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Morning arrived without mercy.
Zaia hadn't slept. She'd lain in the guest room—because Sebastian had already moved her things there, she discovered, sometime in the night while she pretended to pack for a trip that didn't exist—and listened to the penthouse settle around her like a tomb. The twins shifted inside her, restless, as if they could sense the fracture in the air.
At nine o'clock, Sebastian's Beta knocked on the door.
"Mrs. Blackwood. The Alpha requests your presence in the living room."
*Mrs. Blackwood.* Still. As if the divorce papers waiting on the kitchen island hadn't already turned her into a ghost in her own life.
She dressed carefully. Black slacks. Ivory blouse. The Luna pin at her throat because removing it felt like surrender, and she wasn't ready to surrender yet—not until she understood why.
The living room was full.
Pack elders lined the sofas like judges at a tribunal. Marcus Hale, Sebastian's Beta, stood by the fireplace with his arms crossed. Two lawyers Zaia didn't recognize sat at the glass dining table, laptops open, faces professionally blank. And in the center of it all, Sebastian and Celeste sat side by side on the white sectional, their shoulders almost touching.
No one offered Zaia a seat.
"Thank you for coming," Sebastian said. He didn't look at her. He addressed the room, the way he addressed shareholders. "As you know, Zaia and I have mutually agreed to dissolve our mating bond and marriage. Effective immediately."
*Mutually agreed.* The lie was so smooth it almost glittered.
Zaia's wolf surged against her ribs. She kept her face still. "I wasn't aware we had agreed to anything."
A murmur rippled through the elders. Celeste touched Sebastian's arm—a proprietary gesture, casual as breathing—and Zaia's vision sharpened at the edges.
"Zaia." Marcus's voice was gentler than Sebastian's, but no less firm. "The Alpha has made his decision. The pack requires stability. Celeste's lineage—"
"—is pureblood Northern Ridge," Celeste finished, smiling at Zaia with the sweetness of poisoned honey. "My family has advised three Alphas. I understand the responsibilities of a Luna in ways that... well."
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
Zaia felt every eye in the room on her—the Luna pin, the slight swell of her stomach hidden beneath her blouse, the woman who'd failed to hold the most powerful Alpha in a generation.
Sebastian stood. He walked to her slowly, deliberately, and Zaia's heart hammered so hard she thought the bond might shatter from the force of it alone.
He reached for her collar.
"No," she breathed.
"This isn't yours anymore." His fingers closed around the Luna pin. The metal was warm from her skin. He pulled, and the clasp bit into her flesh before giving way. A thin line of blood welled at her throat.
The room went silent.
Sebastian held the pin up to the light. Silver wolf. Onyx stone. The symbol of everything she'd been for three years.
"Celeste will wear it at the solstice gala," he said. "The council has approved."
Zaia's hand flew to her throat. The empty space where the pin had rested felt like an open wound.
"You did this without me." Her voice shook. "Without asking. Without—"
"I don't need your permission." Sebastian's eyes were cold. "You signed away your claim to pack leadership when you signed the prenuptial. You knew the terms."
"I knew you loved me when I signed them."
The words hung in the air like smoke. Celeste laughed—quietly, behind her hand—and one of the elders shifted uncomfortably.
Sebastian's jaw tightened. "Pack law supersedes sentiment. You will vacate the penthouse by sunset. Your belongings will be delivered to the address of your choosing. Marcus will provide transportation."
"And the babies?" Zaia's hand moved to her stomach. "Do pack law and your lawyers have terms for them too?"
Sebastian's gaze flicked to her abdomen for the first time. Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, maybe, or suspicion—but it vanished before she could name it.
"If you're pregnant, we'll discuss custody after paternity is confirmed."
The room sucked in a collective breath.
"Paternity," Zaia repeated. The word tasted like ash. "You think I—"
"I think," Sebastian said, his voice dropping to a register that made her wolf whimper, "that you've been unhappy for a long time. I think you've had opportunities. I think it's convenient that you announce a pregnancy the same week I ask for a divorce."
Celeste's hand found Sebastian's again. "Darling, perhaps we shouldn't discuss this publicly—"
"Publicly?" Zaia's laugh was sharp enough to cut. "You summoned the entire council to watch me stripped of my title. I'd say we're well past private."
She looked at the elders—men and women who'd eaten at her table, who'd accepted her gifts at solstice, who'd bowed their heads when she'd walked into a room as Luna.
Not one of them spoke in her defense.
Zaia straightened her spine. She would not cry in front of them. She would not beg.
"Keep the pin," she said to Sebastian. "It was never about the silver. It was about who gave it to me."
She turned toward the door.
"Zaia." Marcus's voice stopped her. "The Alpha has authorized a settlement. Fifty million. A property in—"
"I don't want his money." She didn't look back. "I want him to look me in the eye and tell me he knows I'm carrying his children."
Silence.
Sebastian didn't speak.
Zaia walked out of the living room. She walked past the lawyers and the elders and the woman who would sleep in her bed. She walked to the guest room, picked up the bag she'd packed in the dark, and walked to the elevator.
As the doors closed, she caught her reflection in the brass.
A woman with no title. No pin. No mate.
But two heartbeats inside her, steady and defiant.
And on the other side of the bond, she felt Sebastian's pain for the first time—not grief, not regret, but a sharp, involuntary stab, as if someone had driven a silver nail through his chest the moment she stepped away.
He'd felt it too.
He just didn't know what it meant yet.