The Alpha Signed Away His Pregnant Luna novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Between Two Treaties
Maeve slips the Luna Release between two border treaties and Gideon signs it without reading. She seals it with the Elder and buys a one-way bus ticket four days out.
I slid the Luna Release between two border treaties and set the stack in front of my husband.
My husband, the Alpha of our pack, signed all three without looking up.
His phone lit on the desk beside the pen.
A woman's name was on the screen.
An hour earlier, the pack healer had put her hand on my belly and told me I was carrying his heir.
Now he had signed away his wife and his child, and he would never know it.
"That everything?" He capped the pen and checked the clock. It was 11:52.
At midnight his mind-link closed every night. His phone went dark. An Alpha who doesn't rest can't lead.
That was his rule, and I had watched him keep it for five years.
He kept it when I had a fever that put me in bed for three days.
He kept it the night my grandmother died, when I called him again and again and got nothing.
I squared the papers with steady hands. "That's everything."
Gideon gave me a mild, curious look. "You didn't have to carry the treaties in yourself, Maeve. My beta could have."
"I know."
He frowned at me, short on patience.
Then he stood, kissed my forehead and walked to his study.
"Goodnight."
The door clicked shut.
I sat on the edge of his desk and looked at the signature.
It was bold and careless, the signature of a man who had ended his marriage between two breaths.
I had expected it to hurt more.
At 12:03 his phone rang again behind the study door.
He answered before the second ring.
"Laney? Another nightmare?"
His voice went low and soft, a voice he hadn't used on me in years.
"No, you're not bothering me. I'm here. Talk to me."
So the rule had an exception, and the exception wasn't his wife.
It was Delaney Pruitt, the dead beta's daughter, the woman whose name had lit his phone.
I went to our bedroom and left the light off.
I took the ultrasound printout out of my bag and held it up to the moonlight from the window.
There was a tiny flicker on it, a heartbeat no bigger than a grain of rice.
The healer had sworn on the Moon Goddess to keep it secret.
Strong little thing, she'd said. A true Alpha's pup.
I laid my palm flat on my stomach.
"I'm sorry, baby," I whispered. "You won't meet your father. Mommy is taking you somewhere safe."
Gideon came to bed at six, smelling of rain and someone else's vanilla perfume.
On the kitchen counter sat a thermos of chamomile tea with a pink ribbon tied around it.
It had been there every morning for six weeks.
Delaney had handed me the first one herself. "A peace offering, Luna," she'd said, smiling. "I know you think I'm in the way. I just want us to be friends."
I drank it every morning.
When I picked up my bag, Gideon stepped in front of me, holding his tie out.
"Maeve. You're not doing my tie?"
I had tied it every day for five years, in a tight Windsor knot, because he liked it tight.
I gave him a small, polite smile. "Learn to do it yourself. Or ask Delaney."
He stopped.
At her name his whole face went soft.
"Laney does know how," he admitted. "She's thoughtful like that. What does that have to do with you?"
I didn't know where to begin, so I didn't.
"Nothing. I just don't want to anymore."
He studied me.
Then he stepped in and cupped my jaw.
"Maeve. There is nothing between Laney and me. Her father died taking a silver bullet meant for me, and I swore I'd look after her. That's a debt, not love."
My grandmother had always left the table when someone told that story. She'd go to the sink and wash her hands.
His thumb brushed my lip.
"You're my mate. My Luna. To make it up to you, I'm taking you away next week. Just us. Mirror Lake or the mountains. You pick."
He kissed me slowly, the way he used to, until my knees went soft against the counter.
Then he pulled back.
"Oh, and don't bring my lunch today. Laney said she's cooking for me."
The warmth went out of me all at once.
Gideon's stomach had been weak for years, from stress and long nights.
For five years I had cooked every meal he ate.
"Okay," I said.
Good. Now I had all the time I needed.
I walked to the Moon Elder's office first.
The Elder read the Release papers twice and looked at me over her glasses.
"He signed this?"
"He did."
"Without reading it, I assume."
She sighed and pressed her silver seal into the wax.
"It's done, child. But a five-year bond doesn't die overnight. It will fade with the moon cycle. Until then you will feel him, and he will feel you."
I thanked her and went straight to the bus depot on Fenn Street.
I bought a one-way ticket out of Ironwood territory, leaving in four days.
Four days, and then the pack would wake up without its Luna.
And Gideon Crane would learn what it was to be the one left behind.
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