The 30-Day Severance, Revenge Before I Leave Chapter 01

The 30-Day Severance, Revenge Before I Leave Chapter 01

“Maybe they’ll grow up and become mates.”

I said it because, for one brief moment, I really was happy.

Mia slept in my arms, warm and tiny under the hospital blanket. Across the room, Selina’s infant son slept in the bed beside hers.

It looked like the life I had once imagined for myself.

My daughter. My husband. My best friend.

Carl stood beside my bed, gently adjusting the blanket over my legs.

Then his hand paused.

“They will never be mates,” he said.

I looked up.

His fingers were still on the blanket, but his face had changed. Whatever gentleness he had been wearing for the room was gone.

“Carl?”

He let go of the blanket.

“They share blood.”

For a moment, I only stared at him.

Then I remembered the first time Selina had let me hold her son. I had been eight months pregnant then, and I had smelled Carl on him.

At the time, I told myself it was nothing. Pregnancy made every scent sharper, and Carl had been in and out of the room all day. Maybe he had touched the blanket. Maybe his scent had simply lingered.

I had wanted that explanation to be true.

Now, looking at the child in Selina’s arms, I understood why it had never felt right.

The scent had not come from the room.

It came from him.

My arms tightened around Mia.

Selina lowered her eyes, but not quickly enough. I caught the small curve of her mouth before she hid it.

The Winter Solstice Gala flashed through my mind, but only in pieces.

A glass of water.

My legs going weak.

Carl’s voice the next morning, telling me I had fainted because I was exhausted.

I looked at him now.

“You drugged me.”

Carl did not deny it.

He picked up a sterile wipe and clean his fingers as if my heartbreak were only a spill on his hands.

“Silvermoon needed an heir who wouldn’t fight me at every turn.”

For a second, I could not feel anything.

“So you made one with my best friend.”

“You are still my Luna,” he said. “Your title stays.”

Selina shifted on the other bed, holding her son closer. Carl did not look at her.

“That boy will be raised in my house,” he continued. “You will accept him. Don’t embarrass yourself, Elena.”

Mia made a small sound against my chest.

I looked down at her. She had not even opened her eyes yet, but Carl was already speaking as if her place in this world could be negotiated without her.

Something rose in my throat, hot and sharp. For a second, I almost let it out.

Then I saw Carl watching me.

Selina was watching too.

Waiting.

I smoothed my thumb over Mia’s tiny knuckles until my hand stopped shaking. Then I looked back at him.

“Fine.”

His expression eased.

He believed me.

I lowered my eyes before he could see anything else.

He thought I had surrendered.

I let him.