After My Mate Helped His Mistress Hunt Me

The note appeared under my door at dawn.

I almost stepped on it. A single sheet of printer paper, folded once. I picked it up and unfolded it carefully.

A photograph. My mother's car. The angle was wrong—not from the highway, not from any traffic camera I'd seen in the police report. This was from above. A security camera mounted high on a pole, the kind that tracks territory borders.

Silverfang territory.

Someone had been watching. Someone had seen the chase, the warriors, everything. And they had done nothing.

I stood in the doorway holding the paper. My hands didn't shake. They stopped shaking weeks ago.

No signature. No message. Just the photograph.

I walked to my closet and pulled out the small lockbox I kept behind my winter boots. Inside: the original mating certificate, signed and sealed. The hospital bill from the night Maximus threw coffee on me. And now this.

I locked it. Put it back. Went to work.

Laurel found me two hours later.

I was scrubbing the pack house kitchen floor—one of the tasks she'd assigned me yesterday with that bright, friendly smile she used when other wolves were watching. The tiles were already clean. I was scrubbing them again because she'd told me to, and arguing meant consequences I couldn't afford.

"Harmony," she said from the doorway. Her voice was warm. "I need you to reorganize the storage pantry. All the dry goods. Alphabetically."

I looked up. The pantry was massive. It would take hours.

"I have to pick up Kamden at three," I said quietly.

"Oh." She tilted her head, concerned. "Well, this really can't wait. I'm sure he'll be fine for a bit. He's twenty-three, isn't he?"

She knew exactly how old he was. She knew everything.

"His caretaker called in sick," I said. "He needs—"

"I'm sure you'll figure it out." Her smile didn't waver. "The pantry, please. Before lunch."

She left.

I pulled out my phone and texted Kamden: *Stay at the house. I'll be there by 3:30. Don't go anywhere.*

He responded immediately: *ok :)*

I started on the pantry.

Cans. Boxes. Bags of rice and flour. I pulled everything off the shelves and began sorting. My phone sat on the counter beside me, screen facing up.

At 2:47 PM, it buzzed.

A notification from Kamden's GPS app. The one I'd installed after Mom died, the one that let me track him when I couldn't be there.

He was moving.

I opened the app. The blue dot that represented Kamden was leaving the house, heading east. Toward the construction site.

No.

I grabbed my phone and called him. It rang four times. Voicemail.

I tried again. Same thing.

The blue dot kept moving.

I ran.

Out of the pack house, across the grounds, toward the eastern border where the construction site sat like a skeleton against the sky. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. I didn't stop.

The site fence was twelve feet high, chain-link with barbed wire at the top. The gate was open.

It was never open.

I ran through it. Scaffolding rose around me, metal beams and wooden planks stacked in precarious towers. Somewhere above, I heard the wind whistling through the framework.

"Kamden!" My voice cracked. "Kamden, where are you?"

Silence.

I ran deeper into the site, past concrete mixers and piles of rebar. My phone buzzed again. I looked down.

The blue dot had stopped moving.

I looked up.

He was at the base of the scaffolding.

I don't remember the sound I made. I remember running. I remember dropping to my knees beside him. I remember his eyes, open and empty, staring at nothing.

There was blood. Not a lot. Just a thin line from his temple down to his jaw.

I pressed my fingers to his neck. No pulse.

"No," I said. Then louder. "No. No. Kamden, wake up. Wake up."

I tried CPR. I counted compressions. I breathed into his mouth. His chest rose and fell with my breath, not his.

I kept going until hands pulled me away.

Pack warriors. Three of them. One spoke into a radio. Another knelt beside Kamden and checked for signs I already knew weren't there.

The third looked at me. "What happened?"

I couldn't speak.

"What happened?" he repeated.

I shook my head. My throat was closed.

They took him away. They took me to the pack house. Someone wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Someone else asked questions I didn't answer.

Maximus arrived at sunset.

I was sitting in a chair in his office. I don't remember walking there. Beta Dorian stood near the window. Maximus sat behind his desk, watching footage on his laptop.

He played it twice.

Security footage from the construction site. Timestamps in the corner. The gate opening. A figure—small, hesitant—walking through. Climbing the scaffolding. Then falling.

The timestamp on the gate opening: 2:51 PM.

Four minutes after I got the GPS alert.

Maximus paused the video. Looked at me.

"Your GPS was near the site this morning," he said. His voice was flat. "At 9:17 AM."

I blinked. "No. I was at the pack house. In the kitchen."

"The data says otherwise." He turned the laptop toward me. A map. Two dots. One labeled with my name, one with Kamden's. Mine showed a path to the construction site at 9:17 AM.

I stared at it. "That's not possible."

"The caretaker called in sick this morning," Maximus continued. "You arranged that."

"I didn't—"

"You left the gate open."

"I didn't!"

His hand slammed onto the desk. The sound cracked through the room like a gunshot. I flinched.

"Enough." His voice dropped into Alpha tone. The weight of it pressed against my chest, my throat, my lungs. "You were negligent. You left him unsupervised. You left the gate open. He died because of you."

The words hit like blows. My mouth opened. Closed. The tone held me frozen.

"Do you understand me?" Maximus said.

My head nodded. I didn't tell it to.

"Good." He closed the laptop. "Get out."

I stood. Walked to the door. My hand was on the handle when he spoke again.

"You've lost everyone now, Harmony. Maybe you should ask yourself why."

I left.

In my room, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall.

The mark on my neck burned.

I didn't cry. There was nothing left to cry with.

I just sat. And I waited for the next thing to break.