Chapter 3
The pack garden smelled like jasmine and rot. I was deadheading roses when Selah found me, her vanilla scent cutting through the morning air like a blade.
"We need to talk."
I didn't look up. Just kept snipping brown petals, letting them fall into my basket. "About what?"
"Don't play stupid." Her voice was low, vicious. "That baby. It's not real."
My hands stilled on the shears. I turned slowly, meeting her eyes. "Excuse me?"
"Xander hasn't touched you in months." She stepped closer, her Beta aura pressing against me. "I know because—"
She stopped. Caught herself.
"Because what?" I tilted my head, all innocent confusion. "Because you've been watching us so closely? That's a little obsessive, Selah."
Her jaw clenched. "You're lying about being pregnant."
"Am I?" I set down the shears and brushed dirt from my hands. "That's funny. I remember a very specific night after the pack run last month. Xander came to our room smelling like pine smoke and whiskey. He was... enthusiastic."
I watched her face carefully. That night, Xander had been with her. I'd smelled her scent on him when he finally stumbled home at dawn. But she couldn't admit that without exposing everything.
"You're lying," she repeated, but her voice wavered.
"Why would I lie?" I moved closer, dropping my voice to a whisper. "Between you and me, I think Xander's getting bored with his side flings. He told me he missed the real thing. The mate bond. Said casual encounters were starting to feel... empty."
The color drained from her face.
"But maybe I'm wrong." I shrugged, picking up my basket. "Maybe he's still interested in whoever he's been sneaking around with. Though I doubt it. He's been so attentive lately."
Selah's hands were shaking. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" I smiled, sweet as poison. "Anyway, I should get back to the house. The baby makes me tired, and I need to rest before the surgery."
I walked past her, close enough that our shoulders almost touched. Her scent was sour with fear and doubt.
Good.
Let her wonder. Let her question everything Xander had promised her. Let the insecurity eat her alive from the inside.
That night, I sat in Xander's office with his laptop open in front of me. The access codes had been easy—he'd given them to me weeks ago for "hospital billing purposes." As if I were too simple to handle anything more complicated.
The financial records loaded slowly. Years of transactions, carefully hidden in subfolders within subfolders. But I'd always been good with numbers. Good at finding patterns.
There. A transfer of fifty thousand dollars to an offshore account. Another hundred thousand three months later. Payments to luxury hotels. Private gambling clubs. Wire transfers to my grandmother's personal account.
I downloaded everything onto an encrypted drive, my heart steady despite what I was seeing. Xander and Giana had been bleeding the pack treasury dry for years. Funding Giana's gambling addiction. Paying for Estrella's expensive lifestyle. All while the pack struggled with basic maintenance and security.
I compiled it into a neat dossier. Added timestamps. Cross-referenced pack financial reports that showed false numbers. Made it impossible to deny.
Then I created an anonymous email account and sent it to the Lycan Council's auditor with a simple subject line: "Gross Misappropriation of Pack Treasury - Moonshadow Pack."
I hit send and closed the laptop.
Sera hummed with satisfaction. *Now we wait.*
Two days before the surgery, they came.
Lycan Council enforcers in black uniforms, their authority absolute. I was arranging flowers in the entry hall when they arrived, their boots heavy on the marble floor.
"We're here to see Alpha Xander Cooper," the lead enforcer said.
Giana appeared at the top of the stairs, her face pale. "What is this about?"
"Financial investigation. All Cooper family assets are frozen pending audit."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
Giana's scream could probably be heard in the next territory. "Xander! Fix this! Do something!"
But Xander was too weak to do anything. He lay in bed upstairs, his skin gray, his aura barely a flicker. The enforcers served their papers and left, and Giana stood in the foyer, shaking with rage and terror.
"How will we pay for anything?" she hissed. "The surgery. The staff. The—"
"I have some savings," I said quietly.
They all turned to look at me.
"It's not much." I twisted my hands together. "But it's enough to keep the lights on. Pay the essential staff. I can transfer it to the pack account."
Elder Vale, who'd arrived to check on the situation, looked at me with something like respect. "Luna Adelina, that's very generous."
"It's my duty," I said simply. "To the pack. To my mate. To our child."
Giana's face twisted, but she couldn't refuse. Not with the Elders watching.
I was saving them. Again.
And they hated me for it.
Xander's bedroom smelled like sickness and dying things. I sat beside his bed with a bowl of soup, watching his chest rise and fall in shallow breaths. His once-commanding presence had withered to almost nothing.
"Adelina," he whispered.
"I'm here." I lifted a spoonful of broth to his lips. The soup was laced with valerian root and chamomile—mild sedatives that would keep him foggy and compliant. "You need to eat."
He swallowed obediently. His eyes were glassy, unfocused.
"The baby," he murmured. "Our son."
"He's fine." I stroked his hair, the gesture automatic after eight years. "Strong. Just like his father."
"Good." His eyes drifted closed. "That's good."
I fed him another spoonful. And another. Keeping him weak. Keeping him dependent. Making sure no one else got close enough to notice that my scent was all herbs and lies.
"Everything will be better after the surgery," I whispered. "You'll be strong again. We'll raise our son together. The pack will thrive."
Lies. All lies.
But he believed them. I could see it in his face, the desperate hope of a dying man clinging to false promises.
"I love you," he breathed.
I didn't answer. Just kept feeding him soup, watching his aura flicker like a candle in the wind.
One more day until the surgery.
One more day until everything burned.
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