SOPHIA’S POV
I arrived at the packhouse exactly at the time Helen had specified on the so-called fertility calendar - a printed chart she emailed to me every month as if I were a piece of farm equipment that needed routine scheduling.
In Moonstone, timing mattered even more than for humans; conception windows were obsessively tracked among noble werewolf families and my body had become something they monitored closely.
The pack servants waited near the entrance but none of them could even look at me. Instead, they looked at the floor as I passed. Then, it hit me - everyone knew why I was there.
Not to see my husband. Not to rest or visit my daughter’s home.
I was there for a biological appointment, a ritual, a cold transaction.
I took in a deep breath. My wolf whispered inside me.
“Get through it, Sophia. Don’t fall apart before you’re even inside” she whispered.
Then she stirred weakly inside me. She was exhausted. Just like me, she was tired of obedience, tired of suppression.
As I handed my coat to a servant, I heard Helen’s voice from the hallway. Her tone always had this authority of a dominant wolf.
“Prepare the master bedroom,” she instructed. “And make sure Sophia is escorted upstairs immediately. The window is small today.”
The “window” of fertility was always a point of obsession among purebred packs, even though half of it was myth. But Helen believed in every old superstition that existed.
I froze where I stood, feeling embarrassed. I wasn’t supposed to hear that, but of course I did. I always heard the things I wasn’t meant to, with my hearing sharper than theirs.
I was halfway up the stairs when I saw Damien’s suitcase already placed neatly beside the master bedroom door.
He had planned to leave. He had planned it before I arrived.
My stomach twisted but my wolf did her best to calm me with words.
“Don’t react. Don’t crumble. Not here. Not in front of them.”
When I entered the bedroom, it was dark. The bed had been freshly prepared. I could smell sage. Of course, sage would be there. It was pack tradition for fertility rituals.
My heart hammered in my chest, but I lay on the edge of the bed, waiting for him.
Five minutes passed. Ten.
The door finally opened, and Damien walked in without a glance at me. He didn’t greet me. Didn’t say my name. He just checked the time on his watch with a sigh. His wolf didn’t stir for me. It had been that way for years.
“You’re on time for once,” he muttered, crossing his arms.
“I’ve always been on time,” I replied softly. Even my voice sounded small to my own ears.
He didn’t respond. Instead, he walked around the bed, stopped beside me, and said flatly, “Let’s get this over with.”
Just like that. There was no mate-bond warmth between us. No pull. If anything, he seemed irritated that our wolves didn’t reject each other outright because even rejection required more emotion than he was willing to give me.
During sex, he didn’t look at me at all. I laid still on the bed. I felt humiliated, trying to breathe through the ache in my chest rather than the one in my body.
My wolf hid in the back of my mind, curled away from the coldness between us.
I blinked rapidly to keep my tears from falling. I reminded myself over and over that crying would only make this worse.
When it was over, Damien immediately stood. He grabbed his watch from the nightstand and slipped it on.
“I have a flight in an hour,” he said. “Inform me if you get pregnant. Don’t bother me otherwise.”
“Damien—”
He didn’t let me finish. He didn’t even look at me.
His wolf didn’t look either. It felt like I was standing in front of a stranger wearing my husband’s face.
Then he headed for the door, grabbed the handle of his suitcase, and pulled it behind him as he left.
The moment the door shut, I crumbled onto the sheets. My wolf whimpered inside me. I lay there for several minutes, staring at the ceiling. My marriage had been reduced to appointments.
I sat on the edge of the bed and scrolled through my phone, anything to distract me.
The first thing that appeared on my Instagram page was a tabloid photo of Damien and Tiffany at a gala. They were walking hand in hand, smiling in that effortless, glamorous way couples in magazines did. She was radiant in a silver dress. He looked happier than I had seen him in years. Their wolves seemed in sync, even in the photo.
I swiped through the photos. In one, Tiffany leaned into him, whispering something that made him laugh.
My husband hadn’t laughed like that with me in a decade.
I read through the comments.
“Tiffany is perfect for him.”
“Sophia is too old-fashioned.”
“Maybe she’s infertile.”
“Tiffany is the real wife, our real Luna, let’s be honest.”
My vision blurred.
I scrolled to Damien’s social media, and it made me even more heartbroken. I knew more about his life from the internet, from strangers, than from our own home.
I couldn’t bear looking at the photos anymore.
Everything there made my chest ache even more.
I stepped outside. Damien was already there, loading his suitcase into the car trunk. I approached him slowly, gathering every ounce of courage left in me.
“Damien,” I said. “We need to talk.”
He didn’t even look at me. “I don’t have time, Sophia.”
“It’s important,” I insisted. “Our marriage… our daughter… we can’t keep pretending we’re strangers.”
“We’re not pretending,” he replied coldly. “We are strangers.”
The words hurt me even more because wolves weren’t meant to be strangers to their mates. But we had been from the very beginning.
I flinched. “Can’t we at least try-”
“Try what?” he snapped. “There’s nothing to try.”
“Damien, please,” I whispered. “I don’t want us to end like this.”
He sighed loudly, finally looking at me, but his eyes held nothing. His eyes were empty. His wolf was nowhere near the surface.
“Come home when you’re pregnant with a son,” he said. “Otherwise, there’s nothing to talk about.”
Then he got into the car and drove off before I could respond.
*
Days passed in a blur.
I woke one morning with a strange feeling in my body. My wolf sensed something before I did. I took a test and placed it on the counter.
Minutes felt like hours. Then two bright lines appeared.
Positive.
My breath caught. I felt shocked. My wolf whimpered inside me.
My hand trembled as I lifted the test. Part of me whispered that maybe this would fix our marriage.
I returned to the packhouse to deliver the news. Maybe they would be relieved. Maybe Damien would at least speak to me like a person.
I walked through the hallway toward Helen’s sitting room. I could hear her voice.
“Tiffany would be a more suitable choice,” she said. “She is young, beautiful, and fertile. She should be the one to give us the heir.”
My heart stopped.
Damien’s voice followed. “Tiffany is too young to risk. Sophia has already been pregnant once. She can handle the risks.”
My chest tightened painfully. She can handle the risks. He said it as if I was a body, not a person. As if my wolf was just a vessel.
Helen hummed approvingly. “As long as the child is a boy, it doesn’t matter who she is to you.”
The pregnancy test slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor.
I slapped a hand over my mouth, biting down on the sob clawing its way up. My wolf howled. She felt humiliated, just like I did.
I crouched, grabbed the test, and backed away before they noticed.
In the guest room, I sat on the bed and stared at the wall.
I had been a womb to them. Nothing more.
“What do I do now?” I whispered to myself.
Should I keep this baby? Could I raise it alone?
My wolf stirred inside me.
“Choose us,” she whispered.
