Ava's POV

"Ms. Crawford." A gentle voice pulled me out of the whirlpool of my thoughts. The elderly doctor adjusted his glasses and added, "All of your test results are ready."

My heart lurched so hard it almost bruised my ribs. My fingers clenched the edge of my coat, nails digging painfully into my palm. "How... how is it, doctor?"

This hospital sat quietly in the neutral zone between packs, far from the Darkmoon Pack's territory. A place every pack agreed not to touch. I chose it on purpose, because I didn't want a single soul to know what I was doing here.

Four years. Ever since my first year married to Damon, the word "infertile" had been branded into me over and over again, like a hot iron pressed against my skin until I actually believed it, that my body was broken from the start.

Whenever pack members looked at me with that mix of pity and contempt, I would instinctively drop my gaze and remind myself: an Omega with no known background should be grateful an Alpha even looked my way. Humility was the only bargaining chip I had to hold this marriage together.

"You're perfectly healthy." The doctor flipped through the report casually, like he was announcing today's weather. "And fully capable of conceiving."

My brain just... snapped. A loud ringing drowned out the world. I can conceive, so I was never infertile. How could that possibly be true?

For four years, every Darkmoon Pack doctor had sworn up and down that my body was too weak, my system too unstable to carry a strong Alpha child.

Coming here was pure stubborn instinct, the last shred of fight left in me.

"Doctor, are you sure?" I stared at him, desperate. "Can you check again? They kept telling me...

"I'll stake my entire career on it." His expression sharpened when he noticed how shaken I was. "Actually, today happens to be your ovulation day. If you want a child, tonight is an excellent opportunity."

Joy and hurt slammed into me at the same time. I sucked in a shaky breath. I could give Damon a child, our child. The thought nearly made my knees buckle. I wanted to run to him right that second and tell him this unbelievable, world-shattering news.

My Damon, Alpha of the powerful Darkmoon Pack on the East Coast. A walking embodiment of authority, the dream partner of countless she-wolves.

Four years ago, right after my eighteenth birthday, fate threw us together. He knew I was a nobody, an Omega with no past, and even after hearing I was "infertile," he still chose me. Chose me, and used his Alpha dominance in front of the whole pack to silence every whisper, every doubt.

I stood beside him then, feeling the thunder of his heartbeat, and swore: if my body was flawed, I would use everything else in me to make up for it. I would prove that an Omega could be a Luna worth respecting. I would make Damon proud that he chose me.

So I poured every bit of my university training into his company, worked through nights without sleep, handled the pack's complicated contracts and tech projects. Even when I fainted from exhaustion, I never took a day off. Even when every research paper was credited to Damon instead of me, I told myself none of that mattered. The pack's strength mattered. Staying by his side mattered.

And now... the pack was thriving because of our work. And my body was healthy. And I could bear a child. If Damon would just tell the pack the truth about what I'd done these four years, they would finally accept me. I knew they would.

I grabbed my bag and basically sprinted out of the hospital.

At the Alpha estate, I headed straight for his office. The door was slightly ajar. I lifted my hand to knock, only to freeze when I heard a woman's muffled moan from inside.

I thought I misheard. But when I leaned toward the gap in the door—

I saw my husband, my Alpha, holding another woman so tightly it felt like the air around them belonged only to the two of them. The woman had this wild, fiery red hair and a body that practically melted into his. Her arms were looped around Damon's neck, and Damon, the man who was always so composed, so controlled in front of me, was leaning down toward her with a softness I didn't even know he had.

My blood turned to ice on the spot.

Her annoyed voice slipped through the crack of the door and stabbed straight into my ears. "Damon, when are you going to divorce that Omega? I'm done waiting. Our son Leo deserves a real family."

Leo, our little wolf pup we "adopted" from the orphanage three years ago. Damon said he picked Leo at random, said he just wanted to help me heal from "the pain of being unable to conceive." Leo... was her child.

Back then I was so touched by his thoughtfulness that I cried, and I even offered to give up authorship for all my research files. I just wanted Damon to know that being chosen by him was the greatest gift of my life.

I forced myself to keep listening.

"Sylvia, calm down." Damon's voice came soft and gentle, like he was soothing something precious. "The pack doesn't accept a Luna with a questionable past. That's why my parents drove you out back then. But going public with you. It takes time."

Sylvia, her name cracked open this dusty part of my memory. I'd seen her face in Damon's old photos, heard people whisper that she'd rejected her first mate. She was Damon's second-chance mate. And in our pack, a Luna couldn't belong to anyone before the Alpha.

"Things are different now. You're the Alpha. You can rewrite that stupid rule!" Sylvia's tempting voice rose again.

"And I will." Damon kissed her forehead, sounding dead sure. "But... Ava is still useful. Her research is exactly what I need to secure cooperation with the Crawford Pack. Once that happens, we'll replace them and become the strongest pack out there. When the deal is done, I'll strip her of her title instantly." He leaned even closer, voice dropping low. "You'll be Luna of the strongest pack soon. Isn't that worth waiting a little longer?"

"But I've been gone for four years," Sylvia said, testing him. "I'm scared you've actually developed feelings for her."

Damon paused, cupping her face, and the words he said next dripped like poison. "That is never going to happen. You're the mate the Moon Goddess chose for me. And Leo will be my only heir, don't worry. I had the pack hospital forge her infertility diagnosis. Those vitamins she takes every day? Birth control. She's an Omega; she doesn't deserve to carry my bloodline."

No...

A loud ringing exploded in my ears. My heart felt like it was being pierced from the inside out, one shard at a time. All those nights I cried in the dark, crushed by the belief that I was broken, all those moments I wondered if Damon regretted choosing me, every bit of that pain had been engineered by him, used to control me, to exploit me.

"I picked her," Damon's voice went on, cold and steady, "because she submitted a medical research report in college that's extremely valuable to the pack's economy. More importantly, choosing an Omega as my mate builds a compassionate and powerful Alpha persona. It works wonders in business negotiations."

"You're not worried she'll figure everything out and expose us?" Sylvia asked.

"That will never happen." Damon sounded utterly certain, like the world itself bent to his logic. "In the werewolf world, no one believes an Omega woman can carry a pack. They're meant to be protected, marked, kept in the bedroom to make pups, not standing at negotiation tables shifting power dynamics. Ava's biggest joke is that she really thought if she worked hard enough, someone would eventually acknowledge her. But even if she shouted the truth standing in front of every pack in the country, not a single one would let something like that change anything."

"You're right," Sylvia laughed, sharp and cruel. "An Omega who lives in her fantasies will end up tossed out like a stray dog."

The suffocating sounds inside the office rose again, and I couldn't stay there another second. I spun around and stumbled away, barely feeling my legs.

Outside, the rain hammered down on me, soaking me to the bone. I couldn't feel the cold anymore. Couldn't feel my feet on the ground. I just stood there, letting everything inside me fall, piece by piece, into the storm.

I'd been an orphan wandering around the edges of different packs for as long as I could remember, picked up, chosen, and stupid enough to believe I'd finally found a home. But that "home" had been built on lies from the very first brick, pieced together by his hands, then torn apart by those same hands.

I opened my banking app. Only a few dozen dollars stared back at me. And all I could think about was what I once told Damon, all soft and blinded: "Baby, I don't need a salary, I just need you."

God. The way that line used to taste sweet, now it cut straight through my chest.

No one in the Darkmoon Pack recognized me as their Luna. No one cared what I had done for them. No one would speak up for me. I had no backup plan, no safe place, nothing to fall back on.

Then my phone rang. Unknown number.

I picked up, half numb. On the other end, an old, respectful voice spoke, "Is this Ava Crawford?"

"This is she." I had to scrape my voice together just to get the words out.

"Ma'am, I am the steward of the Crawford Pack. I'm sorry to inform you... your father, the Alpha of the Crawford Pack, passed away yesterday. According to his will, you are the sole legal heir. Everything he owned, including the entire Crawford Pack, now belongs to you."

I just stood there, letting the rain wash down my face. And after a few silent seconds, something sharp and steady rose from somewhere deep inside me, something I'd never felt before.

Damon, you've been dying to get the Crawford Pack on your side. Bet it never crossed your mind who you'd be facing across that negotiation table.

I wiped the rain from my cheeks and spoke into the phone, my voice so calm it didn't even sound like mine. "Prepare a divorce agreement for me. The sooner, the better."