After My Alpha Forced Me to Kneel Before His Mistress

The courier returned on a Tuesday morning, seven days after I'd sent the letter.

I was in the east wing garden—the small, neglected plot behind my quarters that no one visited anymore—pulling weeds from between the stones when the Omega girl found me. Her name was Lila. I'd learned it three weeks ago when she'd brought me breakfast and I'd asked.

"Miss Savannah," she whispered, glancing over her shoulder. "There's a man at the border market. Says he has a delivery for you. Wouldn't give his name."

I stood slowly, brushing dirt from my hands. My heart was beating too fast, but I kept my face calm. "Thank you, Lila. I'll go now."

She nodded and disappeared back into the pack house, moving quickly the way Omegas learned to move when they didn't want to be noticed.

I pulled on my coat—the one with the hidden lining—and walked toward the border market. It was a twenty-minute walk through the back trails, away from the main pack grounds. No one stopped me. No one even looked.

Garrett was waiting near the old trading post, leaning against a stack of crates like he had all the time in the world. He was older than I remembered—gray in his beard now, a new scar across his knuckles—but his eyes were sharp when they found mine.

"Savannah Boyd," he said quietly. "You look like your mother."

My chest tightened. "You knew her?"

"Fought beside your father for ten years. She used to grow lisianthus in those gardens. Prettiest flowers I ever saw." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a sealed envelope. "This is for you. From the Lycan Court."

I took it with hands that wanted to shake but didn't. The seal was pressed with the Lycan Council crest—formal, official, irreversible. I broke it carefully and unfolded the letter inside.

The handwriting was precise, almost architectural.

*Savannah Boyd,*

*Sanctuary granted. Lycan Council review formally initiated. I have secured a safe route through the northern border—coordinates enclosed. No warriors will be sent. You requested an alliance, not a rescue. I am honoring that request.*

*Send confirmation of your chosen extraction date and I will ensure the route remains clear.*

*Armando Moreno*

*Lycan Prince*

I read it twice. Then I noticed something tucked inside the fold of the paper—a small dried stem with delicate purple petals, pressed flat and fragile.

Lisianthus.

My mother's flower. The one she grew in the Dawnridge gardens, the one I'd carried in my pocket as a keepsake for three years, the one Weston had never once asked about because he'd always filled the Luna suite with red roses instead.

Armando Moreno remembered.

I closed my fingers around the stem, feeling the brittle texture against my palm, and something in my chest cracked open just a little. Not hope—I wasn't ready for that yet. But something close. Recognition, maybe. The knowledge that someone, somewhere, had seen me clearly enough to remember a detail that small.

"You all right?" Garrett asked.

I nodded. "Tell him the date is three weeks from today. The anniversary of my Mating Ceremony. I'll meet him at the northern border coordinates at dawn."

Garrett's expression flickered—something that might have been concern, or respect, or both. "You sure about the timing?"

"I'm sure."

He studied me for a long moment, then nodded. "I'll deliver the message. Your father would be proud, you know. What you're doing."

I didn't trust myself to answer that, so I just pressed the lisianthus stem into my coat pocket beside my mother's keepsake and turned back toward the pack house.

The walk back felt different. Lighter, somehow. Like I'd been carrying a weight I hadn't realized was there and someone had just lifted half of it.

I spent the next three weeks moving with the careful precision of someone defusing a bomb.

I traced Morgan's wolfsbane supply chain backward through the Omega network, following the trail from the pack house kitchens to a series of external traders, then to a single supplier who had done business with Nightstone since before the Dawnridge massacre. I documented every transaction, every date, every payment. The pattern was unmistakable: Morgan hadn't just poisoned me on impulse. She'd been planning it for months, maybe longer.

I added the supply chain records to my archive and moved the files again—this time to a hollow space behind a loose stone in the garden wall, wrapped in oilcloth to keep them dry.

I also returned to the silver cell.

Not because anyone forced me. Because I needed something from it.

I went during the midday hours when the guards rotated shifts and the basement was empty. The door was unlocked—no one expected anyone to volunteer to go back inside. I stepped into the cell, my skin prickling at the memory of the burns, and searched the floor near the back wall.

There. A small silver blade, no longer than my palm, half-buried in the dirt where it had been kicked during some previous prisoner's struggle. I picked it up carefully, wrapped it in cloth, and tucked it into the hidden lining of my winter coat.

The blade I would use to sever the bond.

I walked out of the cell, locked the door behind me, and returned to my quarters without anyone noticing I'd been gone.

My preparations were complete.

Now I just had to survive three more weeks of being invisible.

Weston made that easier than I expected. He was unraveling.

I saw it in the way he snapped at warriors during morning briefings, dismissing reports without reading them. In the way he spent long evenings alone in the Alpha suite, staring at nothing. In the way his wolf pressed against his control during the night hours—I could feel it through the bond, a restless, agitated presence that never fully settled.

Morgan managed him with the efficiency of someone who'd been preparing for this her whole life. She steered his attention toward pack expansion plans, toward alliances with neighboring territories, toward anything that kept him focused outward instead of inward.

She was good at her job. I'd give her that.

She was also making a mistake.

She thought making me invisible would erase me. She didn't understand that invisible women are the most dangerous kind.

The night before the anniversary, Morgan hosted a dinner.

It was informal—just the upper-ranked pack wives, gathered in the smaller dining hall for wine and gossip. I wasn't supposed to be invited. But Morgan sent word through an Omega that afternoon: *The Luna requests your presence at tonight's dinner.*

Not a request. A command.

I understood immediately. This wasn't generosity. This was display. One last chance to parade me in front of the pack's elite and prove that I was nothing.

I dressed carefully. Long sleeves to hide the silver scars on my arms. High collar to cover the one on my neck. Simple dark dress, no jewelry except my mother's keepsake tucked under my collar where no one could see it.

I arrived exactly on time.

The dining hall was warm and bright, candles everywhere, the table set with Morgan's preferred china. The wives were already seated—ten of them, all upper-ranked, all dressed like they were attending a coronation instead of a casual dinner.

Morgan sat at the head of the table in a gown the color of Luna white. She smiled when she saw me.

"Savannah! I'm so glad you could join us. Please, sit."

She gestured to the chair at the far end of the table. The one farthest from her. The one that said *you are here, but you do not matter.*

I sat.

Dinner was venison and roasted vegetables, served by three Omega girls I didn't recognize. I watched them carefully as they moved around the table, memorizing faces. One of them looked young—maybe seventeen, with nervous hands and eyes that darted toward Morgan every few seconds.

I waited until she refilled my water glass, then looked up and asked quietly, "What's your name?"

She froze. "M-Mira, miss."

"Thank you, Mira."

She nodded and moved on, but I saw the way her shoulders relaxed just a little.

The wives talked about upcoming pack events, about their mates' promotions, about everything except the woman sitting at the end of the table. I ate in silence, learning names, filing away details.

Then Morgan raised her glass.

"A toast," she said warmly. "To strong wolves and stronger bonds. And to she-wolves who know when to step aside."

The wives laughed. Not cruel laughter—polite laughter, the kind that said *we all understand what's happening here and we're all complicit.*

Morgan's eyes found mine across the table. "Some she-wolves just can't hold their wolves. Or their pups."

More laughter.

I didn't flinch. I set down my fork with careful precision, met Morgan's gaze, and smiled.

Then I stood.

"Thank you for the lovely dinner, Luna Morgan," I said quietly. "I'm afraid I'm quite tired. I'll excuse myself early."

I walked out before anyone could respond.

In my coat pocket, my fingers closed once around the silver blade.

Tomorrow.