Selene’s POV “Mom, where’s Dad? You said he’d be here before my birthday started, but I can’t find him anywhere,” Ella whined, tugging on the hem of my dress. Her big, tear-filled eyes stared up at me, searching for answers I didn’t have. The weight of guilt pressed down on my chest. Crouching to her level, I prepared myself to tell another carefully crafted lie. “Baby, Dad called. He said he’s on his way,” I murmured, trying to sound convincing. Her little brows furrowed. This was the second time I’d spun this tale, and I could see the doubt creeping into her innocent gaze. Still, she clung to a fragile thread of hope. “You know your dad wouldn’t miss your birthday, right? You’re his little princess, his favorite girl in the whole world. He’ll be here.” I stroked her soft hair, pressing a kiss to her forehead. She nodded, but the sadness in her eyes remained. “Okay…” “Why don’t you go play with your friends?” I said, forcing cheer into my voice. “They’re waiting for you, and I
Selene’s POV "What did you just say?" I asked, disbelief making my voice tremble. I had to have misheard. He couldn’t have said those words. Not Alex, not the man I’d stood by through everything. But my wolf, silent and shrunk in disgust, confirmed it. He had said it. “Did I say something wrong? You are useless; a Luna with a disabled wolf isn’t worth the position, and you know it,” he continued. His words felt like a slap, but the sting didn’t stop there. Natasha, ever the opportunist, chimed in with a smirk. “Don’t make a fuss about it, Selene; he isn’t telling a lie; you are indeed a disabled wolf.” “Finally showing your true colors, huh? Natasha, you have no right to say anything here. And you, Alex, calling me a disabled wolf after everything I’ve done for you? After I stood by you when everyone thought you couldn’t lead? I defended you. I took on the hits, even got poisoned and stabbed by assassins, for you!” I cleaned my eyes once more, but the tears just kept on falling
Selene’s POV Alexander meant what he said. He had the guards lock Ella in her room, forbidding her from seeing her friends and taking away her toys. My sweet, spirited girl, confined like a criminal. I stayed with her that first night, listening to her cries and pleas until they gave way to exhausted whimpers. By the time dawn broke, she had developed a fever. It only got worse. On the second night, her tiny body was wracked with shivers, her cheeks flushed with an unnatural crimson. I held her close, whispering soft reassurances I wasn’t sure I believed anymore. My baby needed help! Panic rising in my chest, I ran to the guards stationed outside. “Please!” I begged, gripping the nearest one by the arm. “Get the pack healers. Tell them the Luna commands their presence immediately! My daughter is sick—she needs help!” The guard shifted uneasily. “I’m sorry, Luna. The Alpha’s orders stand. He said no interference—” “She’s a child!” My voice cracked. “She’s your princess! Are
Selene’s POV “What?! What do you mean, what’s wrong with my baby?” I burst into the room, panic clawing at my chest. The healers stood motionless, their heads bowed, refusing to meet my gaze. Their silence suffocated me. “My Luna… she’s in…” “Speak up!” I roared, the desperation in my voice echoing off the walls. “She’s in a coma,” one of them finally mumbled, barely audible. “It’s… severe.” My world tilted. I staggered, clutching the doorframe for support as my eyes darted to Ella’s still, fragile body on the bed. My baby girl, my heart, lay motionless, her tiny chest barely rising. “Her treatment was delayed... There was nothing we could do in time.” Delayed. The word struck like a whip, and I knew exactly who was to blame. “What’s going on here?” Natasha said in a whisper as she and Alexander walked into the room. That was it. The dam of my restraint shattered. I lunged at her, grabbing her by the collar before she could feign innocence. “You are the reason! It’s all bec
Selene’s POVTwo days.It had been two days since I last saw the break of dawn, two days since I heard the voice of my little princess calling me "mommy." I was weak and unwilling to let my faith die.My body sagged on the floor, unable to stand anyone. I had bruises on every inch of my body, an impact of hitting the metal gate so much that my head had bruises as patches of dried blood.I had cried, I had prayed, I had begged and fought for two days with no hope of coming out of here. Alexander meant it when he said he was going to punish me for a crime I didn’t commit.He meant it when he said he was going to make my life miserable.I refused to let the idea sink in, as I forced myself up again, my sore knees crawling on the floor while I dragged myself to the gates of the dungeon, my bloody hands wrapped around the rusty bars of the cell room.“Is anyone there! please… just get the Alpha for me. I need to know where my baby is." I couldn’t cry or yell, but I knew they could hear me
Lucian’s POV “Mate?” The word echoed in my head, clawing at my sanity. It couldn’t be true. She was mated to my brother! Alexander, he married her because she chose him over me. How could she possibly be my mate? “I felt it,” my wolf, Escarnor, growled, smug, and relentless. I stalked through the pack corridors, my chest tight with anger. The air was thick with the stench of betrayal, the walls steeped in memories I had spent years trying to forget. Her scent lingered here, winding through the halls. It was maddening. Intoxicating. Six years. I returned to this wretched pack, not with the aim to rescue Selene. I didn’t expect that. My only purpose was to take back what was stripped from me. Alexander might wear the title of Alpha, but we both knew who it rightfully belonged to. He had lied, manipulated, and cheated his way into power. I was going to make sure he went on his knees. The plan had been calculated. Infiltrate the palace in disguise, assess the state of
Selene's POV The dungeon was suffocatingly silent. It was late at night. And over six hours since I had last seen him. Part of me started to believe I’d imagined it, that maybe I’d conjured him out of desperation. But the greasy plate and half-empty can of water at the edge of the cell told me otherwise. He had been here. I saw Lucian. My arms wrapped around my knees as I tried to still the ache in my chest. Six years ago, the pack’s seer declared Lucian a threat, claiming the goddess herself had demanded his imprisonment. If he wasn’t contained, she warned, our pack would face unimaginable suffering. And like the fool I was, I didn’t listen. I was young and reckless, following my heart instead of reason. I trusted him when he said he cared for me, when he whispered promises of escape, freedom, and a life far from the suffocating grasp of the pack—and my parents. But when the moment came, he chose a life without me. I hugged my knees tighter. He made a fool of me, he ridicul
Selene’s POV His hard palm came crashing on my face, fast and hard, immediately sending me to the floor. I shuddered as the pain spiralled through my body, the room rotated around me, and I felt nauseous. I had tried maintaining my composure, but I vomited right there; half of it’s content was blood.I was pulled to my feet and pinned against the wall; my hands were held apart beside me; a guard brought out a dagger and shoved it into my palm; therefore, pinning my hands to the wall, a blaring scream escaped my lips.The same action was done to my other hand; I could not take it anymore, and I let myself cry. I could not move my hands, and the silver knife burnt my skin. Alex held my jaw up; he passed a menacing grin towards me, but in mere seconds my vision blurred with tears."Oh, Selene, you wouldn’t have gone through this pain if you had answered, but somehow you found a way to complicate things for yourself. Now I will ask you one more time, Where is your daughter, and who is you
Selenes POV“Since when did you become a temptress? I thought you only understood the act of war.” I was curious as to how she had become an expert in two weeks of living the pack, she couldn't even wear heels when I first met her, she would have a bandage in her hands all the time, and to top it up, her voice was calmer than usual.“Well, I came to you because I knew whatever you did enticed Lucian, I wanted to be just like you.” Her head lowered in embarrassment, and so did mine. “ I am sorry.” I confessed, I didn’t want to tell anything after that, if she said as little as any kind word, I would tell her I was pregnant, and I might as well just ruin the day.“Whatever. Your name is Selene Taylor.” She said it in a language I didn’t understand, but I knew exactly what she meant, and I repeated it. It sounded foreign in my mouth, but I kept repeating what she said.“My name is Selene Taylor.”“There!”I gave her a resounding high five, and together we fell on each other's arms, laugh
Selenes POVShe made me stand from where I sat, then her hands brushed over my shoulder blades. She tried to adjust the collar of my dress, which was weird, Joan and I had different dressing styles, but I stayed put, not wanting to say anything, whatever she says goes.“We have all seen a pure-bred human, and we have adapted their dress and vice, but the man you are going to meet has a weird taste, it’s too wild and ancient.” All I knew was that this man she spoke so fondly of was a mafia, and he had found this third stone Lucian needed, and I had to bring it back so he wouldn’t think me to be a wolf.Right.Now fast forward to his type of dresses. I was offered quite a handful. Joan brought out some pieces of clothes, they were very little more like the size of a napkin, and she handed them to me.“Whats this?”“A skirt.”I had worn skirts, I know skirts when I see one, but this one wasn’t just a skirt, it was like a blindfold. I sized it up on my thighs, my face contorted in a grima
Selenes POVWe were finally done with eating, and it was time to learn the human way of speaking. We didn’t speak alike, they could not understand us and vice versa, except they learned to speak like us.Joan walked up to me with blank paper in her hands. She placed it on my thighs and then wrote a weird-looking thing on it. I stared at her drawing lines on it, they were all spaced and aligned.“This is the human alphabet, you don’t need to study it much you just need to know how they sound so you don’t lose your way there. Because their towns are way busier than ours, and it’s totally normal.”I nodded, and she tapped on one of the lines written there, she made a sound, and I repeated it, she touched another, and she made the sound, and I repeated, she did something where she pointed at both of them together, then made a sound with both of them combined.It took us about five hours, merging the alphabets and pronouncing them. After that, I was genuinely scared for my life, I was the
Selenes POVI walked back to the side of the truck, and I sat down there with a towel wrapped around my arms. My heart was heavy, I might have suffocated her with my overprotectiveness instinct. I recalled everything that had happened, from the time she had defended me when Alex laid his hands on me for the first time.She had thrown a fit when Natasha tried to act stupid, even when it was her birthday, she held me when I started crying, and after being locked up, she never spoke about her birthday, she didn’t question me when I told her we would never see her father again.She didn’t question Lucian, she didn’t say anything about who she was to her friends, she never spoke about her father's betrayal, and she would hold me at night.I had overlooked the fact that she was also struggling as much as I did, and maybe she was just too compassionate that she didn’t want to bother me, and I had unknowingly suffocated her with it.I lowered my head as guilt welled in my heart. I am tired, g
Selenes POVIn my dreams, I had Lucian in my arms. I had talked to him about everything—how we were on the wrong path and lied to all our lives. I had no idea he didn’t leave or the fact that I had troubled him about not telling me why he was sick just to figure out he was trying to protect my conscienceI didn’t know he sacrificed so much, and it only got worse for me to be with myself. I just wanted to see him again, to hold him and kiss him, to tell him I am sorry. In my dreams we reconciled, and we had made love and slept in each other's arms.Waking up to reality wasn’t as appealing as one would expect. I watched the top of the truck for a while before I heard Joan's voice outside. She was doing something with water, and Ella was involved in it too because I could hear her smiling and running around.My heart weighed a ton, and I pushed myself up. I stood up from the bed to welcome my daily responsibility. I had only today and tomorrow to train and learn everything I needed to kn
Lucians POVShe seemed perplexed by the thought of going to the pack, but she was the only ruler who I would trust enough to meet up with Alex and also come back with me, and with the new development of the death of the Fae queen he was liable to believe her to, she had to be the one.Her hesitation triggered me, I didn’t come all this way to convince her alone, I needed to go back to the Eclispe pack too, I needed the people to migrate from the pack, so when it was time to fight, if he wanted to come for my pack, he would notice he doesn’t have enough army.One thing about Alex: you can always count on his reluctance and his unprofessionalism to fault his judgment, and I knew he wouldn’t check on the well-being of the pack so he wouldn’t know the number of people there.“What do you say? Will you go? And secondly, you won’t be there alone. You would be going with me, just I would sneak in, and I will keep the pack too busy to see you take the members out.”“Out how?”“You are not go
Lucian’s POVI left the pack for a day now, and it was three weeks before everything would go south, I spent a whole days trying to rest enough to travel and I had to spend it in a tent outside the pack with a book that would help me go through the phases of poison.First it was the phase of pain, second was the hallucination, then the slow aggression and uncontrollable anxiety and panic, but there was something that happened when I killed Julian and it was blacking out, and rage.I had only felt it when Ella’s gift was destroyed by that bastard but I never felt it again, but after the threat Alex made and the idea that Selene was somewhere out there, losing control would be the last thing I needed, so I took due rest.Fast forward to a day after I was standing just at the borders of lilac pack, her wolf were hostile as usual, not letting me in, I stood on both feet unable to shift, Escarno was the most unstable now, depressed and angered by the loss of Selene it was taking both of us
Selene’s POV We were done eating when Joan was ready to leave, she packed some bags and handed me a dagger. She also volunteered to carry Ella on her shoulders while I did some of the heavy lifting. I didn’t protest.“Where do you stay?” “I bought an RV and sold my truck. I live in an RV, it’s modern, the latest there is, and I can also travel rapidly with it. But I can’t bring it here mostly because the road leading to most packs is bad.” Living in a car she kept proving how courageous she was. It was already hard enough staying in a vicinity where other wolves are because it was prone to attacks, but not so bad that it cannot be combated with multiple help.Living alone was dangerous because there is no one there. If four wolves mark her for attack, they will bruise her and she can’t go on four wolves at once.“It’s dangerous.” “At least I am free, and far away from interaction, that’s all that matters.” We walked through the market without a scarf and I watched as people regar
Selene’s POVI stood arms crossed in front of the house, the pressure almost weighed me down. Joan was selfish for this, she carelessly left me here knowing I was the reason why the guards were beating people up.I bit my fingers while trying to stop myself from panicking but it did so little with the level of anxiety that took charge of my mind.What would I tell them? That it wasn’t me? Should I cut my hair and claim to be a citizen? Who am I kidding? I do not have the markings of their pack, I do not have their scent, I didn’t stay long enough, I do not have enough excuses, and what do I say about Ella?I fit the description totally, a blonde lady who has a little girl in her care. I refuse to let Joan’s carelessness lead the king to behead me.My weary eyes looked for escape, the borders must be closed, the pack was shut down, or maybe I could run through corners and hide in a house that had been searched.No that’s stupid, the pack members can’t be that stupid, no one would lay t