After My Alpha Forced Me to Kneel Before His Mistress

The silver burned.

Not all at once—that would have been easier. It burned in slow, creeping waves that started where my wrists pressed against the mesh and spread up my forearms like fire crawling through dry grass. Then my shoulders. Then the side of my neck, right where the mating mark sat like a brand I couldn't scrape off.

I didn't scream. I'd learned that much in three years as Weston's Luna: screaming was permission. Permission to dismiss you as hysterical, unstable, a problem to be managed rather than a person to be heard. So I pressed my spine against the stone wall—the only surface in this cell without silver—and breathed.

In through the nose. Hold. Out through the mouth.

The pain sharpened with each breath, but I kept the rhythm steady. My wolf, that silent presence I'd carried for twenty-four years without ever hearing her voice, pressed against my ribs like she was trying to claw her way out through bone. I could feel her fury, hot and wordless, a snarl that had no outlet.

*Not yet,* I told her silently. *Not here.*

She subsided. Not gone—just waiting.

I counted the hours by the narrow window set high in the wall. Moonlight first, cold and blue. Then the slow fade to gray that meant dawn was coming. Then pale gold sunlight that didn't reach the floor where I sat.

Somewhere around hour six, I stopped feeling the burns. My body had run out of adrenaline to process the pain, or maybe I'd just burned through every nerve ending that could still fire. My arms were numb from the elbows down. The side of my neck throbbed with a deep, bone-level ache that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.

I used the numbness to think.

First decision: I would not wait for rescue. Armando Moreno owed my father a life-debt, but I would not collect it through begging. I would offer him something he needed—evidence, testimony, a strategic alliance that served his interests as much as mine. The rogue courier network I'd identified through old Dawnridge records would carry the message. I just had to survive long enough to send it.

Second decision: I would leave Nightstone on my own terms. Not dragged out in disgrace, not fleeing in the night like a rogue. I would choose the moment, the method, and the witness. If I was going to sever this bond, I would do it in front of everyone who had watched Weston force me to my knees.

Third decision: I would choose the date. The anniversary of our mating ceremony. One year from the night I'd knelt on cold marble while Morgan took my crown. Poetic, maybe. But poetry was all I had left that they couldn't take from me.

The door rattled. I lifted my head, slowly, and watched a guard unlock the cell. He didn't look at me.

"You're released," he said flatly. "Luna Morgan says you're to return to your quarters and stay there until the Alpha calls for you."

I stood. My legs shook, but I locked my knees and kept my face blank. The burns on my arms were visible now in the morning light—angry red welts crisscrossing my wrists and forearms like some kind of punishment tattoo. The one on my neck was worse. I could feel it pulling when I turned my head.

I walked past the guard without a word. Up the basement stairs. Through the back hallway that the Omegas used. I kept my arms at my sides, sleeves pulled down as far as they would go, and I didn't limp.

When I reached my quarters—not the Luna suite anymore, just a small room in the east wing that smelled like disuse—I locked the door and went straight to the desk.

The Dawnridge Alpha's sigil ring was still on the chain around my neck, hidden under my collar where no one thought to look. I pulled it off and set it on the desk, then retrieved the files I'd hidden in the fireplace lining: financial records, toxicology report, the letters between Weston and Morgan.

I had everything I needed. Almost.

The rogue courier—a man named Garrett who'd fought beside my father twenty years ago and still carried the scar to prove it—would be in the border market tonight. I'd sent word three days ago through an Omega who owed me a favor. He'd agreed to meet.

I just had to get there without being followed.

I pulled out a clean sheet of paper and started writing. Not a plea. Not a confession. A proposal.

*Lycan Prince Armando Moreno,*

*I am writing to offer testimony before the Lycan Council regarding illegal territorial seizure, conspiracy to commit murder, and Luna abuse within the Nightstone Pack. Enclosed are financial records, toxicology analysis, and witness statements. I request sanctuary and the convening of a formal tribunal.*

*This is not a request for rescue. This is a strategic alliance. I have evidence you need. You have authority I require.*

*If you accept, send confirmation through the courier who delivers this message.*

*Savannah Boyd*

*Dawnridge bloodline*

I didn't sign it 'Luna.' That title was gone. But the bloodline—that was mine. They could take my crown, my mate, my home. They couldn't take my name.

I folded the letter, tucked the files inside, and sealed it with the Dawnridge sigil pressed into red wax. Then I hid it in the lining of my winter coat and waited for nightfall.

Three hours later, a message came through the Omega network: Gamma Mac Torres had been brought in from the eastern border with wolfsbane-contaminated wounds. Critical condition. The healer couldn't neutralize it.

I stared at the message for a long time.

Mac had been one of Weston's most loyal warriors. He'd stood silent when I was dragged to the silver cell. He'd never once questioned an order.

But he'd also been the one who taught the younger deltas how to fight without relying on brute strength. He'd remembered the names of the Omegas' children. And when I'd been Luna, he'd nodded to me in the halls with something that looked almost like respect.

I pulled out my notes on wolfsbane compounds—the ones I'd compiled after my own poisoning—and cross-referenced the symptoms the Omega had described. Muscle convulsions. Respiratory distress. Black veins spreading from the wound site.

I knew that compound. And I knew the antidote.

I worked fast. The Omega network could get the vial to Rosalind without anyone knowing where it came from. She'd administer it as a 'new treatment protocol.' Mac would survive.

And maybe—just maybe—when the time came, he'd remember that someone had saved him when his Alpha's chosen Luna had sent him into a skirmish she had no business commanding.

I sealed the vial and sent it into the dark.

Then I pulled on my winter coat, tucked the sealed letter into the hidden lining, and walked toward the border market.

The burns on my arms throbbed with every step.

I didn't slow down.