After My Mate Chose His Mistress as Luna

I reached Rosalina's door just as the sky turned from black to gray. My hand shook when I knocked. Three times, quiet, like I was asking permission to exist.

The door opened. Rosalina stood there in an old training shirt and sleep pants, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. Her eyes went straight to my neck.

She went silent.

Three seconds. I counted them. In those three seconds, I watched her face shift from confusion to recognition to something that looked like murder.

Then she snarled.

It wasn't a human sound. It was wolf—raw and visceral, the kind of noise that comes from a place deeper than thought. The doorframe shook. A picture on the wall behind her rattled against the plaster.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. The door slammed. Her hands landed on my shoulders, firm and grounding, and she pushed me into a chair at her kitchen table.

"Tell me everything," she said. Her voice was flat and precise. "And I mean everything."

I opened my mouth. My throat closed.

Rosalina's hand moved to the back of my neck, her thumb pressing gently against the dead mark. "Abby," she said, using the childhood nickname she hadn't spoken in years. "Start talking."

So I did.

I told her about the Winter Solstice Banquet. About the bond lurching wrong and the corridor outside James's study. About his voice, easy and amused, explaining the decade-long performance to Derek. About the rejection vow spoken in front of the entire pack and the cloak I tore from my own shoulders before he could strip it. About Tucker's scream—*you smell like nothing*—and Trinity's hand on his shoulder.

Rosalina didn't interrupt. She sat across from me with her annotated pack law codex already open on the table, her pen moving in quick, precise strokes. By the time I finished my first sentence, she had three pages of notes.

When I got to the part about the wooden wolf totem breaking, her pen stopped mid-word. She looked up at me. Her jaw was tight.

"The one you spent weeks carving," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

Her pen moved again. Faster this time.

I kept talking. I told her about James's fabricated Lycan Decay diagnosis, the ten years of bond-channeled healing, the royal Healer position I'd abandoned because he'd claimed his wolf was dying. I told her about the chronic ache in my mark that I'd attributed to strain. About my own wolf going quieter each year until I could barely feel her.

Rosalina's hand tightened on her pen. "He suppressed your wolf for a decade."

"I suppressed my wolf," I corrected quietly. "To heal him."

"To heal a condition he fabricated." Her voice was cold and surgical. "Abby, that's not healing. That's exploitation under false pretenses. That's—" She stopped. Took a breath. Wrote three more lines. "That's a Lycan Council case."

She flipped to a tabbed section in the codex. Her finger traced down a column of dense legal text. "Formal petition for bond severance recognition. Healer exploitation damages. Custody arbitration under pack law." She looked up. "Derek Sloane was there. In the corridor. You heard him laughing."

"Yes."

"Then he's the key witness." Rosalina's smile was sharp and humorless. "Beta testimony confirming a fabricated terminal diagnosis used to exploit a fated mate's Healer abilities? That strips James of Alpha credibility before the Council. Permanently."

I stared at the codex. My mind—trained by ten years of memorizing pack law to be a good Luna—started moving through the architecture she'd laid out. "Section forty-seven," I said slowly. "Healer bond coercion. If the exploitation lasted more than five years, the tribunal can seize territory as reparation."

Rosalina blinked. "Yes."

"And if a minor was present during the public rejection ceremony, you can file for emotional harm damages under section ninety-two. Tucker was there. James used him as part of the performance."

Rosalina stared at me for a long moment. Then she picked up her pen and wrote both points down. "What else?"

"The Healer certification I abandoned when James marked me. If I can prove I was formally offered a royal Healer position and declined it based on his fabricated diagnosis, that establishes measurable professional damages."

Rosalina's pen moved faster. "Abby," she said quietly, "how much pack law do you actually know?"

"All of it." My voice was flat. "I memorized the full codex in my second year as Luna. I thought a good Luna should understand the rules she was upholding."

Rosalina looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. Then she closed the codex, leaned back in her chair, and said, "We're going to destroy him."

I pressed two fingers to my dead mark. The skin was still cold. Still empty.

"I need one more thing," Rosalina said. She pulled a small vial and a sterile needle from a drawer. "Blood sample. For formal Healer certification through the Lycan King's court. It establishes your credentials independent of Ironwood Pack."

I held out my arm without hesitation. The needle bit. Dark red blood filled the vial.

Rosalina labeled it with my name, sealed it, and set it aside. "This goes to the royal physician. Routine paperwork. It'll take a few weeks."

I nodded. My arm ached where the needle had been.

Rosalina stood and walked to the window. The sun was rising now, pale and cold through the glass. "James and Trinity are already performing," she said quietly. "I've been monitoring pack alliance communications. They're attending gatherings. Broadcasting the new bond. Showing off Tucker like a trophy."

"I know," I said.

She turned back to me. "They're constructing a narrative. That you were weak. That Trinity is the upgrade. Several allied Alphas have sent congratulatory gifts."

I thought about James's easy smile at the banquet. About Trinity's blood-red dress and Tucker's small hand in hers. About the crowd's murmured approval, controlled and rehearsed.

"Let them perform," I said. My voice was steady. "We'll have the tribunal."

Rosalina smiled. It was the kind of smile that made me remember why she'd built a reputation for taking cases other attorneys found too politically complex.

"Yes," she said. "We will."

She walked me to the door when the sun was fully up. Her hand rested briefly on my shoulder. "Abby," she said, "I should have seen this sooner. I should have—"

"You're seeing it now," I interrupted.

She nodded once. Then she opened the door and I stepped back out into the cold morning air.

I walked three blocks before I let myself stop and breathe.

My mark was still dead. My wolf was still silent. My son still thought I smelled like nothing.

But I had an attorney. I had a case. I had ten years of memorized pack law and a blood sample on its way to the Lycan King's court.

I pressed my fingers to the hollow mark one more time.

Then I started walking again.