BACK TO MY CURSED LUNA

Allison's POV

Blinding lights seared through my eyelids as I slowly blinked awake, the sharp tang of antiseptic clinging to every breath. Beneath me, stiff hospital sheets rustled as I shifted, and a jagged bolt of pain ripped through my abdomen. My throat was sandpaper.

"Luna Allison?" A nurse with kind eyes approached my bedside. "You're awake."

I tried to sit up, but a sharp stab of pain forced me back down. "What happened?" My voice came out raspy, thin.

The nurse's expression shifted into that practiced, careful sympathy. "I'm so sorry, Luna," she murmured. "Some pack members found you collapsed in a storage room." She paused, as if choosing words that wouldn't break me. "After the exam, we confirmed you were severely malnourished-and you'd pushed your body far past its limit. Your pup. didn't survive. The hemorrhaging was severe, but we've stabilized you."

For a second, I didn't understand the words. My mind tried to translate them into something else-something survivable.

Then they landed.

Hard.

My heartbeat sprinted.

Then it stuttered.

Then it stopped-just long enough for the silence inside me to scream.

My hand instinctively moved to my now-empty womb. The absence felt physical, like someone had scooped me hollow with a spoon and left the edges bleeding.

*Ally, our pup. our little one.*Jasmine's mournful voice resonated within me, my wolf's grief mirroring my own.

"I know," I whispered aloud. "I know, Jas." My lips barely moved. Even speaking felt like it might shatter me.

With trembling fingers, I reached for my phone on the bedside table.My Alpha mate, Lucian needed to know about our lost pup.

*He won't care, *Jasmine growled softly. *He never has. Fenrir doesn't feel our bond. We've known it from the start.*

"We still have to try," I murmured, dialing his number. The screen blurred-either from tears or the way my vision kept refusing to focus on reality.

One ring.

Two rings.

Three.

Each ring was a hammer to my ribs. Each ring made my stomach clench, as if my body still didn't understand it had already lost.

He picked up, but his voice was ice. "What is it, Allison?"

"Lucian, I'm in the hospital," I managed, my voice breaking. "I-"

He sighed. Not shocked. Not heartbroken. Just. annoyed. Like I'd interrupted something important. Like I'd spilled coffee on his schedule.

"I'm in a meeting," he cut me off sharply. "Don't disturb me unless it's important."

My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles ached. "But Lucian, our p-"

"Handle it yourself." The line went dead.

I stared at the phone, disbelieving. My pulse roared in my ears. For a moment, I couldn't breathe. Not because of the pain-because of the humiliation. Two years of marriage, and this-this was the mate I'd tried to love?

He left us alone, Jasmine whimpered inside my mind. Even now.

"He never wanted me," I murmured, setting the phone aside with shaking hands. "He never wanted her either." My voice cracked on the last word, like my throat couldn't hold the grief and the truth at the same time.

My mind drifted back, to a time when I'd been so naive, so painfully optimistic. I had secretly adored Lucian Storm since my student days-the most popular Alpha heir in our academy, my silent hero. He probably didn't even remember my name from back then, but he saved me.

After I'd been trapped in that dark, isolated storage room for twelve terrifying hours, it was his keen werewolf hearing that had caught my muffled cries. He found me, he rescued me, and I foolishly believed he noticed me.

That fleeting fantasy, that desperate hope, was exactly why I said yes too fast-when Alpha Victor Storm offered me a place at Lucian's side as his Chosen Luna.

Alpha Victor Storm, Lucian's grandfather, had been severely injured in a rogue attack, and I, purely by chance, had been the one to find him and staunch his bleeding long enough for the pack healers to arrive. His gratitude was powerful and absolute. And gratitude, in the hands of an Elder like Victor, didn't sound like "thank you." It sounded like an order.

Lucian was to take me as his mate.

But on our binding ceremony day, I learned the bitter truth-Lucian hadn't chosen me. He resented me. Not because I'd done something wrong. but because I existed in the space where his choice should've been.

He believed I was the obstacle, an unwanted entanglement, standing between him and the woman he actually wanted. Our marriage happened only because his powerful grandfather demanded it as payment for my unintended heroism. Even the Moon Goddess's blessing couldn't sweeten it for him.

The bond between our wolves, between Fenrir and Jasmine, was too fragile-or maybe too rejected-for his wolf to ever truly feel mine. He saw me not as a partner, but as an inconvenience, a perpetual source of trouble. A duty. A leash. He believed I was a weakness.

The sterile scent of antiseptic clung to the air, but it did nothing to cleanse the ache gnawing inside me. It sat behind my ribs like a stone, heavy enough to make even breathing feel like effort.