Aurora's POV

The silk fell around me like water, pale as moonlight, and for one trembling second I didn't recognize the woman in the mirror.

"Luna," the seamstress whispered, pinning the bodice with reverent fingers. "You were made for this gown."

Luna. The word landed somewhere deep in my chest and ached.

Eight years. Eight years of being Xander Hale's wife in a courthouse certificate and nowhere else. Eight years of standing at the edge of the Hale Pack's gatherings, unacknowledged, unscented, a human-raised woman the elders tolerated because their Alpha had chosen her in a moment they'd never forgiven him for. I had carried his son. I had kept his house. I had smiled through every whispered insult about the mate who couldn't even produce a proper bond-scent, and I had told myself that love was patient.

Now, at last, the pack would stand witness. In three days I would be named Luna before every member, the ceremony that made me real. I waited so long, I thought. I was good, I was patient, and now it finally comes.

I pressed my palm flat against the beaded waist and let myself believe it.

"Mom." Leo's voice sliced the moment in half. "This is so boring. I wanna go home."

My seven-year-old sat slumped in the velvet chair, swinging his legs, his small face knotted with impatience. Something in me softened helplessly. He had Xander's dark hair, Xander's jaw already sharpening into Alpha lines.

"Just a little longer, sweetheart," I said. "Don't you want to see Mommy's pretty dress?"

"I wanna see Dad. And Aunt Serena. She said she'd teach me the new game." He kicked the chair leg. "You promised we could call them."

Serena Cole. Xander's brightest student once, now his personal assistant, luminous and fluent in every word of the technical language that ran my husband's company. She laughed easily. She touched his arm when she spoke.

My son adored her, and watching that adoration bloom these past months had carved a small, quiet hollow in me that I never let anyone see.

"Please, Mom?"

I shouldn't have. But his face was so hopeful, and some foolish part of me still wanted to prove the hollow wrong.

"Alright," I said, and dialed.

The video rang twice before it connected. I expected the glass-and-steel backdrop of Xander's office.

Instead I saw our living room. Our couch. Our windows. The framed photo of Leo on the wall behind him. Xander looked up at the camera, unhurried, a glass of something amber in his hand, and the ground tilted beneath me.

"You're home," I said. My voice came out thinner than I meant. "You told me there was a meeting. You said that's why you couldn't come today."

"There was." His tone was smooth, unbothered. "It ran late."

Then Serena stepped into frame, towel in her hand, hair damp at the ends, barefoot on my floor.

In my robe.

The soft white silk one Xander gave me the winter Leo was born. She wore it loose at the collar, comfortable, like she belonged inside it.

Something in my chest went very, very still.

"Why is she wearing my robe, Xander." I barely recognized my own voice. "Why is she in our home."

He exhaled, slow, the way a man does when a child asks a question beneath him. "There was an incident during the meeting. Coffee, the whole file, all over her blouse. I brought her back to change before she drove home. Don't turn this into a drama, Aurora."

"A drama." My hands were shaking.

"We're at a critical point with the development," he went on. "The whole project is stalled on a bottleneck only Serena actually understands. You've never grasped how much this technology means to the company. She does. So forgive me if I don't drop everything to watch you try on a dress."

The words struck one after another, each one landing exactly where he knew it would hurt.

Leo pressed his face close to the screen. "Mommy, you're so annoying. Aunt Serena, stay, okay? Stay and play with me. Mom always ruins everything."

Serena straightened a little, the soft robe slipping further down one shoulder. She gave a small, hesitant smile. "I should really go, Alpha. I've already taken up too much of your evening—"

"Stay." Xander's voice was flat, almost bored. "Leo wants you. Don't make a fuss."

He glanced at the screen, already impatient. "Aurora, hurry up and get back here. "

"I'll come home," I heard myself say. "I'll bring Leo back now."

Xander was already looking away from the screen. "Fine."

The call ended.

The seamstress hovered, uncertain. "Luna, the final fitting—"

"Later." I stepped out of the gown with numb fingers. "I have to take my son home."

I buckled Leo into the passenger seat myself. He didn't look at me, just stared out the window, still sulking that I'd pulled him away from a game that wasn't mine to give.

The drive blurred past in gray smears of rain and taillights. I kept seeing the robe. Her bare feet on my floor. My son's face turned toward her like a flower toward a sun that was never me.

Don't turn this into a drama, Aurora.

Three days until they named me Luna. By then I would confess everything, become someone my husband and son could be proud of, and they would never again—

Then, headlights. Too close. Too fast, swerving across the wet divide straight into our lane.

I had half a second. Not nearly enough to save us both.

"Leo!" My arm shot across him on pure instinct, slamming him back into the seat, my whole body curling toward my son to shield him from the glass and the metal and the end rushing in.

The world screamed. Then spun white. Then black.

The last thing I felt was my son's small shoulder beneath my hand.