My fated Alpha kissed another female at our betrothal ceremony

"Did Kyle send you to finish humiliating me?" I pressed my spine against the damp stones of the outer wall, scraping my palms on the moss. "Because if he did, tell him I won't grovel."

Rhett halted three paces away. Unlike his younger brother, who threw his authority around like a brandished blade, Rhett moved with a quiet, crushing weight. He didn't wear a tailored suit meant to impress elders. He wore a simple leather coat, broad shoulders blotting out the torchlight from the courtyard behind him.

"My brother doesn't give me orders," Rhett said, his voice deep as a subterranean rumble. "And I don't clean up his messes."

"Then why are you out here?"

"I heard glass breaking," he said simply. "And I saw our future Luna run into the mud like a hunted rabbit."

A bitter laugh tore from my throat. "I'm not his Luna. You saw what he did with Lila."

"I saw an idiot throwing away gold for gravel," Rhett replied, taking a step forward.

"Stay back."

He took another stride anyway, closing the distance between us until the toes of his worn boots were inches from my ruined silk hem.

He breached the space around me.

The air between us snapped.

A sudden, violent surge of heat detonated straight through the center of my ribcage.

It wasn't the agonizing burn of Kyle's betrayal. This was a clean, blinding strike of pure lightning that raced through my veins, rattling my skull and roaring into my wolf. My pupils shrank to pinpricks. The scent of crushed pine and ozone slammed into my senses, so thick I choked on it.

A fated bond.

A second, undeniable, roaring mate bond.

My jaw dropped. The stone wall behind my head was the only thing keeping me upright. "No..."

"What did you say?" Rhett’s deep voice dropped an octave, scraping low.

He froze completely. The unshakeable Alpha of the northern ranks, the warrior whose name silenced disputes across three territories, stood paralyzed in the courtyard mist. His dark eyes widened, gold rings flaring around his irises as if a match had been struck beneath his skin.

"How is this possible?" I whispered, clutching my collar. "You're his brother."

Rhett didn't answer right away. His chest expanded on a harsh, ragged intake of air. For five years, pack rumors whispered of the phantom ache in Rhett's blood—a dormant pull that drove him to the borders, searching for a mate who never appeared.

Now, the mystery vanished in a single heartbeat.

"It was you," Rhett murmured, his voice rough as gravel. "The whole time. It was you."

"Stay away from me!" Panic seized my lungs, and I shoved against his chest.

My palms hit solid muscle, hard as an iron slab. Touching him made the bond scream louder, pouring molten warmth directly into my shivering limbs. It tried to soothe the frost Kyle had carved into my soul, but the clash of two distinct Alpha signatures inside my body made my stomach churn violently.

"Don't run," Rhett commanded softly.

He didn't grab me. He didn't use the suffocating weight of an Alpha command like Kyle always did to force submission. Instead, he pulled his aura entirely back into his chest, retracting every shred of dominance until the air around us felt light enough to breathe.

"I have a mate," I babbled, shaking my head so hard my vision blurred. "The Moon Goddess gave me Kyle. You saw the altar! You were there!"

"I saw a boy reject a gift he didn't deserve," Rhett said. He crouched down until his eyes leveled with mine. "And I feel what you're feeling right now, Elowen. Don't lie to yourself."

"It's a mistake. The Goddess doesn't give two mates!"

"She gave me none for ten years," Rhett countered, his jaw setting hard. "Until tonight."

A violent spasm seized my ribs.

Kyle’s broken thread pulled taut inside me, cold and jagged, while Rhett’s brand-new tether blazed against it like an open furnace. The two bonds collided in my chest, tearing at the lining of my wolf's spirit. A sharp whimper slipped past my teeth, and my knees gave out completely.

Rhett caught me before I hit the wet gravel.

His large hands gripped my forearms, steadying me with an impossible gentleness that contradicted his scarred knuckles.

"Elowen, breathe," he ordered, his thumbs brushing over my pulse points. "You can't handle the strain of two bonds right now. Not while Kyle is ripping his half apart."

"It hurts," I gasped out, the confession slipping past my pride. Sweat rolled down the side of my neck, freezing in the midnight wind. "Rhett... it feels like I'm being split open."

"I know." He tightened his hold, letting his calm, steady presence bleed into my skin to shield my frayed nerves. "He’s poisoning your blood with his neglect. But I'm here now. I can protect you."

"Protect me?" A manic laugh bubbled past my lips, tasting of iron. "You're his older brother! You're the heir to the high seat! If the pack finds out—"

"Let them find out," Rhett cut in, ruthless and steady. "Let Kyle watch."

"He'll challenge you!"

Rhett’s lips curved into a dark, humorless line. "He is welcome to try."

Before I could pull away from his grip, a sudden psychic shockwave ripped across the pack bond, sharp as a whip crack.

The link tethered to Kyle snapped taut.

Fifty yards away, inside the grand banquet hall, Kyle had stopped dead in his tracks.

The sudden psychic feedback was so violent I gasped aloud, feeling Kyle’s distant shock crash through our shared channel. Through the residual thread of our mate bond, Kyle had just caught the unmistakable frequency of another Alpha.

Not just any wolf.

An Alpha whose power vastly outranked his own.

The foreign resonance was wrapped entirely around me, soaking into my scent, shielding my pain, claiming my space.

Through the bond, I felt Kyle's arrogance shatter into pure, unhinged disbelief.

Then came the fire.

A suffocating wave of possessive fury surged through our mental link, blinding in its intensity. The boy who had tossed me aside for Lila five minutes ago was suddenly drowning in territorial rage.

His mate was not alone.

His mate was vibrating with the signature of an apex predator.

A heavy crash echoed from the banquet hall doors at the top of the stone stairs. The double oak portals swung open with a resounding thud, spilling yellow torchlight onto the wet grass.

"Elowen!" Kyle's roar shattered the courtyard silence, dripping with raw venom.

Rhett didn't flinch. He didn't let go of my arms. He simply rose to his full height, turning his back slightly to place his massive frame directly between me and the doorway.

"He felt me," Rhett said calmly, his eyes tracking the figure charging down the stairs. "Good."