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“She’s good, baby. How else can you explain how everything has been aligning for her whenever it comes to you or how she’s always present at the right time?” She sobbed, wiping her cheeks.

Griffin’s face morphed into a hard alien expression, and he turned to me. “You tried to trick me? I saved you from yourself, brought you here to help you, and you tried to destroy my life.”

He sucked in a deep breath, and I could see his next line of action as clear as day in his eyes.

“Griffin, don’t—”

“I, Griffin Thorne, reject you, Mira Raven as my mate.”

A ringing noise exploded in my ears following his declaration, and pain like nothing I’ve ever felt slammed into me as his words severed our mate bond. My wolf howled in agony, and I couldn’t contain the scream that climbed to my throat. Everything hurt—my heart, my limbs, even my breathing.

“Guards!” A thick masculine voice yelled above the ringing in my ears. “Take her to the dungeon. I’ll decide what to do with her later.”

“No! No! Griffin, you have to believe me! I didn’t do it. I’m innocent.” I tried to grab hold of him, but he kicked my hand away, asking the guards to remove me from his sight before he did something regrettable.

Lilith’s smug smile was the last thing I saw before I was dragged to the dungeon while the whole palace watched in disgust and pity.

Something broke in me that day.

*****

Day and night blended into an endless loop in the dungeon, and I lost track of time. I survived on leftovers brought to me twice daily by one of the guards.

I didn’t bathe, and I only had the toilet in the corner of the room for company. I already made peace with this being the way I died until one fateful night.

“Mira, Mira.” A hushed voice woke me from sleep.

I opened my eyes to find Mary crunched over me.

“What are you doing here? How did you get in?” I fired question after question at her but she didn’t answer any of them.

“Quick, get up. We need to leave.”

“Leave?”

“Yes, Mira, leave. Do you want to die in here?” She queried, her eyes searching mine.

“What if we get caught?” Dread settled into me. I was in enough trouble, and I didn’t want to drag her into it. Griffin would kill her if we got caught.

“We won’t. The king is dead, and the whole pack is in a state of disarray. This is the perfect time.”

I got up and followed Mary’s lead, constantly looking over my back to make sure we weren’t being followed. We walked through an underground maze before we finally came out through a small hole at the foot of a fountain in the woods.

Under normal circumstances, I would’ve asked how she found the spot, but I was too scared and exhausted for conversation.

Mary took me to a cabin in the woods. She said it was her grandfather’s hunting house, and I would be safe there until we figured out our next line of action.

It was in the house that I discovered I was pregnant. I had been noticing the signs: the morning sicknesses, the bloating, the sore boobs, the body aches. I just thought it was my body responding to the trauma it had been put through until I saw Mary disposing of an empty pack of tampons, and it hit me that I had not seen my period in a while.

Memories of my night with Griffin came flooding in, painting a vivid image of him completely emptying himself inside me. I was paralyzed with fear and sent Mary to get me a pregnancy test kit.

She returned with six different tests from six different brands, and they all came out positive. Double red lines stared back at me, mocking me for my lapse in judgment.

“What are we going to do?” Mary asked, panic etched on her features.

“Nothing. I’ll leave and go as far away as possible,” I replied, my voice robotic and devoid of emotions.

Her eyes widened at my response, and she tried to convince me to stay, talking about how it was unsafe for me to be out in the open with a pup and no form of protection, but the decision was already made the moment I set my eyes on the test.