Luna Betrayed by Her Alpha

The hissing started soft, almost gentle. Then the mist descended.

Fine particles caught the sunlight streaming through the glass walls, turning the air into a glittering fog. Pretty, if you didn't know what it was. My wolf knew. She howled inside my mind, a sound of pure terror that made my knees buckle.

"Ava—" I reached for her, but the first touch of silver dust on my exposed skin stole my breath.

It burned. Not like fire. Worse. Like acid eating through flesh, burrowing into bone. I looked down at my hands and watched red welts bloom across my palms, blisters rising and bursting in seconds.

I screamed.

The sound echoed off the glass, bouncing back at me from every direction. My wolf whimpered and retreated so deep I could barely feel her presence. The mate bond, that golden thread connecting me to Adriel, flickered weakly in my chest.

Ava collapsed beside me.

"No, no, no—" I dropped to my knees, ignoring the way the silver-laced floor seared through my dress. Ava's face had gone gray, her breathing shallow and rapid. Her eyes rolled back, showing only whites.

The temperature climbed. The midday sun beat down through the glass ceiling, turning the solarium into an oven. Sweat mixed with blood on my blistered skin. The silver dust kept falling, coating everything, suffocating us.

"Ava, stay with me." I pressed my hands to her chest, feeling her heart stutter beneath my palms. Too fast. Too irregular. Her wolf was dying, I could sense it—the silver poisoning severing the connection between woman and beast.

I had to get help.

I threw myself at the mate bond, grabbing that golden thread with everything I had. *Adriel!* I screamed his name mentally, pouring every ounce of desperation into the link. *Adriel, please, your mother—we need help—*

I hit a wall.

Not just distance. Not distraction. A deliberate, solid barrier. He'd blocked me. Blocked our bond.

*Adriel!* I screamed again, clawing at the psychic wall. *Please, she's dying—*

The wall cracked, just slightly. His voice filtered through, cold and annoyed. "Do not disturb me. I am handling Alpha business."

Alpha business. While his mother lay dying on a silver-dusted floor.

Then I felt it—a wave of sensation that didn't belong to me. Pleasure. Raw and unmistakable. A woman's giggle, breathy and satisfied, echoed through the fractured bond.

Halle's giggle.

The wall slammed shut. Complete silence. He'd severed the connection entirely.

I knelt there, hands still pressed to Ava's chest, and felt something inside me crack. Not the bond—that was already broken, had been breaking for months. Something deeper. Something that had been holding me together.

Movement outside the glass caught my eye.

Halle pressed her face to the pane, her expression gleeful. She was laughing, I could see her mouth moving, though I couldn't hear the sound through the reinforced walls. Her hands came up to frame her face, and the chain around her neck shifted.

The pendant swung free.

I froze, despite the pain screaming through every nerve. Despite Ava's failing heartbeat beneath my palms. Despite the silver eating away at my skin.

The Moonstone Pendant.

Pale blue stone set in ancient silver, carved with the symbols of the Moon Goddess. Every Luna of the Silver Moon Pack had worn it for three hundred years. My grandmother had worn it. Ava had worn it. I should have been wearing it.

Adriel had told me it was being polished. That it would be ready for the Pack Run ceremony. That I would wear it with pride.

He'd lied.

He'd given our pack's most sacred heirloom to his mistress. Not just cheated. Not just betrayed the mate bond. He'd symbolically stripped me of my position, handed my authority to another woman, and let her use it to torture me.

To torture his own mother.

Halle tapped the pendant against the glass, her smile widening. She mouthed something. I couldn't hear it, but I could read her lips.

"Mine now."

Ava's heart stuttered again beneath my hands. Her breathing had gone shallow, barely there. The silver mist kept falling, and the sun kept burning, and my mate—my Alpha—was in bed with the woman who was killing us.

I looked down at Ava's gray face, then back at Halle's triumphant smile, then at the Moonstone Pendant gleaming against her throat.

Something shifted inside me. Not breaking. Hardening.

If we survived this—when we survived this—everything was going to change.