After My Alpha Chose His Mistress and Heir

The legal council arrived at dawn.

Three of them. Lycan Court officials in formal robes, carrying leather cases that looked older than most pack houses. They set up in the main hall—documents spread across the table, the Luna Accord text laid open like a dissection.

I sat across from them. The Lycan King at the head of the table. Idris standing near the door. Rhys by the window, silent.

The lead council member—a woman with silver hair pulled tight, her aura sharp enough to cut—looked at me over the rim of her reading glasses.

"The invocation," she said, "must be spoken in the formal register. Word-perfect. Any deviation voids the claim."

I nodded.

"You will bare the brand before the assembled Council. They will examine it. Verify the silver content, the wolfsbane residue, the deliberate nature of the scarring."

I pressed two fingers to my wrist under the table. The scar was warm.

"And you will do this," she continued, her voice flat, "while standing within range of Alpha Harrison's aura. If he deploys his Alpha tone, you must hold. If you flinch, if you lower your head, if you show submission—the Accord fails. The claim is dismissed."

Sable stirred inside me. Not restless. Listening.

"He will use it," the woman said. "The moment you speak the invocation, he will try to force you down. That is his right under tribunal protocol. Your ability to withstand it is the test."

I looked at her. "I understand."

The King leaned forward. "Florence. This is not a formality. Bentley's Alpha tone is trained. Weaponized. You have had your wolf for less than two weeks."

"I know," I said.

The room went quiet.

The council woman closed the Accord text. "Then we are done here. The tribunal convenes in two days. Do not be late."

They left.

I stayed at the table, staring at the empty space where the documents had been. My hands were steady. My breathing was even.

But something inside me—something older than Sable, older than the brand, older than Bentley—was whispering that I was not enough. That my wolf was too new. Too raw. That the Council would look at me and see exactly what Katherine had always seen: a wolfless Luna playing at royalty.

Sable pressed forward. A low, insistent heat behind my sternum.

I stood. Walked out into the cold.

---

That night, I went to the courtyard alone.

The snow was knee-deep. The air bit at my lungs. I stood in the center, under the frozen sky, and I spoke the invocation.

Once. Twice. Ten times.

The words were old. Formal. They tasted like iron on my tongue.

"I, Florence Bennett, daughter of the Lycan King, invoke the Luna Accord against Alpha Bentley Harrison of Shadowridge Pack. By the mark of silver he placed upon my wrist, by the bond he severed before witnesses, by the law older than any title he claims—I demand his forfeiture."

I said it until the words came out flat. Precise. Until they sounded like certainty instead of hope.

When I finally stopped, my breath was ghosting. My hands were numb.

I turned toward the safe house.

Rhys was standing in the doorway.

I didn't know how long he had been there. He didn't say anything. He just looked at me for a moment, then stepped back inside, leaving the door open.

I followed.

---

The ambush came the next afternoon.

I was running the perimeter—a solo patrol I had insisted on despite Maren's objections. Sable needed to move. I needed to think.

I was a quarter-mile past the Silverpine border marker when I caught the scent.

Rogue. Male. Shadowridge.

I stopped. Sable surged forward, her instincts faster than my conscious mind.

He came out of the tree line fast. Big. Scarred. Silver restraints in his hands—the cuffs already open, the wolfsbane stink rolling off them in waves.

He lunged.

I shifted.

Not full. Partial. Silver-white fur erupted along my arms. Claws extended. My aura slammed outward—Alpha-class, raw, uncontrolled—and the rogue dropped to his knees mid-lunge like someone had cut his strings.

I was on him before he could recover. One hand at the back of his neck. Claws pressing into skin.

He tried to speak. I tightened my grip.

"Who sent you," I said. My voice came out wrong. Half-human. Half-wolf.

He didn't answer.

I dragged him upright. Took the silver restraints from his hands. Clipped them onto his wrists behind his back.

Then I walked him back to the Silverpine gate.

---

Rhys was at the perimeter when I arrived. He took one look at the rogue, at the restraints, at the silver-white fur still visible along my forearms, and his expression went very still.

I shoved the rogue forward. "Bentley sent him. Add the restraints to the evidence file."

Rhys took the restraints without comment. He looked at me for a moment—at my hands, which were not entirely steady—then nodded.

The rogue was taken inside. I stood at the gate, breathing hard, Sable still awake and furious inside me.

Rhys came back a minute later. "You're bleeding."

I looked down. There was a shallow cut along my forearm where the rogue had clipped me. Not deep. Already clotting.

"I'm fine," I said.

He didn't argue. He just handed me a clean cloth and walked back toward the safe house.

I pressed the cloth to the cut and watched the blood soak through.

---

That night, I couldn't sleep.

I climbed onto the safe house roof with Buster. He pressed against my side, warm and solid, his breathing steady.

The sky was frozen. Clear. The stars looked like they had been hammered into the dark.

I heard footsteps on the ladder behind me. I didn't turn.

Rhys sat down next to me. He didn't ask permission. He just sat.

We were quiet for a long time.

Then I said, "I'm not afraid of Bentley's Alpha tone."

Rhys waited.

"I'm afraid," I said, quieter, "that the Council will look at me and see a wolfless Luna playing at royalty. That they'll think I'm a fraud."

Rhys was silent for a moment. Then he reached under his shirt.

He unclasped something. A cord. A pendant.

He placed it in my palm.

I looked down. The silver wolf mid-leap. The crescent moon. The pendant I had seen the night I knelt beside his cot.

I stared at it. My throat went tight.

"Rhys—"

"Keep it," he said. His voice was low. Steady. "You are not a fraud, Florence. You never were."

I closed my fingers around the pendant. The metal was warm from his skin.

I looked up at the frozen sky. Buster shifted against my side. Rhys sat next to me, silent, solid, his presence the only thing keeping me tethered.

I didn't give the pendant back.

---

The tribunal convened at dawn.

The Lycan Council hall was massive. Stone walls. High ceilings. Rows of seats filled with Alphas, Betas, pack representatives from every territory in the region.

I stood at the center. The brand on my wrist was visible. The invocation was ready on my tongue.

Bentley entered through the far doors.

His aura hit the room like a wall. Heads turned. Wolves shifted in their seats.

He walked toward the platform. His eyes locked on mine.

The lead council member stood. "Florence Bennett, Lycan Princess, you have invoked the Luna Accord. Speak your claim."

I stepped forward.

Bentley's Alpha tone slammed into me before I opened my mouth—a crushing, suffocating pressure designed to drop me to my knees.

Sable roared.

I held.

I bared my wrist. The silver scar caught the light.

And I spoke.

"I, Florence Bennett, daughter of the Lycan King, invoke the Luna Accord against Alpha Bentley Harrison of Shadowridge Pack—"

The hall doors crashed open.

Bentley's loyalists poured through. Six of them. Armed.

One grabbed my throat.

The room erupted.