First

Goddess….

Tatum realises his mistake. He has seen her so much as a self sufficient person whose independence. and strength he admires so much that he forgot that in her core, she is still…just a woman.

He stands up and sits on the bed beside her, holding her before she can move away, his remorseful eyes looking into her soulless ones.

“You have every right to be upset but we can fix this, just don’t bring up the divorce again.”

“There’s nothing to fix Tatum. You brought Carmela into our home without asking me how I feel about it. Let me ask you, when you go to bed in her arms every night, do you ever wonder what must be going through the head of the woman next door?”

Even though Leila’s tone is steady and cold, it is laden with so much pain that Tatum feels it in his heart.

Why does she never mention anything to him? She let him assume she is okay with everything when she says nothing.

And she is wrong, he has never gone to bed with Carmela in his arms, he watches over her as she sleeps, that is all.

“Leila-”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Do you love me Tatum?” Leila’s question catches him off guard. “If you had to choose between me and the prophecy, what would it be?”

Tatum’s heart gallops like the racing of thousand wild stallions hearing those words from her mouth.

Does he love her?

He doesn’t even know, he just knows that he cares about her so much that he wants to keep her happy because he finds that when she is happy, he is happy.

He wants to keep that smile on her face, that big, contagious and beautiful smile, he wants the warmth to remain in her pretty ocean eyes, not this cold hateful look that they are full of right now….

If he has to choose between her and the prophecy, what would it be?

All his life, he has believed his duty comes first, the prophecy is his destiny, he has never doubted it, never wavered from this truth but if there was ever a time that doubt has seeped into his heart, that he wants to break his absolute devotion for his duty to his pack and it’s future, it is right now, in this very moment.

“Exactly,” Leila doesn’t even give him the chance to reply.

“You don’t know where your heart lies but I do, it’s with Carmi. I don’t care about the prophecy or about being Luna, she can have both and have you. The only reason we got married was because we thought she was gone but the funny thing is, you never stopped searching for her even then and now that you have found her, you both should be together, just grant me the divorce and let me go.”

Leila’s voice is low and shaky and Tatum can see the tears coating her eyes thst she refuses to let fall.

Is this really the end for them? He doesn’t want to let her go but he cannot force her against her will.

He asked her if she loves him and she said she did not but if she had said she did, would he have risked it

all for her?

“Is this what you want Lella? Is this what you really want?” Tatum’s voice breaks as he can no longer hold it together.

Lella looks away from his sad grey eyes, a turmoil of pain in her chest, a flood of tears hammering against her eyes like a dam waiting to burst.

Of course it’s not what she wants but he has given her no choice.

The emotion in Tatum’s voice sounds foreign to her but she knows he’s only trying to keep her as LUNA, to hold his pack together, not because he loves her,

His

pack before her, his duty before her, she understands that. As Luna, she always puts the pack before her feelings too so it can only be the same if not more for the Alpha.

“You have your duty to your pack and I have a duty to myself,” Lella replies.

A duty to herself and her unborn child, their unborn child.

No matter what, Tatum is the father of her child but her child will not grow up in a world where the mother is not loved by the father.