His Defiant Luna and the Secret Pregnancy

Joseline POV:

I turned to the housekeeper beside me, intending to pry some information out of her. I was not at ease about my husband.

My gaze shifted to her, and I asked, "What is your name?"

The old housekeeper bowed slightly to me. Her posture was respectful, but her eyes maintained a cautious distance.

"Luna, I am Martha Gable, the head housekeeper. I am in charge of the Alpha's care. From today on, I will also follow your orders."

"Luna." I repeated it, feeling the heavy shackles and responsibility behind the title. I was just Joseline. "Please, just call me Joseline," I said softly.

Martha shook her head, her expression gentle but firm. "You are now the Alpha's mate, the mistress of this Pack. We must observe the proper customs. Calling you by your name directly would be disrespectful to you."

I did not argue. That was not my purpose. My gaze returned to the man on the bed. I needed to find out the truth.

"He... has he always been like this?"

A flicker of sorrow crossed Martha's eyes. "The Alpha has been in a deep healing sleep for one month, ever since he was ambushed by a group of Rogues. The Pack doctors say his body is repairing itself, but everyone believes he will never wake."

I asked her, "Could the blood from the Luna ceremony have accelerated the awakening of his wolf soul? Or is it possible that he is already awake now?"

"It is not impossible," Martha explained, her voice low. "But he has been asleep for a month, and the silver poison was severe. He may never wake." I thought of that inexplicable wolf howl. If he kept sleeping, it would actually be the most advantageous situation for me. If I could, I hoped he would sleep forever.

The bedroom door was suddenly thrown open. Dangelo stormed in, his face pale with fury, his eyes filled with suppressed rage.

"Joseline! Why didn't you refuse as we agreed? Didn't we have a plan? I would take you away!" He reached for my hand, as if the affair and betrayal in the garden had never happened.

I jerked back, letting his fingers touch only air. "Don't touch me. Take me where? To the bed you share with Chloe?" My voice was ice.

Dangelo's expression froze. He glanced at Martha, then lowered his voice, hissing as if conspiring. "Joseline, this is all a misunderstanding. We need to talk. I know you're angry, but I did all of this for us. Hayward will never wake up. If you help me, the entire Pack and Sterling Tech will be ours!" Sterling Tech was Hayward's business empire, a fusion of Pack power and modern enterprise.

The shamelessness in his words made me sick. He was not apologizing; he was trying to recruit me into another betrayal.

"You mean you want me, his Luna, to help you steal my husband's fortune?" I laughed, a mocking sound. "I refuse."

"It's not stealing!" he insisted, his voice rising with urgency. "It's taking back what belongs to the Kennedy family! He is a tyrant! All you have to do is get the key to his safe."

"I refuse your offer. I will not help you steal anything. I am Luna, not your pawn. From the moment you kissed Chloe in the garden, we were finished." I spoke word by word, my tone utterly resolute.

Dangelo's face went from pale to ashen, then from ashen to an angry deep red. "You think being Luna will protect you? When he wakes, he will reject you! You will lose everything..."

He did not finish his sentence.

On the altar, Hayward's fingers curled slightly, more noticeably than during the Luna ceremony.

Dangelo and I froze at the same time. I realized something worse might be about to happen.

Dangelo's face turned deathly pale. He stared at Hayward in horror, as if he had seen a ghost.

Hayward's eyelids fluttered.

"He... he moved..." Dangelo's voice trembled with extreme fear. He scrambled backward on hands and feet, as if the bed were on fire.

He shot me a terrified, incredulous look, then turned and rushed out of the room, running as if a beast were chasing him.

My heart was also pounding against my ribs. I kept backing away until my shoulders hit the wall. Was he really going to wake up? If he woke up and found himself bound to a stranger, what would he do to me?

A comatose Alpha was my shield. A waking, angry Alpha was a death sentence.

Martha hurried to the bedside and checked Hayward's vital signs. Her expression was calm.

She turned to me and gave me a reassuring smile. "Luna, please do not be afraid. This is not a sign that the Alpha is about to wake."

I stared at her in confusion. "But he moved..."

"That is his Inner Wolf reacting to your presence," Martha explained. The Inner Wolf, a separate consciousness within him, was a completely new concept to me. "Because of the binding ceremony, your scent now has a soothing and stimulating effect on him. His wolf senses his mate, and therefore... is agitated. But he is still very far from waking."

I nodded, trying to digest the information. The rules of this world were still a complex maze to me. I was just a human trapped in a supernatural web. Without a wolf soul.

"However, this is a good sign," Martha continued. "This is the first time he has shown such a significant reaction since he fell into his sleep. Perhaps your arrival truly is a gift from the Goddess."

I looked at the man. He was once again lying quietly on the bed, motionless. A good sign? It felt more like a countdown.

Martha arranged for me to stay with him for now, explaining that it was "for the convenience of caring for the Alpha and checking on his condition in time."

I lay on the large, soft bed. After all the chaos—betrayed by my boyfriend, my current husband possibly waking—my emotions surged and fell. I fell into a deep sleep beside that man.

The dream was damp and chaotic. I dreamed of white mist everywhere. A black wolf with a silver-white moon pattern on its chest walked out of the mist, its ice-blue eyes gazing at me. It lowered its head and touched my abdomen. It shifted into the outline of a man, pressing me down onto the damp earth, its burning lips against my neck, low and hoarse as it uttered that word, "Mine." Then everything turned to white light.

Everything felt so real.