My Alpha Called Me Wolfless to Protect His Mistress

The pendant hit my palm at 8:47 on the night of the Winter Solstice, and something in the shape of my life shifted a quarter inch to the left.

I was crouched by the dessert table, tightening the ribbon at the end of Ava's braid, when Paula rose from her seat and shuffled past me. Her slippers made no sound on the polished floor. The hall was full of ranked wolves in velvet and fur, candlelight glossing every shoulder, and no one turned to watch the former Luna wander. No one but me.

She stopped in front of a boy I didn't know. He looked six, maybe seven, with dark hair combed flat and a small suit that fit too well to be borrowed. Paula took his hand and pressed something into it. Her fingers trembled but her eyes, for a breath, were clear.

"For the firstborn," she said.

I crossed to them before the moment could close. The boy opened his fist. On his palm sat the moonstone fang pendant — the sacred heirloom, the one passed only to firstborn heirs of Ironveil. The one Jayson kept locked in the Alpha's study.

"Sweetheart," I said, keeping my voice level, "can I see that?"

He looked up at me with a bored, adult expression. "My mom says I'm the real heir."

I held out my hand. He dropped the pendant into it because I was an adult and children still obey adults, even when their mothers teach them otherwise.

"What's your name?"

"Max."

I didn't recognize him from any ranked family. I'd braided every ranked pup's hair at some point in six years. I knew their names, their birthdays, the gaps in their teeth.

I slipped the pendant into the pocket of my dress. My hands were steady. My wolf — the thing inside me that should have been a wolf — sat where it always sat, quiet as furniture.

"Go find your mother, Max."

He went. I watched him weave through the crowd toward a woman I couldn't see, and then Paula tugged my sleeve and I turned back to her.

"Luciana," she said, and her eyes had already clouded again. "Is it Sunday?"

"It's Wednesday, Paula. Let's sit down."

I walked her back to the table where Jayson sat at the Alpha's chair with Ava's small place beside him. Jayson did not look at me. He had not looked at me all evening.

---

Dinner came out on silver plates. Roast venison, root vegetables, wine that smelled sharp even from three seats away. Paula ate slowly, one bite at a time, and I cut her meat into pieces small enough that she wouldn't choke.

Then she went still. A stillness I recognized.

The smell reached the table before anyone else did — sharp, warm, unmistakable. The wolf on Paula's left recoiled. The one across from her set down his fork. The silence traveled outward in a ring, table by table, until the whole hall had it.

Jayson stiffened. I watched the corner of his mouth pull down. Disgust, plain as a printed word. He did not move.

No ranked wolf moved.

I stood up. The chair scraped. I walked around the table, knelt beside Paula, and touched her wrist.

"It's all right," I said. "Let's go."

I'd done this ninety-nine times in the care wing. This was the hundredth, and the first with three hundred pairs of eyes on my back. I felt them. I did not turn.

I eased Paula up, took the linen napkin from her lap, and pressed it discreetly against her skirt as I walked her out. She whispered something about her mother. I said yes. I said we'll go home now. I did not look at Jayson as we passed. I did not need to. I could feel him not looking back.

---

The corridor outside the hall was cold. I got Paula to the powder room, sat her on the bench, and stepped out for one breath — one — before Ava came running around the corner.

Her face was wet. Her braid had come loose on one side. She hit my legs and grabbed two fistfuls of my dress.

"Mama."

"Ava, baby, what — "

"Max said — Max said — " She pushed the words out in a broken rush. "Max said his mom is the real Luna. He said you're a wolfless omega. He said you're going to get sent away. He's been saying it. At school. For months. Everyone laughs."

She stopped. Her small shoulders shook.

"Is it true, Mama? Are we going to be sent away?"

I knelt on the cold tile. I put my hands on either side of her face. I opened my mouth.

I had answered every question this child had ever asked me. Where do stars come from. Why does Paula forget my name. Why does Daddy sleep in the other wing.

I had no answer for this one.

The silence stretched. Ava's eyes searched mine, waiting, and the not-answer settled into the space between us like a verdict passed down by a court I had not been allowed to attend.

In my pocket, the moonstone pendant was warm from my skin. I closed my hand around it through the fabric.

From the powder room behind me, Paula's voice drifted, small and wandering: "Is it Sunday yet?"

I kissed the top of Ava's head. Then I stood up, took her hand, and started walking.

I had a house to find.