"Luna, Alpha Ravyn has sent another divorce agreement." Beta Corvine's voice was careful, almost brittle, as if a single wrong word might shatter the air between them.
"He said he would reconsider if you agreed to accept Daisy as your co-Luna. He's been telling the pack you'll accept it anyway, that you love him too much to go through with a divorce and…"
Corvine froze, the rest of his sentence died in his throat. Luna Seraphine sat upright on the hospital bed, pale fingers steady as she signed her name at the bottom of the document. No hesitation or trembling. Just the quiet scratch of pen against paper.
For three months, this room had been her world. Sterile white walls, the low hum of healing machines. The sharp scent of antiseptic clinging to everything, and this was the seventh time divorce papers had found their way into her hands.
The first had come before Ravyn traveled to the Grimroot Pack with a suspicious condition. Either she allowed him to become the sole signatory to the pack's accounts, or she signed the divorce.
The second arrived on their seventh wedding anniversary. He wanted Daisy, her former nanny's daughter, to move into the pack house like when they were little.
The third came on Seraphine's birthday. Daisy should become their son Bryan's nanny, Ravyn said, so Seraphine could 'focus on pack duties.'
The fourth arrived on Alpha Ravyn's own birthday, requesting Daisy as his personal assistant.
The fifth came after Daisy publicly humiliated her before the pack. Ravyn sent the papers and demanded Seraphine overlook the disrespect or accept the divorce.
The sixth arrived on their son, Bryan's sixth birthday. Daisy should move into the Luna's chamber, since Seraphine "never used it anyway."
Each time, Seraphine had torn the papers apart in front of the beta, her expression calm even as her heart cracked a little more.
When she had nearly lost her life saving the pack, exposed to a chemical attack that destroyed her health, she had expected some form of care, concern, or even pity.
Instead, she received the seventh divorce agreement and this time with a new condition. Accept Daisy as co-Luna, and that was the last straw for the camel's back, an insult to her dignity.
That was when Seraphine finally understood that this marriage had been dead long before today.
Six chances, all wasted. Whatever remained was no longer worth saving. She would take her son and leave the pack for good.
"Luna…" Corvine finally breathed, eyes wide as he stared at the signed document. "Why did you sign this time?"
Seraphine looked up at him and smiled faintly. "My mother once told me that seven is the number of perfection," she said quietly. "If something can't be saved six times, it won't be saved on the seventh."
The world had changed. Packs were no longer isolated from humans. Werewolves blended in, worked among them, built corporations and empires in their cities.
Technology made shifting in public impossible, so the pack was still needed.
New moon festivals were also celebrated only within pack borders and was a time when all werewolves far and near would converge together, except those married to humans.
Every pack member worked outside the territory now. Only the omegas, Lunas, and betas remained permanently behind, tasked with guarding the land and maintaining the heart of the pack.
Alpha Ravyn was the second-richest man in New York City. Few knew that much of that success rested on Luna Seraphine's shoulders. Her strategies, negotiations, secret abilities, strengthened its administration, making it the second largest to the Grimroot pack.
And yet, all she had ever received from him was indifference, a punishment for a mistake in the past which was not even her fault.
She was tired of fighting for his attention, begging for his care, and waiting for affection that never came.
This time, it would be just her and her son. After all, Bryan was the reason this marriage had existed in the first place.
Seraphine peeled the sheet away and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
Corvine gasped. "Luna! You can walk?"
The chemical exposure had left her paralyzed, even doctors had written her off as a lost cause.
Pain flared with her every step she took, sharp and warning, but she only endured it. After spending two months bedridden, she welcomed pain that came from walking on her own two feet.
Her lips curled into a smirk, but she said nothing. Two months confined to a bed and one month of slow recovery had given her more than enough time to think, and the realization was simple.
A broken marriage was like a cracked egg. No matter how carefully you tried, it could never be put back together.
No one knew or cared about her condition, leaving her to rot, but she lived by her own medical skills. "Tell Ravyn," she said calmly, "that a co-Luna won't be necessary. He should just make her Luna once the divorce is finalized."
Corvine didn't argue. Secretly, he was happy to see her resolve in walking away from the people unworthy of her sacrifice.
Luna Seraphine had been the most powerful Luna the pack had ever known, except her own husband had never acknowledged it. Their union had been a mistake from the very beginning.
Years ago, watching humans freely choose who they loved, the packs had envied them. The elders had begged the Moon Goddess to free them from the mate bond.
Their wish was granted, and with it came lust, infidelity, and fractured loyalties.
Men like Alpha Ravyn had no idea how complicated human love truly was, like the freedom to desire many, yet commit to one. Instead, he despised being bound to Seraphine. If that night had never happened, he would never have married her at all.
As Seraphine reached the door, music crashed into her ears, loud, celebratory, mocking. "What's going on?" she asked.
Corvine lowered his head. "The coronation ceremony. Alpha Ravyn is announcing Daisy as co-Luna. Alphas from other packs were invited without their Lunas. He said you wouldn't dare refuse."
Seraphine smiled, but her eyes were empty. She knew the Lunas would have stood against such injustice.
She took back the divorce papers she had just signed and walked out of the pack hospital, still dressed in her thin hospital gown.
Corvine opened his mouth to stop her, but she was already gone. From a distance, the music grew louder. Pack members she had bled for stared as she passed, their eyes filled with confusion, curiosity, and disbelief.
When she entered the ceremonial hall, the room fell apart. Gasps rippled through the crowd.
"Luna Seraphine?"
"She's alive?"
"She's walking, no wheelchair, no crutches…" they were too shocked to say anymore.
Alpha Ravyn, handsome, composed, powerful, froze mid-speech. "Sera," he said, voice soft but eyes glacial. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be recovering?"
Yes, that was Ravyn. Keeping up his appearance among guests and pack members with gentle words wrapped in a frozen gaze. Never once had he looked at her the way he looked at Daisy.
"Is that Luna Seraphine?" One of the guests whispered. "She looks… diminished."
Her hair was dull from weeks without proper care. Her skin pale from medication. The hospital gown clung awkwardly to her frame, painfully out of place among silk and jewels.
Seraphine ignored them all. Before Ravyn could reach her, she stepped forward and pressed the papers into his chest.
"There's no need to crown her co-Luna," she said clearly. "You're free to make her Luna instead. I've already signed the divorce papers."
Her words detonated across the hall, and for the first time, Alpha Ravyn's perfect composure shattered.