Chapter 5

Bennett POV

The Council meeting was a disaster, a train wreck in slow motion.

"Where is Kelsey?" Elder Thomas demanded, the ferrule of his cane striking the hardwood floor with a sharp *crack*. "The archives are in shambles. The harvest festival is a week away, and not a single vendor has been confirmed. And now, whispers reach us that she has abdicated?"

"She is merely taking a mental health break," I lied, keeping my expression practiced and smooth, though sweat prickled at my collar. "The first attack traumatized her. She needs space to recover."

"Space does not mean divorce, Bennett!"

"It is not a divorce," I insisted, though the hollow echo in my chest argued otherwise. "It is a separation. Temporary. She will be back."

I had to fix this. I needed to buy her back. That was what Kelsey responded to, wasn't it? Stability? Comfort? Security?

I pulled out my phone, navigating to a jeweler in Paris. I had tracked her credit card usage; I knew exactly where she was hiding.

*Click. Order placed.* A diamond necklace. Heavy, expensive, undeniable.

I typed out the note to accompany it: *'Come home. Stop playing games. I forgive you.'*

That would work. Kelsey was soft. She was pliable. She always forgave me in the end.

Later that afternoon, I was buried in paperwork in my office when Aria burst in. She was practically glowing, radiating a frantic energy.

"Bennett!" she squealed, waving a crumpled piece of paper in the air.

"Not now, Aria. I am trying to salvage the budget for the-"

"I'm pregnant!"

The world seemed to screech to a halt.

I stood up slowly, the budget forgotten on the mahogany desk. "What did you say?"

"I went to the pack doctor," she beamed, rushing around the desk to straddle my lap, her hands framing my face. "I've been feeling sick for days. It's twins, Bennett! Alpha heirs!"

Joy, pure and instinctual, flooded my veins. This was it. This was the legacy I had been fighting for. The one thing Kelsey had failed to give me.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! Smell me!"

I buried my face in the crook of her neck. Beneath her usual cloying vanilla perfume, there was a change. A subtle richness. It was faint, barely a whisper, but it was there. The unmistakable scent of new life.

"This changes everything," I whispered against her skin.

"It does," she purred, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw. "It means I need to be Luna. Officially. The pups need a crowned mother, Bennett. They can't be born to a mistress."

I hesitated. The rejection wasn't finalized in the pack records yet. The legalities were messy. But... twins.

"Okay," I said, the decision locking into place. "We will hold the ceremony. Next week."

*

Kelsey POV

The package arrived with the morning light.

I sat at my small kitchen table and opened the velvet box. Inside lay a diamond necklace. It was heavy, ostentatious, and cold to the touch.

The note tucked beneath it read: *I forgive you.*

I stared at the ink. He forgave *me*? For what? For surviving? For walking away when he had already discarded me like yesterday's trash?

I waited for the anger to come, but it didn't. Instead, I felt a profound, exhausting boredom. He didn't know me at all. He never had.

I snapped the box shut. I took the necklace and walked down to the pawn shop on the corner of the street.

"How much?" I asked, sliding the velvet box across the glass counter.

The man examined it with a loupe and named a price. It was substantial. Enough to cover my rent for six months, with plenty left over.

"Deal."

I took the stack of cash and walked straight to a local werewolf shelter-a sanctuary for omegas who had been abused, neglected, or kicked out of their packs.

"Anonymous donation," I said, handing the thick envelope to the stunned volunteer at the desk.

When I returned to my apartment, the air felt lighter. I started cleaning. Not just tidying, but *purging*.

I pulled out the box I had shoved under the bed. It held the few artifacts I had brought from Silver Crest that I hadn't destroyed yet. Old photos. A dried flower from our first date. A ticket stub.

I lit a fire in the small, non-functional fireplace I'd managed to get working.

One by one, I fed the memories to the flames.

My phone pinged on the floor. A message from Sophie. She knew I had blocked the others, so she remained my only link to the life I left behind.

*Sophie: Kelsey... Aria is pregnant. Twins. Bennett announced the Luna Coronation is happening next week.*

I paused, a photograph of Bennett and me hovering over the fire.

Pregnant? Already?

My brow furrowed. Wolf biology didn't work that fast. Even if they had been sleeping together for months, the scent of a multiple pregnancy wouldn't be strong enough to confirm twins this early without a blood test. And the Pack doctor was old-fashioned; he relied almost exclusively on scent.

Unless...

A memory surfaced. The smell of Aria at the party, right before I left. That cloying sweetness.

Vanilla and... *rot*.

I realized what it was. There was a specific herb. *Wolfsbane root mixed with synthetic hormones.* It was an old, forbidden cocktail used by desperate wolves. It could mimic the scent of pregnancy, masking the barren reality with a false richness. But underneath, it always smelled like decay.

She was faking it. Or she was using dark magic.

I looked at the photo in my hand. Bennett was smiling, young and arrogant, completely unaware of the viper in his bed.

"You idiot," I whispered to the glossy paper. "You're crowning a fraud."

I could warn him. I could send a message, expose the lie, and save the pack from crowning a false Luna.

I watched the flames dance, hungry and bright.

"No," I said aloud.

I dropped the photo into the fire.

I watched the edges curl and blacken. I watched Bennett's smiling face bubble, distort, and melt away into gray ash.

"Not my pack. Not my circus. Not my monkeys."

I stood up and dusted the soot off my hands.

The fire crackled, warm and cleansing, consuming the last tether to my past.

I turned away from the hearth and walked toward my easel. I picked up a brush, feeling the weight of it, familiar and grounding.

The White Wolf inside me stretched, shaking off the last of the gray dust.

It was time to paint something new. Something vibrant.

It was time to live.