and her bastard?"

"Watch your mouth," he hissed, leaning over me. His amber eyes swirled with black. "You poisoned her with that bracelet. This is your mess to fix."

"I didn't poison her! She threw it!"

"The doctors found traces of Wolfsbane on her skin!"

"She put it there herself!"

He grabbed my chin. "I don't care. You are going to give her your blood. As much as she needs."

I looked at the IV lines. I was anemic from the suppressants. My heart was already struggling. A massive draw could be fatal.

"It will kill me, Dom," I whispered. "My wolf is too weak to regenerate that fast."

He hesitated. For a split second, I saw doubt.

But a nurse ran in. "Alpha! Her heart rate is dropping!"

The hesitation vanished. "Do it," he ordered the doctor. "Hook her up."

"Wait!" I shouted. "I have a condition!"

Dominick paused. "You are in no position to bargain."

"I want a rejection," I said clearly. "I will give you my blood. I will save her. But in exchange, you accept my rejection. Tonight. Officially."

He stared at me, a cruel smirk curling his lips. "You want to be a Rogue? A wolfless cripple alone in the world? You won't last a day."

"That is my choice. Deal or no deal?"

"Fine," he scoffed. "If you survive, you can have your freedom. You're useless to me anyway."

The doctor inserted the needle.

It hurt more than it should have. I watched the dark red liquid flow through the tube.

Coldness spread through my limbs. My vision blurred.

Be strong, a tiny voice whispered. My wolf. We are the White Wolf. Our blood is life. But this is too much.

The machine beeped. One pint. Two.

"Alpha, her levels are critical," the doctor warned, looking at my monitor. "Her pressure is bottoming out. We have to stop."

From the next room, Chastity moaned. "Dom... save the baby..."

"Keep going," Dominick's voice came through the open door. "Take what you need. Don't stop until Chastity is stable."

He was killing me. He knew it, and he didn't care.

I closed my eyes. I focused on the moon outside the window.

Moon Goddess, I prayed. If I die tonight, curse him. Let him feel every ounce of my pain.

I felt my heart stutter. The room spun.

I didn't fight it. I let go.

The monitor flatlined.

"She's crashing! Code Blue!"

I heard boots running. Shouting. But it sounded like I was underwater.

Then, nothing.

Annis POV:

I woke up to the smell of bleach and dust.

I was alive. Unfortunately.

I was in a recovery room-no, a storage closet converted into a holding cell.

I tried to sit up, but my head swam. My arm was bruised black and blue.

Haven? I projected the thought, praying the Mind-Link still worked.

Annis! His voice exploded in my head. I'm at the border. I'm coming to burn that place to the ground.

No, I replied weakly. Not yet. I need my papers. If I run now, he hunts me as a fugitive. I need to leave legally.

The door opened. Dominick walked in. Fresh suit. Clean hair. He didn't look like a man who had almost murdered his wife.

"You're awake," he said flatly.

"Did she live?"

"Yes. She is glowing. The doctor said your blood worked miracles. Faster than anything he's seen."

He frowned, puzzling over it. He didn't know White Wolf blood was practically ambrosia.

"Where is my rejection letter?"

He threw a manila envelope onto the bed. "Signed. You are no longer Reyes. You have one hour to vacate."

I opened it. My hands shook, but I signed. Snap.

The pack link-the mental web connecting me to him-vanished. The silence was deafening. And beautiful.

"Good," I said.

I grabbed my bag.

I walked out of the hospital. The sunlight was blinding.

In the parking lot, paparazzi swarmed. Dominick was walking Chastity to the limo.

Chastity saw me. She smiled, linking her arm through Dominick's.

"Look, Dom," she said, pitching her voice for the cameras. "It's the ex. She looks terrible."

Dominick glanced at me. I was a ghost in sweatpants. Chastity was radiant, flushed with my blood.

He pulled out his phone. A second later, my phone pinged. A notification from the Pack's social media.

A photo of them. Caption: The Future is Secure. Alpha & Heir. NewLuna

Bile rose in my throat.

Five years ago, I lost my baby in a rogue attack. Dominick hadn't held my hand. He had stood over my hospital bed and asked, "Why were you so weak?"

Now, he paraded this.

"Annis!" Chastity called out. "Do you need a ride to the bus station? We have room."

She opened the back door. The scent hit me-artificial roses and vanilla, masking the rot underneath.

"Get in," Dominick said, checking his watch. "I don't want you loitering on my territory."

"I'd rather crawl."

"Get in the car."

The Command again.

My legs moved against my will. I climbed in, sitting opposite them.

"It must be hard," Chastity cooed, resting her head on Dominick's shoulder. "Knowing you were never really his mate. The Goddess makes mistakes."

"The Goddess makes no mistakes," I said quietly. "Only men do."

Dominick's jaw tightened. "One more word, Annis, and you walk."

I looked out the window. We were heading toward the Pack House. I needed my passport from the penthouse. Then, I would never see these monsters again.