Betrayed Luna, Now Awakened

Natalie had been rejected once, and when the Alpha King took her in she believed he had saved her and handed her the life she was supposed to want. Three years of marriage produce ten pregnancies and ten losses. She eventually works out that none of them were accidents. Her mate, the one who swore to protect her, had been giving her the poison himself, dose after dose, and her unborn pups were spent as sacrifices for the sake of another woman, the one he had actually loved the whole time. He does not see any of this as cruelty. In his account, letting her stay on as his obedient Queen is a kindness she should be grateful for, and he expects the arrangement to continue exactly as it has. Natalie burns the mate bond instead of arguing about it. She leaves the pack without turning around, and she takes with her a piece of truth that undoes the thing he has spent all these years building and guarding.