Chapter 2

I was gone for a full day. My phone only had a few messages asking me to make dinner. No one asked where I was.

The night wind was freezing. I pushed open the door to the main pack house, and the warmth inside felt like a slap in the face.

Jocelyn was holding my son, Leo, playing by the fireplace. Leo looked at me with hatred in his eyes as he cut my picture out of our family portrait. He carefully glued Jocelyn's picture in its place.

My own photo was torn to shreds, scattered across the expensive rug.

And my husband, Aiden, stood by in silence, which was the same as giving his permission.

He, who was always so tense and stern, actually looked relaxed, leaning back on the sofa with his legs crossed.

His broad shoulders and long legs made him look like a statue carved from the northern winds.

He watched Jocelyn and Leo with a tenderness he had never shown me, murmuring responses to them now and then.

I stood there holding the key to my own home, feeling like an intruder who had stumbled upon someone else's happy family.

When was the last time he came back from a patrol of the territory?

Three months ago? Five?

I couldn't remember, so I stopped trying.

After all, our mating was forced from the start.

Years ago, Aiden's father, the former Alpha Marcus, was ambushed by rogue wolves on a border patrol. My parents, warriors from the small Stone Creek Pack, died saving his life.

I was just a pup when I became an orphan.

Marcus declared on the spot, "Clara will be the future Luna of the Blackwood Pack. The Blackwood family will take care of her for the rest of her life."

With my parents gone and coming from a weak, failing pack, I knew I was not worthy of a ruling pack like the Blackwoods.

But then Aiden was injured on a mission, struck by a silver-laced weapon. He was dying, unable to find a match for the special bloodline needed to purify the silver poison.

I was the only match. I didn't think twice before offering my own heart's blood for the purification ritual.

Even though Aiden's mother, Eleanor, tried everything to stop it, Marcus insisted that Aiden and I be mated.

But after the mating ceremony, Aiden avoided me like the plague, and his relationship with his father turned to ice.

I thought an Alpha like him was just naturally cold.

It turns out that while I was recovering from the ritual, weak and drained, Aiden was falling for the pack doctor who was taking care of him, Jocelyn. They secretly called each other lovers.

My willing sacrifice of my heart's blood had ruined their happiness.

Looking at the new, forced family portrait, Jocelyn's eyes suddenly filled with sorrow.

"It's just... having a family is a luxury I can never have. I don't even have a place to stay during my vacation."

She was always good at playing the victim.

Jocelyn was an orphan. Years ago, she was begging for any pack to sponsor her through medical school.

I felt sorry for her, so I took on odd jobs to pay for her education. That's how she met Aiden.

Jocelyn once cried and told me she would repay my kindness one day.

Her way of repaying me was to follow Aiden to his pack after graduation, become the pack doctor, and spend every day with him.

She went around the pack telling everyone I was a fake, that my financial support was always late and stingy.

She painted me as a vain girl from a broken-down pack who paraded herself around as the future Luna of the great Blackwood Pack.

It made Aiden hate me even more. After we were mated, he immediately moved into a separate bedroom.

Leo was conceived after a drunken accident, and after that, Aiden was completely faithful to Jocelyn, wary of my every move.