Sarah's POV
"Stupid, fat little bitch."
I say the words to the empty room, to the cold air still seeping through the gap where Morgan left the window cracked in her haste.
My voice carries no tremor, no urgency. I've been preparing for a moment exactly like this one since Paul demanded her at the treaty table, even if I couldn't have named the shape the crisis would take.
The packhouse breathes around me—the settling of old timbers, the distant creak of a floorboard two stories down where the night guard shifts his weight.
Everyone else sleeps. I have perhaps an hour before the compound stirs, and an hour is more than enough time for a woman who understands how to use it.
I cross to the window first and pull the latch closed. The pre-dawn chill retreats, and I smooth the curtain back into place with the same care I use when arranging flowers for pack dinners.
Details matter. Details are what separate women who survive from women who become cautionary tales whispered over breakfast.
The desk draws my attention next.
Three envelopes rest against the lamp base, cream paper glowing faintly in the gray light filtering through the glass.
I pick up the first one and read the name written across the front in Morgan's unsteady hand: Paul. The second bears Zane's name. The third says Elena.
"How thoughtful of you," I murmur, turning each envelope over to check the seals. "Goodbye letters. You wanted to explain yourself before you ran, didn't you? You ungrateful, scheming little whore."
I break the seal on Paul's letter first and unfold the single page inside. The words blur slightly in the dim light, but I force myself to read slowly, to absorb every syllable.
‘I'm sorry for what I cannot explain.’
That's all she wrote to my husband. One sentence. I let out a breath that might have been a laugh in another woman, and I set the page aside before opening Zane's envelope.
This letter runs longer, and my jaw tightens as I scan the contents.
She thanks him for his gentleness. She mentions a garden, a moment of kindness she claims she didn't deserve.
The phrasing tells me everything I suspected about that afternoon. I saw them walking together near the roses—the careful distance he maintained, the way her shoulders relaxed in his presence when they remained rigid around everyone else.
"So the spare brother played the hero for you." I trace my finger along the edge of the page. "Did his attention make you feel special, Morgan? Did you think he would protect you from me? He can barely protect himself."
Elena's letter asks only for understanding. No mention of the pregnancy I scented when I stood in the doorway and watched her vault through the window like a desperate animal fleeing a trap.
None of the letters mention me. None of them mention Thomas, or the photograph.
I gather all three pages and carry them to the small fireplace in the corridor alcove outside Morgan's door.
The hearth sits cold and clean, unused since winter, but I keep a lighter in my robe pocket for exactly this kind of moment. Years of small cruelties have taught me the value of burning evidence before it can be used against me.
The flame catches the corner of Paul's letter first, and I watch the ink darken and curl inward as the fire consumes Morgan's pathetic apology to my husband.
Zane's letter goes next, the words about gentleness and gardens dissolving into ash. The letter addressed to Elena burns last, and I hold the paper until the heat threatens my fingertips before dropping it into the grate.
Technology exists for a reason, you foolish cow. One scheduled message, and your goodbyes would be in their hands right now.
But planning ahead requires a brain you clearly don't possess.
When the ash cools, I crush it with the poker until nothing readable remains.
"You made this part easy," I tell the empty corridor. "You removed yourself from the packhouse, from his bed, from everyone who might have protected you if they'd known what I was planning. All I have to do now is make sure you are gone forever."
I return to Morgan's room and lower myself into the chair at her desk. The wood holds no warmth from her body—she's been gone for perhaps thirty minutes now.
I rest my hands on the surface where she must have written those pathetic letters, and I think.
The scent of pregnancy clings to this room. Not strong, not obvious to anyone with less sensitivity than mine, but unmistakable once you know what to look for.
The timing is devastating. Paul hasn't touched me since our wedding night, and I haven't pushed for it since Thomas makes my obligations to my husband easier to manage from a distance.
But a child born to Morgan—Paul's child, carrying Paul's blood—is a threat I cannot ignore.
"A bastard heir with a claim through his bloodline could dismantle everything I'm here to build," I say quietly, testing the shape of the problem aloud.
"Both packs would question my position as Luna if she came back carrying proof that Paul chose her over me. They would see me as the barren wife who couldn't hold her husband's attention, and they would pity me, and I will not be pitied."
The solution crystallizes in my mind with the same clarity I've always possessed when survival requires difficult choices.
Paul and Zane will search for her the moment they discover she's gone. I must control what they know and when they learn it.
I must be present when Paul finds this empty room, and I must already have a version of events prepared—one that positions Morgan's disappearance as a choice driven by shame and instability rather than by fear of me.
More importantly, Morgan cannot be found.
Not by Paul. Not by Zane. Not by Elena or anyone else who might bring her back into this packhouse with evidence of her pregnancy showing beneath her clothes.
I stand from the chair and push it back into place against the desk. My fingers smooth the surface one final time, erasing the small disturbances my presence has created.
The room looks exactly as it should—abandoned, undisturbed.
"The only outcome that guarantees my safety is the one where you disappear permanently," I tell the walls, the empty bed, the faint impression her body left on the mattress. "Just like your pathetic mother."
My heels make no sound against the stone floor as I walk back toward the Alpha suite. The packhouse remains silent around me, oblivious to the decisions being made in its shadows.
I have a husband to wake before he discovers the absence himself.
And I have a story to tell him—one that begins with a troubled girl who ran away in the night and ends with a Luna who stood by her Alpha's side through every moment of the search.
The door to our bedroom appears ahead, and I arrange my expression into something approaching concern.
Time to begin.