After My Mate Chose His Omega Over Me

The summons comes at dawn.

I'm folding the last of my clothes into a leather suitcase when Beta Marcus appears at my door, his face carefully neutral. "Luna Taytum. The Council of Elders requests your presence in the assembly hall. Immediately."

Luna. The title tastes like poison now.

I follow him down the corridor I designed, past the portraits I commissioned, through the pack house I built from architectural plans to final inspection. Every omega we pass drops their gaze. Not out of respect—out of fear. Word travels fast in a pack. By now, everyone knows I struck Livia.

Good.

The assembly hall doors are already open. Six elders sit in a semicircle, their weathered faces grave. Arthur stands at the center like a prosecutor, Livia beside him with a dramatic bandage across her cheek. The cut I gave her was barely a scratch, but she's milked it into a badge of victimhood.

Elder Patricia Blackwood—the one whose grandson's college tuition Arthur paid last year—clears her throat. "Luna Taytum Coleman. You stand accused of violent assault against a pack member of lower rank. How do you plead?"

I don't sit. I don't lower my gaze. "I defended my dignity."

"By sending an omega through a china cabinet?" Arthur's voice drips with false concern. "Taytum, we're all worried about you. The stress, the migraines you mentioned... perhaps you need professional help."

Professional help. He's painting me as unstable. Unfit.

Livia touches her bandage delicately. "I'm just so confused, Luna. I only wanted to help clean up the wine, and you just... snapped. I've never seen such rage."

The lie is so smooth, so practiced, I almost admire it.

Elder Blackwood shuffles papers. "In light of this incident, and considering the pack's recent... difficulties... the Council has voted. Effective immediately, your title as Luna of Aurora Pack is revoked. You are hereby released from your duties and asked to vacate pack lands within twenty-four hours."

The words should hurt. They should devastate me.

Instead, I feel nothing but cold satisfaction.

"I understand," I say quietly. "I'll be gone within the hour."

Arthur blinks, clearly expecting more fight. But I'm already turning, already walking away from the tribunal that thinks it has power over me.

I'm halfway up the stairs when his footsteps thunder behind me.

"Taytum, wait."

I don't stop. I keep climbing, my suitcase already packed and waiting in our quarters. His quarters now.

"Goddammit, I said wait!" His hand catches my elbow, spinning me around. We're alone in the hallway, morning light slanting through the windows I personally selected. "You will apologize to Livia. You will—"

"I will do nothing."

His eyes flash. The Alpha aura builds around him like a storm, pressing against my skin. I feel pack members throughout the house instinctively bare their necks in submission.

Then he does it. The thing I've been waiting for.

"SUBMIT!" The Alpha command cracks through the air like a whip, laced with every ounce of dominance he possesses. "Kneel before me and apologize!"

The command washes over me like a gentle breeze.

I stand perfectly still. My spine straight. My chin high. The Royal Lycan blood in my veins—blood that predates his pack by centuries—doesn't even register his pathetic attempt at dominance.

Arthur's face goes white. "Why aren't you—"

"You have no idea what power looks like, Arthur." I lean closer, letting just a fraction of my true aura slip free. Gold bleeds into my eyes. "You never did."

I walk past him, collect my suitcase, and descend the stairs for the last time.

The pack has gathered in the foyer—warriors, omegas, families. They part like water as I pass. Some look confused. Others relieved. A few brave souls meet my eyes with something that looks like understanding.

Beta Marcus holds the front door open. "Luna—" He catches himself. "Taytum. I'm sorry it came to this."

"Don't be." I pause on the threshold. "You're a good Beta, Marcus. You deserve a better Alpha."

The black limousine waits at the end of the drive, Royal Lycan flags fluttering in the morning breeze. The sight of them—silver wolves on midnight blue—makes my wolf sing with homecoming.

Behind me, I hear Arthur's voice, sharp with confusion: "What the hell is that car?"

But I'm already walking toward it, toward the uniformed driver who bows as he opens the door, toward the future I should have claimed five years ago.

"Welcome home, Princess Taytum," the driver says.

I slide into leather seats that smell like power and old money. Through the tinted window, I watch Arthur standing on the pack house steps, his face slack with dawning horror as he finally—finally—understands what he's lost.

The limousine pulls away, and I don't look back.