The Alpha's Borrowed Luna

Elowen

The thunder crashed outside like it was determined to split the world in two. I woke up gasping, clutching my abdomen as pain tore through me.

Not a normal pain—this was different. Sharper. More urgent.

"Ah! No... not again!" I cried out, my voice drowned by another roar of thunder.

Lightning flashed, illuminating my small bedroom in the isolated cabin where Dorian had insisted I stay. "For your protection," he'd said. What a cruel joke that seems now.

The pain intensified, radiating through my lower body.

Something was terribly wrong with my baby.

Our baby.

"It's worse this time... so much worse..."

Then it happened—the thing that always happens when he's with her. Our mate bond, something that should be sacred and beautiful, turned into an instrument of torture.

Vivid images flooded my mind: Dorian's hands tangled in Selene's hair, his lips on her neck, her smug smile as she looked up at him.

"Goddess, no... I can see them. I can SEE THEM!"

The physical pain of the mate bond tearing at me combined with the fresh wave of agony in my abdomen. I reached for my phone with trembling hands, nearly knocking it off the nightstand. The screen illuminated my tear-streaked face as another flash of lightning revealed something that made my heart stop—blood. So much blood soaking through my nightgown, spreading beneath me on the sheets.

"Someone... anyone... the storm..."

The call went straight to voicemail. Of course it did. He always silenced his phone when he was with her.

"Dorian, please..." My voice broke as I recorded a message. "I know you're with her, but something's wrong with the baby. There's so much pain..."

Another vision hit me so forcefully I dropped the phone. Dorian's voice, clear as if he were standing next to me, whispering in Selene's ear.

"You're perfect. You're strong, unlike her. You're the only one who deserves to be my Luna."

Selene's smug reply cut through me like a knife. "What about your little secret? The weak one?"

His laugh—the same laugh I once thought was only for me—echoed in my head. "She serves her purpose for now. She means nothing."

"Stop touching her like that!" I screamed into the empty room.

My body convulsed with another wave of pain. The blood was flowing faster now, forming a growing pool beneath me. I knew what was happening—I was losing our baby. The tiny life inside me, only a month old but already everything to me, was slipping away.

I picked up the phone again, my fingers leaving bloody smears on the screen.

"DORIAN! I'M BLEEDING! OUR BABY IS DYING!"

The storm raged harder, as if feeding off my desperation. Water pounded against the roof and windows. The road to the cabin would be completely flooded by now—Dorian had chosen the perfect night to be with her, when no one could reach me.

"He knew this would happen... he didn't care his own baby..."

I tried to stand but collapsed immediately. Instead, I began crawling toward the door, leaving a trail of blood behind me. Maybe if I could get outside, somehow signal for help...

"Help! Someone! The road is flooded... please... PLEASE!"

Lightning struck nearby, the thunder immediate and deafening. In the brief illumination, I could see the blood trail I was leaving across the wooden floor. My strength was fading rapidly.

"Little one, stay with me... fight... mommy loves you..."

The pain was unbearable now. Physical agony mixed with the knowledge that Dorian was still with her, uncaring, while our child died. I had been such a fool. Darkness began closing in around the edges of my vision as my body went cold.

"I will never forgive you for this, Dorian. Never."

---

I was eighteen when it happened—when Alpha Dorian Caldwell made me look every bit of a fool.

The mating ball seemed like something out of a fairy tale, especially for someone like me. My mother, Isolde, had been a slave in the pack, lower than an omega. I was just a low-ranked female, invisible to most. No one expected the Alpha to choose me—least of all me. But when our eyes met across the crowded hall, the mate bond snapped into place like a lock clicking shut.

For a brief, beautiful moment, I thought my life had changed forever. Dorian pulled me aside, his eyes intense with desire. "Keep this between us for now," he'd whispered. "It's complicated with pack politics."

I agreed, of course. What did I know about being an Alpha's mate? I was just happy to be chosen by the man I'd secretly crushed on for years. That night, I gave him my virginity under the stars, believing every promise he whispered against my skin.

A month later, he introduced Selene to the pack as his mate. His future Luna.

I confronted him in private, confused and heartbroken. He explained it away—clan politics, strategic alliances, public expectations—but assured me that I was his true mate. "Be patient," he said. "You're too delicate for the spotlight right now."

I believed him. Goddess help me, I believed him.

The first time he slept with Selene, I felt it through our bond. The pain dropped me to my knees in the middle of working in the pack kitchen. No one understood why I suddenly collapsed, screaming. I couldn't explain that I could feel—even see—my mate with another woman.

I should have ended things then. But I was desperate for love, desperate to believe that someone like Dorian could truly want someone like me. So I endured. Each time he went to her, the pain grew worse. Each time he returned to me with apologies and promises, I forgave him.

When I got pregnant, I thought things would change.

They did—they got worse. Dorian became more distant, more cruel. The cabin "for my protection" became my prison, far from prying eyes, far from help.

My baby was the one good thing I had—the one pure thing in my life. And now, because of him, it was gone.