Selena Whitmore, Kieran Blackwood’s childhood sweetheart, and I became pregnant at the same time. To protect her reputation before the Elders’ Council, he announced to the world that the child she carried held his Alpha bloodline. My child, meanwhile, was registered as a strayblood. When I demanded an explanation, Kieran’s voice was cool and flat. “Selena was raised under Mooncrest Pack’s strict rules. If she were pregnant without a bonded mate, the rumors would tear her apart.” That was the first time I understood what it felt like for love to die. Later, when the Blackwood Pack and the Hawthorne branch family who raised me decided I was a disgrace, forcing me to go to the Moon Clinic to terminate the pregnancy, he was overseas with Selena, waiting for her to give birth. By the time he came back, I had lost our pup and vanished from his world completely. *** In my third month of pregnancy, Selena announced she was pregnant, too. We ran into each other in the Blackwood ......
