…I had devoted everything to guarding this child.
Yet now…
Sleeping with a guard and becoming pregnant —such filth, such an insult to the bloodline,would drag the entire pack into disgrace if it spread.
I could not ignore it.
Not when I carried the only heir.
Not when he had once told me —
“Until this child is born, nothing matters more.”
I rose quickly,led Willow toward the den entrance.
But the moment I opened the door—Lyra and the others crashed straight into my sight.
Her eyes lit up the second she saw me.
Before I could even speak,her palm flew.
The sharp crack of skin against skin echoed through the stone corridor.
My cheek burned.
I tasted iron.
“You filthy mutt banished to the inner den,how dare you sleep with a pack guard and carry a bastard whelp?!”
My fingers slowly curled against my swollen stomach.
This was the belly he once knelt before,pressing his forehead to my skin, murmuring my name like a prayer.
The same belly he protected with soldiers,with blood,with an entire bloodline’s wrath.
Yet now—“Today,” she stepped closer, her lips curving with cruel triumph,“I’ll make sure you remember what pack law truly means.”
The sudden slap hit me so hard my mind went completely blank.