Aria's POV

My name is Aria. Once, I was the Silvermoon Alpha's daughter. Now, I'm nothing but an Omega treated like a slave.

Silvermoon fell seven years ago. That night I stood there helpless, watching my people cut down around me, the blood running in rivers. It broke something in me so completely that I never finished my shift, not even by eighteen.

The Moon Goddess didn't abandon me. I met Damon, the powerful, handsome Alpha of the Blackmoon Pack. He saved me and claimed me as his Luna. I should have been cherished.

But four years have passed, and every time I step into the pack's main house, the only things waiting for me are dirty water and insults, each one hitting me like a bullet. After four years I've earned myself another title: the Barren Luna.

The pack even whispers that maybe my parents' pack fell because I'm cursed. After that, the cruelty only got worse. They started using their fists on me.

The only reason I've endured any of it is my mate. Damon.

He works himself to the bone, hell-bent on making the Blackmoon Pack the strongest in the alliance, stronger even than the Bloodmoon Pack, his best friend's pack. The Alpha of Bloodmoon, Ronan Thorne, has been Damon's closest friend since they were boys. He's gorgeous, no she-wolf in the alliance would deny that. But he hates me. Ever since Damon's mark appeared on my neck, every time he comes to the manor he looks at me like I'm a mistake.

It doesn't matter. I'll have nothing to do with him. Damon is my mate. That's all.

A powerful, ambitious Alpha choosing a mate with no wolf in her, he must have caught hell for it on my account. I couldn't be a burden to him too. All I could do was keep my head down, keep him from being distracted, never let on what I went through in this pack.

And he was tender with me. Every time he came home after his Alpha duties, he'd kiss me, sometimes bringing flowers or my favorite dessert. In an instant, all the pain and resentment would melt away. But the fear that I'd never get pregnant haunted me like a ghost.

I was certain it wasn't my fault. The truth was, Damon and I had never slept together. He said I was too precious, that he wanted to wait until the pack climbed to first place before he made love to me. He said I deserved better. I believed that day was close.

I bet that the moment I bore Damon a pup, the whole pack would respect me again, even the ones who hated me most: his parents. The former Alpha and Luna.

"All right! Before that day comes, I need to focus on the floor under my feet," I told myself, trying to rally.

I dropped to my knees and rubbed my aching lower back.

I'd been scrubbing the floor for three hours. The living room of the Alpha's manor was enormous, but Damon's mother, Donna, had ordered that no one lift a finger to help me. The air in the room was hot and stifling, sweat beading on my forehead, the shirt on my back soaked through and clinging to my skin. I felt like I'd pass out from the heat at any second, but even falling sick wouldn't buy me a rest. I forced myself to keep going.

I had to finish the last three sections of floor as fast as I could, then get dinner ready for the pack. Damon had been working for the pack all day; he had to be starving.

I plunged the rag into the dirty water, wrung it out, and was about to wipe down the final section when a sharp voice rang out right above my head.

"Aria!"

A rag was flung straight into my face.

A burning sting flared across my cheek. I crumpled to the floor, and Donna was on me in an instant, her fist knotting in my hair.

"After all this time, you still can't scrub a floor properly!" Donna shrieked, her nails digging into my scalp. "You think you're a real Luna? You can't even give me an heir! I don't know why Damon bothered marking a useless Omega like you!"

My scalp burned like fire. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. If I stayed quiet, Donna's punishment would end sooner.

Damon wasn't here. And even when he was, he never once stood up for me in front of his mother.

"I wasn't slacking," I said, defending myself in a low voice.

"The fact is, you didn't finish it in the time you were given. Everyone saw it." Donna yanked my hair and shoved me down. My knees cracked against the marble, bruises blooming on contact.

"Yes, Luna Donna. She was spacing out in the kitchen this morning, didn't even touch the rag," a maid chimed in, making sure every ear in the living room caught it. "I'd say that's why she can't finish."

"That wasn't slacking!" I scrambled to my feet, unable to hold back. "I was eating breakfast. Two slices of bread. It took less than four minutes."

The maid shrugged. "I'm only telling you what I saw."

"You're lying!" I clenched my fists. "And this was supposed to be a three-hour job. You only gave me one hour."

"Enough!" Donna cut me off. "I'll deal with you later. Right now, take a shirt to Damon. He's negotiating with Alphas from the other packs at Lane Hotel. You will bring him a clean shirt."

The maid tossed an ironed white shirt into my arms.

I could finally breathe. Clutching the shirt, I dragged myself out through the manor gates. Maybe I could steal a moment in the bathtub of the hotel suite. The scrubbing had wrung me out.

Maybe tonight he'd finally want to touch me. We were staying at a hotel tonight, and we'd never spent a night at one before. Maybe that was a sign.

And it was Lane Hotel.

That building used to belong to my father. On my tenth birthday I'd spun in circles beneath the chandelier in the lobby while he promised to hand it over to me the day I came of age. Four years ago, the moment I said "I do," it became Damon's property, just like the mark on my neck.

The instant I stepped into the lobby of Lane Hotel, my steps grew lighter.

Across that marble floor I could see the ghost of the little girl I used to be, running everywhere. By the revolving doors my father had once hoisted me onto his shoulders so I could watch the snow falling outside. Behind the front desk was the mirror where I'd tried on my mother's lipstick for the first time.

At some point, my knees stopped hurting.

I took a deep breath and walked to the door of Damon's suite. It was half open, and a woman's laugh slipped out through the crack.

"No way..." My pulse spiked.

I stepped up to the doorway and looked in through the gap.

Damon was on the sofa, his hard chest heaving with every ragged breath. A she-wolf knelt between his legs, her hair spilling over her shoulders, her mouth working up and down his thick cock.

That she-wolf's voice dripped a sickening sweetness, each word a slap across my face. "Damon, that poor Omega hasn't let you touch her in four years. How would she know you're actually in my bed every single night?"

"She wouldn't dare suspect a thing." Damon's voice went cold. "Where could she even go? Her father's pack is a pile of bones by now. No one but me would take in a cursed Omega."

My stomach turned.

"You're right," the woman giggled. "So why not just reject her? An Omega like her is no use to you anyway."

"Shut up. You're crossing the line." Damon was losing patience. "You've got my cock in your mouth. Focus."

"Sorry..." she apologized, then let out a shameless moan. "Alpha, let me serve you now."

My nails bit into my palms, and blood welled up from beneath them.

I couldn't take another second of it. I shoved the door open hard, and then I recognized that face. Anissa.

My personal maid back in the Silvermoon Pack. When the rogues nearly killed her, I'd begged my father to save her life. After the pack fell, I'd gone out of my way to ask Damon to look after her. I thought she was different from the rest of them. None of that mattered now.

I just couldn't believe it was Damon.

I blinked back the tears threatening to spill and stared straight at him.

"Aria?!" Damon lurched up, hauling up his pants in a panic. "What are you doing here?"

"You've got the nerve to ask me that?" I roared. "Alpha Damon, why don't you tell me how your dick ended up in my maid's mouth?"

"Did the waiter mop the floor so slick you slipped and fell on it?" I stared at him.

Anissa stepped forward at once. "Ma'am, please don't be upset. Alpha's under a lot of pressure, he needs to let off steam. Besides, when you were rescued that day... you'd already been taken by others. Alpha simply can't feel any desire for you."

It slammed into me like a punch to the chest. I couldn't believe it.

So that was it. Damon wouldn't make love to me because of how I'd looked when he found me seven years ago, half-dressed. But that wasn't the truth at all. I closed my eyes. If he'd truly loved me, he would have asked me what really happened.

I ignored Anissa and kept my eyes only on Damon, the man I'd loved for seven years, the man whose mark I carried on my neck. My father had told me no Alpha would ever betray his bond. That was why I'd never once doubted him.

The pain of the betrayal seared into my skin like a branding iron. No. I wouldn't fall apart here. My mother had told me, too, that when someone betrays you, the only thing to do is turn around and walk away.

And I owed him nothing anymore. I'd scrubbed every floor in this pack. Every inch of my body had been beaten. I had paid him back for saving my life.

"I reject you, Damon!" I roared. "I want to break the mate bond!"

Damon went pale with shock, like watching a Barbie doll open its mouth and speak.

Anissa couldn't believe it. She shrieked, "Aria! You're overreacting! You should understand! You gave your virginity to those rogues, and Alpha Damon still marked you. You should learn to accept whatever your Alpha does to you."

I glared at her, furious. "Anissa, remember this. Traitors never come to a good end."

"Never!" Damon came back to himself with a roar, his Alpha presence erupting in a blast that crushed down on me until I could barely draw breath. "Aria! Come to your senses!"

I forced myself to endure the suffocating weight. A tearing pain ripped from the mark on the side of my neck, as if my wolf spirit were clawing to break free of its chains. "Let me go!"

"You need to face reality." Damon's voice was ice. "Walk away from me and you're a rogue. Every pack on the West Coast answers to me, except Bloodmoon. I'll order them all to turn you away."

I shoved his hand off. "We'll see about that."

I turned and ran. Now I understood why he'd never rejected me. He never needed to. An Omega Luna was no obstacle to him sleeping with whatever she-wolf he wanted.

But he'd underestimated the will of a she-wolf who'd already survived the annihilation of her pack. I would never bow to whatever fate threw at me.

Clutching the white shirt I'd never delivered, I stood in the lobby of Lane Hotel. The chandelier overhead looked exactly the way it had when I was ten.

Damon, you fucked another woman under my father's roof.

I swear I'll take this building back from you. Brick by brick, along with everything you stole from me.

Then I remembered one more thing he'd forgotten: his best friend, the Alpha of the strongest pack in the alliance, the Bloodmoon Pack. Ronan Thorne.

He'd always wanted me to leave Damon. From the very first time he laid eyes on me, that was the one thing he believed.