Athena’s POV
The palace room was too quiet. Too perfect.
I sat on the edge of the bed, staring out the window while my untouched breakfast cooled behind me. The breeze played with the silk curtains, soft and slow, like everything in this place moved without urgency. Everyone else had a place here. A purpose.
Except me.
I hadn’t seen Varianth since the day he brought me here. No letters. No visits. No explanation. Just silence.
But I still felt him.
That pull. That strange, magnetic heat I didn’t understand—like some invisible thread was still tugging between us. The same feeling I’d had the night he looked at me at the edge of Crescent Moon’s border. The same fire I saw in his eyes.
So why didn’t he remember?
Why hadn’t he said anything about that night?
I pressed my palm lightly against my stomach. His child. Growing quietly inside me. And he didn’t know. Because he thought I was a stranger.
But I wasn’t.
And neither was that night.
I stood and slipped out of my room, moving quietly into the east wing where the political families were housed. The halls here were quieter than the rest of the palace, but not empty. Servants passed by with their heads down, voices low.
As I turned a corner near Emily’s room, I heard them. Voices—hushed, fast, tense.
I stopped.
Emily’s voice—sharp and impatient. “This is all your fault, Mother. I told you he was supposed to come to my room!”
I moved silently to the shadow of a doorway and pressed my back to the stone. My heart thundered in my chest.
Her mother answered, clipped and irritated. “The wine was laced exactly how we planned. He should’ve gone to you. But he didn’t.”
Emily angrily responded. “Instead, that filthy whore—Athena—got what we spent years preparing for.”
My stomach dropped.
No.
No, that couldn’t mean what I thought it did.
Emily hissed, “He was supposed to mate with me that night. We would’ve sealed the bond—he wouldn’t be able to walk away. We’d be announced before the Elders could interfere.”
Her mother snapped, “And now he can’t explain why he’s drawn to her. The connection’s already rooted. He feels it—he just doesn’t know why. That scarred girl already has the Alpha King’s mark…and his heir.”
I could barely breathe.
That night at Silver Fang... it was never meant to happen. Not with me. They drugged him. They tried to trap him. And something went wrong.
He ended up in the wrong room. Mine.
And now I was carrying his heir.
Emily’s voice dropped into something darker. “This isn’t over. I don’t care what’s growing inside her. That baby won’t live long enough to matter. I will be Luna. I will wear the crown. And if I have to cut her out of his life, I’ll do it myself.”
A breath caught in my throat. I pressed my hand over my mouth to silence it, my chest heaving. The hallway felt colder now. Tighter.
I turned, ready to run—
And stepped straight into a solid chest.
Strong arms caught me before I could fall.
A guard. Emily’s guard.
His grip closed around my upper arm, eyes narrowing when he realized who I was. “Miss… What are you doing in this part of the palace?”
“I—I was just walking,” I stammered, but it was too late.
He turned toward the room. “She was listening,” he said flatly.
Before I could pull away, he knocked on the door and opened it wide.
Emily turned at the sound, her mother at her side.
The guard nudged me forward. “She was outside.”