His Human Wife, His Fated LunaChapter 1

Ten years into our marriage, I was making the bed when I found a photograph tucked beneath my Alpha's pillow.

In the picture, he was cradling a pup with eyes identical to his own, one hand laced with the fingers of a woman whose face glowed with tenderness.

That woman was his first love, the she-wolf Vanessa Sinclair.

Photograph in hand, I drove straight to Damien's company.

But when I reached the door of his office, I heard tangled, breathless sighs drifting through the door.

Vanessa was straddling Damien's lap, arms looped around his neck, voice soft and coaxing.

"I'm pregnant again. When are you going to throw out that worthless human bitch at home and make me your Luna?"

It felt as though I'd been dropped into an icy pit, and the words he'd once said to me echoed in my ears.

"I hate children."

That was why, in ten years of marriage, I had been pregnant three times—and each time, I had been forced to abort.

I am human. Carrying an Alpha's child is no easy thing, and every termination drained me to the bone.

After the third procedure, the doctor told me my uterine wall had grown dangerously thin. The next surgery, he warned, could bring catastrophic bleeding.

I begged Damien. I pleaded with him to let me bear the child and hand it over to my parents to raise.

But he answered me with cold detachment.

"If you keep it, we divorce."

And now, watching him stroke the woman in his arms with such doting affection, I heard him say:

"Since you're carrying it, then have it."

At last I understood.

Damien didn't hate children. He hated my children.

I closed the door without a sound.

Then I booked a flight out of the country for that very night.

........

I clutched the photograph and stumbled out of the building like a ghost.

The downpour drenched me through and through.

I saw Damien's assistant shielding a small boy in a raincoat as they hurried toward the entrance.

"Slow down, sir—careful, don't slip."

The little boy turned, lifted his face into a beaming smile, and chirped in a sweet child's voice.

"I'm not scared of falling. I can't wait to see Daddy and Mommy!"

I stared at that face—an exact copy of Damien's—and my breath froze in my throat. My hand drifted instinctively to my stomach.

When I discovered the third pregnancy, the baby had already been five months along.

The Pack Healer had performed a detailed prenatal scan, and on it I had seen a face whose brow and eyes were almost identical to Damien's.

Carrying the scan home, I had begged Damien on bended knee to let me keep the child.

He hadn't so much as glanced at the picture. He'd simply moved his things to the study.

After that, we hadn't spoken for half a month.

I couldn't bear the silent cruelty of his indifference. I scheduled the abortion.

At last he was satisfied. The first words he spoke to me in two weeks were:

"Good girl. I don't like children."

I looked at the boy now. He had to be about five years old.

And the fully formed child I had lost—that had been three years ago.

So all along, the reason he refused my children was simple. He already had a child with his first love.

Tears blurred my vision. I bit my lower lip until it bled, fighting down the urge to wail aloud.

A moment later, Damien came out carrying the child.

There was nowhere for me to hide. Through the curtain of rain, our eyes met.

The boy frowned and shook the umbrella in his small hand.

"Daddy, why is that lady standing in the rain?"

"Can I give her my umbrella? She looks so sad."

I said nothing. I caught the warning in Damien's eyes and stayed exactly where I stood.

He had the assistant bring me an umbrella, then ushered the boy into the car.

Vanessa appeared, schoolbag in hand. She took in the wretched sight of me and laughed in delight.

Faintly, I heard Damien's tender voice.

"Liam, people who stand foolishly in a storm usually aren't right in the head."

"They snap easily. From now on, if you see her, walk around her. She might hurt you."

The car rolled slowly past me, throwing up a spray of muddy water.

Through the window, I saw Damien and Vanessa fingers intertwined while the little boy built blocks beside them in excitement.

My phone vibrated. A message from Damien.

"Go home first. I'll explain everything."