Filed to story: Alpha’s Regret After His Pregnant Luna’s Death (Evelyn & Declan)
Suddenly the voice wasn’t just sound, it was grip, a chain, a hand clamping around my throat, squeezing until the air was gone.
I stumbled back, my breath shattered, my chest heaving, my nails digging into my palms.
“Evelyn?”
Peter’ voice cut through the shapeless panic like a blade.
I looked up, still panting.
He was awake, wide-eyed, shocked and concerned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I tried to steady myself, but my hands still shook. His gaze dropped to them… and then to the contract.
His face went stiff.
“Was it… Declan?” I asked quietly.
My voice sounded small, but I couldn’t stop it.
Peter’s silence answered before he nodded.
“Yeah,” he breathed.”Alpha Declan found out our firm mishandled a case. He’s coming after us for it.”
My wolf growled, a low, protective rumble in my chest I barely kept silent.
“This is a setup,” I snapped.”Peter, that contract was flawed from the start! You’ve been walking straight into a trap!”
My voice was too loud, too sharp, too desperate.
He stared at me, stunned.
Our eyes met. I saw myself reflected in his pupils.
I swallowed hard and lowered my head.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.”I… overreacted.”
But had I?
My wolf didn’t think so. She paced violently inside me, her fur bristling, sensing danger far beyond what was on paper.
Peter softened.”Evelyn… did you notice something in the contract? Look, I know you’re worried, but this is my problem. Don’t let it get to you.”
He meant well.
But the chill in my spine wouldn’t go away.
Declan’s shadow loomed over every line of that document.
And no matter how much I told myself I was imagining it-
My wolf knew better.
Something very dark was happening.
And Declan Crawford was at the center of it.
Evelyn’s POV
Peter tried to comfort me, his voice soft, steady and careful.
But I just shook my head.
My throat felt too tight to speak. My wolf’s ears were pinned flat, every instinct inside me taut like a stretched bowstring.
My fingers tightened around the paper until my knuckles turned white. The contract crinkled beneath my grip.
I dragged in a slow breath and forced my hands to loosen. Then, with deliberate calm, I placed the document back on the edge of the bed where I’d found it.
“Let’s eat before it gets cold,” I murmured, though my voice barely made it past my lips. Even to my own ears, it sounded like thin, fading and insubstantial smoke.
I turned toward the door. My steps wobbled, but I didn’t stop.
—
Dinner was… unbearable.
It was nothing like the quiet comfort we used to share.
The silence tonight felt like a living thing, it was thick and suffocating, coiling around the table like a shadow determined to choke us.
Peter barely touched his food. His scent was all wrong. I could sense he was restless, ashamed and anxious. His face was drained of all color, and every few seconds, his eyes flicked toward me.
He was worried.
My fork had barely moved. My wolf lay coiled beneath my skin, pacing, rumbling, restless. I could barely force myself to swallow.
Even Lana felt it.
Normally she would babble, grab Peter’s hair, pat his cheeks, reach for the table, anything.
Tonight she curled quietly in my arms, her soft warmth pressed against my chest like she was trying to shield me from something she could feel.
Wolves always sensed tension.
Maybe my daughter… inherited more than just my eyes.
After we finished, Peter offered to clean up.
I just nodded. No protest, no polite tug-of-war over chores.
I couldn’t muster the energy.
I slipped into my room and shut the door behind me.
Darkness wrapped around me immediately.
I didn’t turn on the lights.
I didn’t want to.
I crossed the room by memory and sank against the window, Lana sleeping on my shoulder.
A cold breeze crept through the cracked window, sharp, slicing, almost punishing.
It brushed my skin like a blade, and I shivered.
But I didn’t move.
I just sat there, my arms around Lana, staring into the night sky painted in ink.
My mind couldn’t stop spinning.
Could all this really be a coincidence?
I had just faced Declan earlier today, his eyes had been cold, his voice low, his threat unmistakable.
He wanted me to behave, to submit to him and fall back into the mold he carved for me.
And now, suddenly, Peter was hit with a thirty-million-dollar penalty?
My wolf growled deep in my chest. The sound was silent, but I felt it vibrating through my bones.
No.
This wasn’t coincidence.
Declan planned it.
He wove the trap long before I saw the seams.
But when did he start?
Did he begin plotting the second Peter took me and Lana in? When I had nothing, when he knew I had nowhere else to go?
A low rumble built in my throat, and I clenched my fists until my nails bit painfully into my palms.
Where was Declan when I was broken, homeless, carrying a child alone?
