When My Mate’s Betrayal Killed Our Unborn Pup

The full moon cast long shadows through the windows of the pack house as I padded silently down the hallway. Sleep had eluded me for hours, my body unsettlingly aware of something I couldn't yet confirm—a subtle shift, a whisper of life taking root after years of disappointment. I pressed my hand to my abdomen, wondering if this time might be different, if the Moon Goddess had finally answered my prayers for a pup.

Collin's office door stood slightly ajar, a sliver of warm light spilling into the corridor. I hadn't seen him since dinner, when he'd barely looked up from his phone, his thumb tapping out rapid responses to someone who clearly wasn't me. The familiar ache of loneliness settled in my chest as I pushed the door open wider.

The room smelled of his scent—pine and smoke and the unmistakable power of an Alpha—but he wasn't there. I ran my fingers along his desk, remembering how we used to sit together in this very room, planning the future of our pack. Those days felt like memories from another life.

I hesitated, then opened his desk drawer. I wasn't looking for anything specific; I just needed to feel connected to him somehow. That's when my fingers brushed against a thick folder tucked beneath his territory ledgers. Something about its placement—deliberately hidden—made me pause.

I pulled it out and opened it.

The contract was written in formal legal language, but the essence of it hit me like a physical blow. My husband, the Alpha of the Black Moon Pack, had mortgaged our ancestral pack house—the sacred heart of our territory that had belonged to his family for generations—to pay off debts that weren't even ours.

My hands trembled as I read the name at the bottom of the document: Mira Rivera.

'She needed help,' I whispered to the empty room, the words bitter on my tongue. 'And you gave her our home.'

The door swung open behind me.

'Lina.' Collin's voice was sharp, his Alpha aura flooding the room with sudden intensity. 'What are you doing?'

I turned slowly, the contract still clutched in my hands. 'I could ask you the same thing.'

His eyes darted to the paper, and I watched his expression shift from surprise to something harder, more defensive. 'You had no right to go through my things.'

'I had no right?' My voice remained steady even as my heart cracked. 'This is our pack house. Our legacy. And you mortgaged it without even telling me.'

Collin stepped closer, his Alpha tone vibrating through the room. 'It was my duty to protect her. She's an Omega with nowhere else to turn.'

'Your duty?' I repeated, the word hollow. 'Your duty is to this pack. To our home. To me.'

His jaw tightened, fingers pressing against it in that way I'd always recognized as his tell. 'You don't understand what real compassion is, Lina. You've always been...' He paused, searching for the right weapon. 'Cold. Calculating. Unfeeling.'

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