Chapter 1
“I want you to stage a private jet crash for me. That way I can get away from Elias for good.”
When my best friend Poppy heard my request, her jaw nearly hit the floor. She wondered if she’d misheard.
"Are you out of your fucking mind, Molly?" she deadpanned.
"I’m entirely serious." I said, keeping my voice dead flat.
"Molly, you're married to Elias Blackwood." Poppy stood up, running a hand through her blue hair. "The Elias. The Alpha who swore you were his one true love, fought his entire clan to make you an ordinary human his Luna, and literally threw away his inheritance for you. The guy who shares his live location with you 24/7 and fired every female assistant in his building. Half the internet calls your marriage the modern fairy tale. If you die, he will tear the world apart looking for your body."
I let out a dry, broken laugh. "He won't have to look hard. He already has a replacement."
Poppy froze. "What are you talking about?"
"He has another family, Poppy."
When I learned of this, I had passed out in our penthouse. Just straight up coughed blood onto the marble floor and collapsed.
When I woke up, the harsh fluorescent lights of the VIP hospital suite blinded me.
"Molly. Hey. I'm right here."
Elias was sitting on the edge of the bed. He was still wearing his bespoke suit, but the tie was ripped off, his hair a mess. He had both hands wrapped tightly around the plastic IV tube feeding into my arm.
"Your skin is freezing," he murmured, his dark eyes wide with a frantic, desperate kind of panic. He was using his body heat—that intense, pureblood werewolf heat—to warm the icy fluid before it entered my veins.
He looked like a man terrified of losing his world.
If I hadn't seen those obscene videos of them sleeping together and the paternity test report with my own eyes, I would never have believed Elias cheated on me.
This was the same man who took thirty-three lashes from a silver whip just to get his family to accept me. Silver burns werewolf flesh to the bone. Those scars crisscrossed his back forever.
Elias fell head over heels for me the moment he laid eyes on me, and he launched an all-out pursuit without delay.
Gifts flowed to my nonstop. On top of that, he donated tens of billions to countless charities under my name. He also built schools in my name for underprivileged children across the globe.
He wanted the whole world to know my name, Molly Bennett, and be grateful to me. If I ever landed in trouble someday, help would await me anywhere I went.
Desperate to spend more time with me, he took part-time jobs alongside me: waiting tables, handing out flyers, sorting parcels, and more. This young heir, who had never washed a single piece of clothing at home, gritted his teeth and stuck by my side through all these odd jobs for two full years.
But the DNA test I saw was real.
The mother of his twin pureblood pups was Vivian Ashford.
Vivian. The female werewolf who tormented me in college. The one who got me fired from three jobs and paid local thugs to corner me in an alley. Elias found out, went feral, and systematically destroyed the entire Ashford family’s wealth in retaliation.
And now, we married five years, for the past two years, he was sleeping with her.
"Mr. Blackwood," the doctor’s voice cut through the heavy air as he walked in, holding a chart. "Your wife's collapse was brought on by extreme emotional stress... and her condition."
Elias stood up instantly. "What condition? Tell me right now."
The doctor smiled. "Congratulations. Mrs. Blackwood is two months pregnant."
Elias stopped breathing.
He turned to me, his jaw slack, eyes filling with tears. "A baby," he choked out. "Molly... we're having a baby."
He fell to his knees beside the bed and pressed his face into my blankets, his shoulders shaking. "Our marriage anniversary is just around the corner. this is a miracle."
It was a miracle. When I was thirteen, my abusive father kicked me into a frozen lake in the Appalachians. I nearly died. The doctors told me the severe cold damage to my uterus meant I would likely never conceive.
The Blackwood elders used that to humiliate me constantly. A weak, barren human,they called me. Elias had nearly ripped his uncle’s throat out for that, swearing he’d sever ties with the whole clan.
I stared at the ceiling. Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes. This baby was supposed to be my ultimate victory. Now, it was just a chain tying me to a liar.
Elias leaned up to kiss my cheek. As his face came close, my breath hitched.
Beneath his natural cedarwood scent, there was something else. Faint, but undeniable.
The musky, sweet pheromones of a female werewolf. And the unmistakable milk smell of nursing pups.
My stomach violently violently violently turned.
I leaned over the edge of the bed and wretched.
I didn't reach the trash can in time. I threw up a mouthful of bile and blood—right into Elias’s bare hands.
He didn't even flinch. He didn't pull away. He just held it, his face filled with pure, agonizing concern. "It's okay, baby. I got you. It's just the morning sickness. I'm right here."
I stared at his hands. Hands that had held Vivian. Hands that had held their pureblood children.
Before I could speak, his phone buzzed.
He glanced at the screen, and a micro-expression of panic flashed across his eyes before he masked it with a calm smile. "The board is melting down over the merger. I postponed it to come here, but they need my signature on a proxy. I’ll send my security team up. I'll be back in thirty minutes, okay?"
He kissed my forehead, washed his hands in the sink, and bolted out the door.
Exactly twenty-eight minutes later, my phone pinged.
Vivian’s number.
I opened the message. It was a photo.
Elias was sitting on a plush beige sofa. He was looking down, smiling the softest, most tender smile I had ever seen, kissing the foreheads of two chubby toddlers with wolf ears protruding from their hair.
Below the photo was a text:
Human pregnancies are fragile. Try not to die from the stress, Molly. — V.
This photo shattered every last one of my illusions.
I just called Poppy.
"Molly?"
"Hurry up the flight plan, Poppy. Also… could you help me book an abortion procedure?"
