DIVORCED LUNA: CARRYING THE ALPHA KING'S BABY

PROTECT YOUR PUP, VESPERA

Vespera's Pov

The word "jump" didn't do it justice.

I didn't gracefully dive or carefully position my body. I simply turned and threw myself backward off the cliff in a desperate, graceless lunge away from death at Julian's hands and toward whatever the river offered.

For one perfect heartbeat, there was nothing but air.

Weightlessness. Silence. The peculiar floating sensation of free fall. My hair whipped upward. My stomach lurched into my throat. The sky and earth switched places in a dizzying blur.

Then gravity pulled me Dien before I could even suck in large air.

The wind screamed past my ears, tearing the breath from my lungs. The river rushed up impossibly fast—white and churning and merciless. I had just enough time to realize this was going to hurt before I hit the water.

The impact drove every thought from my mind.

Cold swallowed me whole, so sudden and complete it felt like being hit by a wall. The shock of it seized my lungs, forcing out what little air I'd managed to hold. Water flooded my mouth, my nose, burning down my throat.

Then the current took me.

It grabbed me like a giant hand and yanked me under, spinning me end over end. I couldn't tell which way was up. Couldn't see anything but churning darkness. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The river tumbled me over rocks, each impact sending fresh explosions of pain through my body.

My shoulder slammed into stone. My ribs. My hip. Something in my side made a sickening crack and agony bloomed hot and vicious.

I clawed toward what I thought was the surface but hit more water, endless water, pulling me deeper. My chest burned. My vision darkened at the edges, black spots dancing across what little I could see.

*Up!* Nyx screamed in my mind. *Surface! Now!*

But I didn't know where the surface was anymore.

My head broke through for just a second—sweet, precious air flooding my lungs in one desperate gasp. I caught a glimpse of sky, trees, the cliff I'd jumped from now impossibly far away. Then the current dragged me back under, smashing me against another rock.

Pain. Everything was pain.

The river had me, and it wasn't letting go.

I hit something hard enough to see stars. My vision went white, then red, then black. Water filled my lungs. I was drowning. Actually drowning. This was how I died—not in Julian's dungeon or Malachi's rejection, but in a river that didn't care who I was or what I'd survived.

*The pup,* Nyx whimpered, her voice fading. *Protect the pup...*

I tried to curl around my stomach, to shield the tiny life inside me from the battering, but the current was too strong. It pulled me straight, slammed me against another rock, sent me tumbling through rapids that felt like being inside a washing machine made of knives.

My body was shutting down. I could feel it happening. Systems failing one by one. Consciousness flickering like a candle in a storm.

It would be so easy to just let go.

To stop fighting. To sink into the cold and let it end. The darkness was soft now, inviting. Warm somehow despite the freezing water. It whispered promises of rest, of peace, of an end to running and fear and pain.

No, something inside me growled. Not Nyx—she was too weak now, fading. Something older. Deeper and primal. *You do not get to quit. Not after everything. Not when your child needs you.*

But I was so tired. So broken. What was the point?

*The point is survival. The point is that you are stronger than rivers and trackers and Alphas who think they own you. The point is that you do not give up.*

The voice sounded like my mother. Like Nyx. Like every woman who'd ever been told she was worthless and chose to keep breathing anyway.

My hand touched something solid. A root. I grabbed it on pure instinct, fingers closing with the last of my strength. The current tried to rip me away but I held on, muscles screaming. I pulled. Inch by inch. My head broke the surface again.

I gasped, coughed, vomited water. My lungs burned like I'd inhaled fire. But I was breathing. Actually breathing.

I pulled myself hand over hand along the root until I felt mud under my knees. Shallow water. The bank. Solid ground that wasn't trying to kill me.

I crawled out of the river on my hands and knees, collapsing face-first onto blessed, beautiful earth.

Darkness pulled at me, trying to drag me under again. But this time it wasn't the river. Just exhaustion. Trauma. My body demanding rest after what I'd put it through.

I tried to fight it, tried to stay conscious, but I was so tired. So broken.

The last thing I felt before unconsciousness took me was the rain starting to fall. Cold drops on my battered skin. The sky crying for what I'd survived.

Or mourning what I'd lost.

Awareness came back slowly, in pieces.

Pain first. Everything hurt. My ribs, my head, my shoulder—every part of my body screamed its damage in a chorus of agony. I tried to move and immediately regretted it, gasping as fresh pain lanced through my side.

*Don't move,*Nyx's weak voice whispered. *We're badly hurt.*

I forced my eyes open.

Dark sky above. Rain was falling steadily. I was still on the riverbank, lying in mud and river grass.

How long had I been out? Hours? Days?

Then I felt them.

The presence of other wolves. Multiple. Close. They were watching.