Reborn as my Mate's Father's Luna

Paula’s POV

I didn’t cry at the funeral. Not even once.

Not because I wasn’t grieving. I just couldn’t. My tears dried up the moment I saw the casket close over my father’s face. Cold. Wooden. Final. That was it. The man who raised me, protected me, taught me how to read when my mother died too young, he was gone. Just like that. And the world kept spinning like it didn’t even care.

The pack leaders gave their condolences. Their words were hollow and forced, like they were reading from a script they’d memorized but didn’t believe in. My father’s allies bowed their heads, eyes downcast, hands folded respectfully, but none of them looked me in the eye. Most had already started aligning with Noah anyway, the new power in the room. It wasn’t grief that hung in the air. It was tension. Politics. Silence thick with unspoken negotiations.

Even Cassie, my stepmother, had the nerve to wear white. Said it was to “honor my father’s pure soul.” She said it with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and perfume that hung in the air like a lie. I wanted to be sick right then and there. But I stood still, like a good kind daughter. Chin up. Spine straight. Heart cracking.

Noah stood next to me through the whole thing like a statue someone had carved from ice and smugness. He didn’t reach for me. Didn’t whisper comfort. He didn’t even flinch when I nearly collapsed during the blessing ritual. He just stood there, hands folded neatly in front of him, staring ahead like he was already thinking about what came next. His face was blank, unreadable. Meanwhile, I wilted beside him like a flower left too long in the sun.

But I told myself he was just hurting too. That he didn’t know how to grieve. That he wasn’t cold, just overwhelmed. That he still loved me, somewhere under all that distance.

I was such a fool.

I clutched my purse tighter as I stepped out of the cemetery and into the long black car waiting outside. The same one we’d used at our wedding two years ago. Funny how the same leather seats, the same driver, the same exact route could carry two people through such wildly different kinds of moments. One ride for a beginning. Another for an end.

But this time, there was something else. A heartbeat. A second one, thudding beneath my own.

I didn’t realize it until this morning. I’d been too wrapped up in funeral arrangements, legal paperwork, the ache in my chest, the silence between me and Noah that had grown so thick it felt like fog. I ignored the signs. The missed periods, the morning nausea, the aversion to smells I used to love. I chalked it up to stress. Grief. Exhaustion.

But this morning, in the upstairs bathroom of my father’s house, with my palms sweating and my breath shallow, I took the test.

Two pink lines. Clear. Unmistakable.

I was pregnant.

It should’ve been joy. It should’ve felt like a spark in the dark. It should’ve made things better between us. Noah always talked about starting a family. “One day,” he used to say, kissing my stomach like it already held a future. “One day we’ll have a pup with your eyes and my temper.” I’d laugh. I used to think he meant it.

And so I held on to that. I believed, so stupidly, that this baby could fix something. That this life inside me could act like a bridge over all the cracks in our marriage. That it would bring him back to me. Back to us.

I had the test wrapped in tissue paper in my coat pocket. Like a secret so fragile it might vanish if I didn’t protect it. I just had to find Noah. Tell him. And maybe, just maybe, he’d soften. He’d smile. He’d remember we were once in love.

The mansion was quiet when I arrived. Too quiet. Most of the guests had gone back to their corners of the kingdom. The staff moved around like ghosts, collecting trays, fluffing pillows, wiping down picture frames no one had looked at in years. The white lilies in the foyer were already starting to droop. My father hated lilies. Said they smelled like false sorrow.

I took the back stairs, the ones I used to sneak down for midnight snacks or to spy on the grown-ups talking politics in hushed tones. My heels clicked on the marble, sharp and hollow. Every sound echoed louder than it should have, like the house was holding its breath.

“Noah?” I called out, halfway up. “Babe? Are you home?”

Silence.

I moved toward the study, my father’s old office. Noah had claimed it the day after the will was read, saying he needed the space for “pack business.” I hadn’t stepped foot inside since. The room still smelled like cigar smoke and old paper and the faint scent of my father’s cologne. Or maybe that was just memory playing tricks on me.

The door was cracked open.

I should’ve walked away. I should’ve knocked. I should’ve done anything but what I did next.

I pushed it open.

And my world broke.

Cassie was bent over my father’s desk. The same one he used to write bedtime stories for me on when I was little, his pen gliding across paper with magic and metaphors. Now it was a stage for betrayal. Her red dress was hiked up, her hair falling around her face in soft curls. She gripped the desk with white-knuckled hands while Noah, my husband, moved behind her, his face buried in her neck like she was his oxygen.

I didn’t scream. I couldn’t. My breath caught in my throat and refused to move. My legs froze. My mind spun.

Cassie saw me first. Her head lifted, slow and unapologetic. Her gaze met mine, and her lips curled in a small, knowing smirk. She didn’t stop. Neither did he.

Noah turned a moment later, his movements slowing as his eyes met mine. For a heartbeat, he froze. His mouth opened. His brows pinched. And then he spoke.

“Paula—”

I backed away like the floor was on fire. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.

The test slipped from my pocket. It fell. Hit the floor. Rolled toward the desk.

Two pink lines.

Cassie’s gaze followed it. Her laugh was soft, poisonous.

“Oops,” she said, voice dripping with sugar. “Looks like someone’s going to be a mommy.”

I ran. Down the stairs. Out the door. Past the staff whose voices faded into the wind behind me. My chest was burning. My throat was raw. My legs moved without me.

I made it to the garden before everything gave out.

I collapsed onto the dirt, hands instinctively wrapping around my stomach, trying to shield the tiny heartbeat inside me from a world that no longer made sense. From betrayal. From pain. From everything I never saw coming.

Noah had betrayed me with my stepmother. On my father’s desk. On the day of his funeral.

Everything I knew… everything I trusted…

Gone.

Footsteps thundered behind me. Then hands—familiar, frantic.

“Paula,” Noah’s voice. “Stop… just… let me explain.”

I wrenched away from his grip, shaking, sobbing. “Don’t touch me!”

“Please,” he said, still holding on, voice cracking. “Just come with me. I’ll explain everything. It’s not what it looks like.”

I stared at him through the fog of tears and devastation.

Then I heard myself whisper:

“Then what is it?”

Paula's POV

My legs didn’t want to move, but somehow I stood. Maybe it was the shock. Maybe it was the desperation still clinging to my ribs like wet cloth. Or maybe, deep down, I was still holding on to the part of me that believed Noah wouldn’t really hurt me.

“Just listen to me,” he said again. His voice was hoarse. Eyes wide. Hands twitching like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Please, Paula. Just… just come with me. I’ll explain everything. Away from here.”

Away from here.

Away from the mansion. Away from the staff. Away from the office where I’d seen something I could never unsee. Something I couldn’t scrub out of my brain no matter how hard I tried.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to shake him and ask what happened to the boy I used to love. The boy who once kissed my knuckles and promised to never lie to me. But instead… I nodded.

I didn’t say a word. I just walked.

Maybe part of me still hoped this was some huge mistake. Some mis