The Banished Luna the Lycan King Can't Resist

DIANA Positive. For several seconds, I stared at the cheap plastic stick in my trembling hands, the word refusing to fully land. Positive. Two pink lines. Two vivid, undeniable pink lines. By the gods. My breath caught in my throat, and then I broke—not the ugly kind of crying, but the kind reserved for miracles. The kind I'd rehearsed in my head for four years and never quite believed I'd get to have. Four years of desperate prayers. Bitter medicines. Herbs choked down at dawn because the healer said this batch, this one will work. Four years of pitying looks and colder glares, of the Stormwood elders trading whispers they didn't bother lowering when I walked past. Poor Luna Diana. Still barren. Maybe the Moon Goddess made a mistake choosing her. An Omega becoming Luna was already a miracle. She should stop being greedy. They always forgot the part where I was the one who knelt at Alpha Ronan's bedside for months, feeding him herbs and my own blood while a wasting sickness ate him down to bone. They forgot that his precious, high-born Celine had taken one look at a dying man and packed her bags for the capital. I hadn't left. I'd saved him. And once he was strong enough to stand again, he married me—and then spent four years looking through me like glass. But today was going to be different. Tears slid down my cheeks, and I wiped them away fast, pressing the little plastic stick to my chest like it might slip away if I let go. Today was the anniversary of my parents' death—usually a day I spent locked in my room, grieving alone. Instead, for the first time in four years, grief had turned into something with a heartbeat. I wasn't empty anymore. I would never be alone again. And I could finally give Ronan the one thing he'd never let me forget I owed him. Maybe now he'd look at me the way he used to, back when I was the only one who'd stayed. "Ronan…" I breathed, hand pressed over my mouth like the words might spill out too fast to catch. "We're going to have a baby." Willow, my wolf, surged forward in delight. Our pup is here. Let's go tell mate. Now, now, now— Heart slamming against my ribs, I climbed the marble staircase two steps at a time, only distantly registering how quiet the estate had gone. It was barely five—too early for the guards to abandon their posts, too early for the staff to have retired. Had something happened? Had Ronan sent everyone away? Why would he do that? I quickened my pace toward his office, brushing that thought aside before it could take root. Empty. He must be resting, I told myself, turning down the hall toward our suite. But a few feet from the door, a sound sliced through the silence and stopped me cold. A sharp, breathless gasp. Willow went utterly still inside me. "Ah— Ronan, slower, you'll ruin my dress—" The voice was honeyed, pitched exactly the way I remembered it, though I hadn't heard it in five years. Celine. The air turned to glass in my lungs. No. I'm hearing it wrong. That's not—it can't be. Then came my husband's voice, low and rough with something I hadn't heard directed at me in longer than I could count. The headboard struck the wall in a rhythm I recognized—the same wall I'd fallen asleep against alone, night after night, waiting for a man who told me he was "working late." "Shut up, Celine," Ronan growled. "You're the only one who's ever known how to move like this." The pregnancy test slipped from my fingers and hit the carpet without a sound. The pain arrived a half-second later—a blade opening my chest from the inside. I staggered back into the wall, disbelief and grief colliding until I couldn't tell which one was drowning the other. I had bled for this man. Held him through fevered nights on a hard floor while his skin turned to paper. And the second Celine walked back onto pack land, he'd gone straight back to her—like four years of my life had simply evaporated. Why. How could he. Something in me went numb, and underneath the numbness, a colder, steadier thing took its place. I bent, retrieved the test with hands that no longer shook, and pushed the cracked door open. Late afternoon light slanted through the curtains onto tangled sheets. Ronan's back was slick with sweat, his Alpha markings shifting as he moved over the slender blonde beneath him. The creak of the door froze them both. Ronan's head snapped up. No guilt. No panic. Just irritation—the look of a man interrupted mid-meal. Celine peered over his shoulder, and instead of scrambling for the sheets, she smiled. Slow. Delighted. She let out a soft, mock-innocent gasp and buried her face against his neck. "Oh my. Ronan, your maid is here." "Diana." Ronan rolled off her, unhurried, and pulled a silk robe around himself without a flicker of shame. He rose to his full height, his Alpha aura snapping out like a whip meant to drive me to my knees. "What the hell is this? Who gave you permission to walk into my room without knocking?" His room. As though four years of marriage had never happened. I held my ground, though my legs shook beneath me, and looked past him to where Celine had propped herself against the pillows—naked, unbothered, wearing her victory like jewelry. They don't even have the decency to be ashamed. "Diana. Don't make me repeat myself." "Your room?" My voice came out barely above a whisper, but it cut clean through the perfume and sweat choking the air. "This is our room, Ronan. I am your wife. I am Luna of this pack." He laughed—short, ugly, disbelieving—and closed the distance between us until his shadow swallowed mine whole. His eyes raked down my oversized sleep clothes, my soft, full figure the pack had mocked for years, the exhaustion carved under my eyes. "Luna in name only," he sneered. "A low-ranking, heavy-set Omega orphan I took in because my wolf pitied you. Celine's been back less than a day, Diana, and she already carries herself with more grace than you'll manage in a lifetime." The words landed like blows, one after another. My mother's last words rose up through the wreckage: Diana, if Ronan ever stops cherishing you, don't stay for love alone. "She left you," I said, one tear finally escaping. "She left you to die, Ronan. I healed you. My blood saved your life." "And I repaid that debt!" he thundered, his Alpha voice slamming into my instincts hard enough to bow my head. "I married you. I gave you a roof, a title, a name. But a man needs a real woman, Diana. An Alpha needs an heir. Four years, and your womb's been as barren and useless as a stone. Did you actually believe I'd waste my life chained to an Omega who can't even manage her one biological duty?" Every sentence was another nail. My mind flashed back to the hallway floor behind me, to the plastic stick I'd dropped there only minutes ago. Two pink lines. I already had my answer. He didn't deserve to know it. I lifted my chin. Whatever had been bowing beneath his Alpha voice a moment ago hardened instead—cold, and final, and entirely mine. "I want a divorce." My voice came out flat. Steady. "Break the bond, Ronan." Silence dropped over the room like a held breath. Celine's smirk flickered—just for a second—before Ronan's face split into something worse than anger. Amusement. "A divorce?" He laughed outright. "Have you lost your mind? Where exactly do you think you'd go, Diana? You're an orphan. Your uncle can't stand the sight of you. No pack bloodline, no coin of your own, no name that isn't mine. You think you'd last a week out there alone?" He stepped closer, eyes narrowing to slits. "Stop throwing a tantrum because you walked in on your betters. It isn't funny, and neither are you." His jaw tightened. "Get out of my sight. Go start dinner—Celine and I have had a long afternoon." Celine giggled into the pillow. "I'm not joking, Ronan." My voice didn't waver. "You will divorce me." I didn't wait to see his face change. I turned, shut the door on the two of them, and knelt to retrieve the test from the carpet. If he won't give me my freedom, I'll take it myself. The Council of Elders still held the old laws. I would go to them now, lay Ronan's infidelity bare, and force the bond to break—even if it meant walking into rogue territory with nothing but the clothes on my back. Even if I had to raise this child alone, in the mud, with no name to protect either of us. I pressed a hand to my still-flat stomach and made a silent vow. He will never know about you. Not until it's far too late for it to matter.