After My Mate Ordered Me to Burn

I sat in the small room beside Avery's nursery, holding his urn in my lap. The carvings bit into my palms the way they always did, familiar and sharp. I traced the moon phases etched into the wood and spoke to him quietly, the way I used to when he was alive.

"I saw a picture once," I whispered. "In one of your father's territory reports. A rose garden somewhere far from here. Silver moonlight and climbing roses everywhere, thick as curtains. I'm going to take you there, baby. Somewhere the moon is kind."

Through the thin wall, Camilla's laughter rang out — bright, self-satisfied, utterly at home. My quarters. My bed. My mate.

The bond mark on my neck throbbed, transmitting Princeton's proximity like a hot brand against my pulse. I could feel him in there with her. Not through images or words, just presence. Closeness. The bond did not lie.

I set the urn down carefully on the small table. I stood. I walked to the drawer where I had hidden the rejection documents, folded tight and kept close. I retrieved them, smoothed them on my knee, and read every page. The legal language. The formal vow I would have to speak aloud. The irreversible severance.

I folded them again, carefully, and placed them in the urn's carrying case alongside Avery's ashes. The two things I would take when I left.

I did not sign them tonight. I was waiting for something. I did not yet know it was the fire.

---

The dinner happened three nights later.

I smelled it before I saw it — herb-braised lamb, rosemary, the scent of my own signature recipe drifting through the corridors like a ghost. I followed it to the Luna's dining room and found the table set with my personal china, the good set with the silver trim that had been my mating gift from Princeton's mother.

Camilla sat at the head. Princeton sat to her right. Six ranked wolves filled the other seats — Beta Carrick, Gamma Thorne, two Deltas I had known for years. They were halfway through the meal.

No one had told me there was a dinner.

Camilla looked up when I appeared in the doorway. Her smile was brilliant, warm, hostess-perfect.

"Luna!" she said brightly. "I hope you don't mind — I borrowed your recipes. The Alpha said they were his favorites."

She gestured to the empty chair at the far end of the table. The seat farthest from the head. The seat for someone who did not belong.

Every ranked wolf at the table looked at their plates. Princeton, at the head, did not correct her. Did not look at me. His jaw worked once, chewing, and then he reached for his wine.

I stood in the doorway and surveyed the table. My china. My recipes. My seat occupied. My mate's eyes deliberately elsewhere.

Something in my chest went very, very quiet.

I turned and walked back to Avery's nursery. I did not return for dinner. I sat by the window with the urn in my lap and listened to the distant sound of their laughter, their clinking glasses, their easy conversation in the room that used to be mine.

The wolf inside my chest had stopped pressing against the walls. Instead, she had gone still and watchful, conserving everything, waiting.

---

The bonfire was two nights after that.

I was not invited. I heard it from my window — the crackle of flames, the howls, the music. The entire pack gathered under the autumn moon to celebrate the season's first hunt. I sat in my room with Avery's urn and listened.

I did not hear Camilla's footsteps in the hall.

The door opened without a knock. I turned, startled, and she was already moving — fast, deliberate, her hand coming up with something that gleamed silver in the dim light.

The blade went into my abdomen before I could scream.

Pain exploded through me like wildfire. Not clean. Not sharp. Burning. The silver seared through my flesh like acid, and I collapsed, gasping, both hands closing around the handle. Wave after wave of agony radiated from the wound, and I could feel the metal poisoning my blood, my wolf recoiling in animal terror from the toxic foreign substance embedded in my body.

Camilla stepped back. She examined her work with the calm satisfaction of someone who had rehearsed this moment. Then she raised her other hand and slashed her own forearm — shallow, theatrical, just enough to bleed.

She walked to the hallway. I heard liquid splashing. The sharp chemical smell of accelerant filled the air.

A match struck.

Flames roared to life in the corridor, devouring the curtains, racing up the walls. Smoke poured into my room. Camilla positioned herself at the top of the main staircase and screamed for help.

I lay on the floor, silver-poisoned, the blade still embedded, the flames closing in. My hands were slick with blood. I could not pull the blade out. Every movement sent fresh waves of burning agony through my core.

Through the mate bond, I felt Princeton turn toward the pack house. Felt the bond flare with alarm. Felt him coming.

I reached for him through the bond — not with words, but with everything. Every memory of our mating. Avery's birth. The life we built. The nights I steadied his wolf when no one else could. The years I gave him. A wordless, desperate plea that poured out of me like blood:

Save me. I am your mate.

The bond carried it to him. I felt it land.

And through the smoke and the flames and the silver burning in my gut, I waited for my Alpha to come.