Chapter 7: The Luna Who Was Never Mine

Three months had passed since I crossed the northern border.

Frost River was nothing like Blackridge. No one here cared that I had once been promised to an Alpha. No one expected me to smile while they took something that belonged to me. They judged me only by the work I could do.

And for the first time in my life, that was enough.

I stood inside the Frost River investigation hall with a stack of reports in my hands while Mara Voss watched me from across the table.

"The western patrol found another shipment of illegal silver at the border," she said. "The markings are identical to the weapons used in the Moon Hall attack."

I looked down at the photographs.

Silver blades. Smuggled moonstones. Forged construction permits.

None of it was random.

"Send the evidence to my office," I said. "I'll take the case personally."

Mara studied me for a moment before nodding.

"You haven't taken a single day off since you arrived."

"I have a reason."

"Everyone who works this hard has a reason."

I rested one hand over my abdomen.

"Mine is waiting for me to finish."

The pup had become stronger during the past weeks. The healer said the pregnancy was progressing normally, but I still woke some nights with my palm pressed against my stomach, terrified that the stress of everything I had left behind would somehow reach the little life growing inside me.

Then the pup would move.

A tiny flutter beneath my hand.

And I would remember why leaving had been necessary.

Back in Blackridge, Caden had spent three months searching for answers.

The first thing he did was demand that the Council reverse my bloodline severance.

They refused.

Then he tried to challenge the pack-withdrawal certificate.

They rejected that as well.

Finally, he demanded access to the pregnancy record.

The Council sealed it under my name and told him that the child was protected by my legal declaration.

He had no right to know where I was.

No right to follow me.

No right to claim the pup.

And for the first time, the Alpha of Blackridge discovered that power could not force someone to return when that person had already chosen to leave.

But Caden refused to accept it.

He sent letters through the Moon Council.

I returned every one unopened.

He sent gifts.

I sent them back.

Then one morning, a sealed Council message arrived at my office.

I knew who it was from before I broke the seal.

"Evelyn, I know you hate me. You have every reason to. But I need you to hear the truth about Lydia."

I almost stopped reading.

Then I saw the next line.

"Her healer has confessed that the terminal diagnosis was fabricated."

My fingers tightened around the paper.

The confession was attached.

The healer admitted that Lydia had never been dying. She had paid him to create the diagnosis, knowing that my parents would pity her and that Caden would never abandon her.

The payment records were included.

So were messages between the healer and an unidentified account.

I read every page twice.

The final document made my blood run cold.

A transfer had been made three days before Lydia's Luna ceremony.

The sender was listed under a company registered in Blackridge.

Hart Family Holdings.

My family had not only believed Lydia.

Someone had paid to make the lie possible.

Mara entered my office without knocking.

"Bad news?"

I handed her the documents.

She read them in silence.

"You think your family was involved?"

"I don't know."

"Do you want to investigate it?"

I looked toward the window.

Outside, Frost River patrols were returning from the northern boundary. Snow covered the rooftops, and the mountains stood behind them like a wall separating my old life from the new one.

"Yes," I said. "But I don't want revenge."

Mara raised an eyebrow.

"Then what do you want?"

"The truth."

That afternoon, I opened a formal investigation into the forged diagnosis, the Moon Hall barrier collapse, and the illegal removal of moonstones.

The evidence quickly revealed something worse.

The ceremonial lane had not simply damaged the barrier.

Someone had deliberately altered the construction plans so the support stones would be removed without triggering the usual Council alarms.

Caden's signature authorized the project, but the final alterations had been made after his approval.

Someone had used his authority as a shield.

And whoever had done it had known exactly when the barrier would be weakest.

My case files grew thicker by the hour.

Then Mara placed one final document on my desk.

"We found the account that paid Lydia's healer."

I looked at the name.

My heart stopped.

It wasn't Lydia.

It wasn't my parents.

It wasn't even anyone from Blackridge's medical council.

The account belonged to a former Moon Hall administrator who had resigned the morning after Lydia's ceremony.

Mara tapped the final page.

"He transferred the money to another account before leaving Blackridge."

"Where did it go?"

"Frost River."

For the first time since I left Blackridge, I felt something other than anger.

Fear.

Someone had followed me.

Someone knew where I had gone.

Before I could speak, the lights in the investigation hall flickered.

A patrol officer rushed into the room.

"Chief Investigator! Someone broke into the evidence vault."

Mara immediately reached for her weapon.

I stood slowly, one hand protecting my stomach.

"What was taken?"

The officer swallowed.

"Nothing."

"Then why call it a break-in?"

He looked at me with a pale face.

"Because they left something behind."

He placed a small black envelope on my desk.

There was no name on it.

Only one sentence written across the front.

"You can run from Blackridge, Evelyn. You cannot run from your blood."

I stared at the words.

Then I opened the envelope.

Inside was a single photograph.

It showed Caden standing beside Lydia outside Moon Hall.

But someone had written a date across the bottom.

The date was three days after my departure.

On the back, there was another message.

"Ask your brother what happened to the original barrier report."

My breathing stopped.

Noah.

I had spent months trying to forget the brother who had thrown my family-link token at my feet.

Now his name had appeared in the middle of an investigation that reached from Blackridge to Frost River.

I folded the photograph and slipped it into the case file.

Mara watched me carefully.

"What are you going to do?"

I closed the file.

"I'm going back through every report Noah touched."

"And if he is involved?"

I looked down at the life growing beneath my heart.

The old Evelyn would have protected her family even if it destroyed her.

That woman was gone.

"Then he answers for it," I said.

Across the mountains, Caden was still waiting for a woman who had already learned how to live without him.

And in Frost River, I opened the first file that could finally expose everything my family had tried to hide.