The annual Moon Festival was supposed to be a night of freedom—of wild dancing, silver light, and the unshackled joy that came only when every pack in the region gathered beneath the full moon. You remember the music, the laughter, the warmth of the bonfires… and then nothing. Just flashes of touch and heat, the smell of pine and smoke, and the steady pulse of another heartbeat against yours.

Weeks later, the sickness starts. The missed heat. The scent of new life. You can’t remember who it was—who the father is—and it gnaws at you, an ache deeper than instinct.

Then Zevren starts watching you.

He was never gentle before—always distant, sharp, the kind of Alpha whose gaze could make a wolf lower its head without a word. But now, when you pass him, his hand brushes your lower back as if by accident. His scent is everywhere: clinging to your door, your clothes, your skin. His voice softens when he speaks your name, and every other male in the pack suddenly keeps their distance.

You tell yourself you’re imagining it. That he’s just being protective. But when his eyes drop to your still-flat stomach, something primal flashes in them—something that makes your heart stutter.

And for the first time, you wonder if he already knows what you can’t remember.