Isla's POV
"Mommy, where's Daddy?"
Lyra asks me this for the fifth time in twenty minutes, her gray eyes—so much like Dante's—starting to shimmer with tears she's too proud to let fall. My seven-year-old daughter got her father's stubbornness along with his eye color.
"He's working, sweetheart." The lie tastes like ash. "He'll be here soon." "He said that last time. " Lyra's voice drops to a whisper. "He always says that."
My heart cracks a little more. I pull her close, taking in her scent—puppy fur and strawberry shampoo. "I know, baby. But you have me, and all your friends are here. Let's go cut your unicorn cake, okay?"
She nods, but the sparkle in her eyes has faded. And that—that right there—is why I stopped expecting Dante to be a real husband years ago. I can handle his coldness. His distance. His total inability to love me.
But watching him break our daughter's heart party after party? That's a wound that never quite heals.
The pack house garden is full of laughing seven-year-olds, and I paste on my Luna smile. The one that says everything is fine. That I'm not slowly dying inside my own marriage. That I don't lie awake at night wondering what I did wrong to earn a mate who looks through me like I'm glass.
"Luna Isla!" One of the omega moms waves at me. "The games are ready whenever you are."
"Perfect. Thank you, Claire. " I'm so good at this. At being perfect. At being enough for everyone except the one person whose opinion should mean most.
Movement catches my eye. Marcus stands near the house, phone pressed to his ear, his face tight with worry. Our Beta never looks worried. Marcus is solid, steady, the rock that keeps this pack grounded when their Alpha is too busy being ice.
Something cold slides down my spine.
"Lyra, sweetheart, go play with your friends for a minute. I need to talk to Uncle Marcus."
She runs off, and I move toward Marcus with steps that feel too slow and too fast at the same time. My wolf is moving inside me, whining. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. " Marcus. " I keep my voice low. "Where's Dante?"
His jaw tightens. "Handling pack business."
"Where?"
"Isla—"
"Where is my husband?" The Luna voice comes out—the one I rarely use, the one that tells everyone I'm not just Dante's pretty accessory.
Marcus looks at me, and I see it. Pity. The same sadness I've seen in pack members' eyes for seven years. Poor Luna Isla. Devoted to a man who can't even claim to care. " He went to meet Serena. Border clearing. Something about rogue activity." The name hits me like a punch. Serena. Of course it's Serena. "On our daughter's birthday." My voice sounds strange. Distant.
"I told him not to go." "But he went anyway. " Because pack business—especially pack business involving Serena—is always more important than his family.
I should go back to the party. Should cut the cake and play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and pretend my heart isn't crying that something is terribly, horribly wrong.
Instead, I ask: "Where's Kieran?"
Marcus's face goes carefully blank. That's answer enough.
"He took our son to meet his mistress." The words fall out of my mouth like stones. " On his daughter's birthday. He took Kieran to Serena."
"Isla, you don't know—"
"Don't I?" Seven years of doubt suddenly click into place. The scent in his office. The late nights. The way Kieran flinches when I try to hug him, like I'm a stranger instead of the woman who grew him in my body. "How long, Marcus? How long has this been happening?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You're a terrible liar." My hands are shaking. " My son barely looks at me. He asks when Aunt Serena will come. He pulls away when I touch him. And you're telling me you don't know anything?"
Marcus won't meet my eyes. "Dante's decisions are his own."
"But you knew." The betrayal cuts deeper because Marcus is meant to be the good one. The one who actually has a heart. "You knew he was doing this, and you let me keep planning birthday parties and making excuses and believing that maybe, someday, he'd—"
I can't finish. Can't say the weak hope out loud. That maybe someday Dante would love me. Would choose me. Would look at me the way he looks at pack territory maps and business contracts—with real interest.
My wolf howls inside me. Not in pain. In rage.
Find him. Show him. Make him see.
"I need to go." I'm already moving toward the forest.
"Isla, don't." Marcus grabs my arm. "Whatever you're thinking—" " I'm thinking my husband took our son to his lover on our daughter's birthday. I'm thinking I've been making excuses for seven years while everyone in this pack knew I was a joke. I'm thinking—" My voice breaks. " I'm thinking I need to see it with my own eyes before I can finally stop hoping."
I pull free and run.
The forest blurs around me. My wolf is in control now, following Dante's smell like a bloodhound. The mate bond that's been quiet for so long suddenly burns in my chest, pulling me forward, yelling warnings I ignored for too long.
I smell them before I see them.
Sex. Pheromones. The unmistakable smell of wolves who've been intimate.
My legs nearly give out, but I force myself forward. I need to see it. Need to kill the hope that's been slowly killing me.
The clearing comes into view.
Dante has Serena pressed against a tree, and even from here I can see the flush on his face, the wild look in his eyes—emotion I've never seen directed at me in seven years of marriage.
But that's not what kills me.
"Mommy! Daddy said you'd come back!"
The small voice freezes my blood.
I turn, and there's Kieran—my baby boy, the child I almost died bringing into this world—running toward us.
Running straight past me.
Into Serena's waiting arms.
"Mommy, I missed you!" My five-year-old son wraps his arms around her neck, his face hidden in her hair.
The mate tie doesn't just crack. It shatters.
And through the broken parts, I finally see the truth I've been too afraid to face: I never had a husband. I was just a womb with a heart, keeping his real family warm until they could be together.