My Alpha Chose His Mistress Over His Wolfless Luna

The east wing smelled like dust and old wood. They'd locked me in one of the guest rooms—the kind reserved for visiting pack members who didn't matter enough for the main floors. The door had clicked shut hours ago, and no one had come back.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at my hands. They'd stopped shaking an hour after the warriors dragged me away. The mate bond still pulsed in my chest, but it felt different now. Corrupted. Like something rotting from the inside.

Then I felt it. A mind-link, careless and unguarded, brushing against the edges of my consciousness. Julien never bothered to shield properly when he thought I was contained. Why would he? His wolfless mate couldn't possibly—

The link snapped into focus. Not words, exactly. More like impressions, emotions bleeding through. Satisfaction. Anticipation. And underneath it all, arousal so thick it made my stomach turn.

I stood. Moved to the door. The lock was simple—they hadn't expected me to try. Or maybe they just didn't care. Three seconds with a hairpin, and I was in the hallway.

The scent hit me before I'd gone ten steps.

Jasmine and something darker, mixed with Julien's cedar and smoke. It rolled through the corridor like a physical thing, leading me toward his office on the second floor. My wolf stirred, angry and alert. I let her rise just enough to sharpen my senses, to move silent as shadow through the packhouse.

The office door stood slightly open. Light spilled through the crack, and I heard Mya's breathy laugh.

"She actually thought you'd give it to her." Mya's voice, smug and satisfied. "Did you see her face?"

"She needed to understand her place." Julien's tone was casual, like they were discussing the weather. "The pendant looks better on you anyway."

I pulled out my phone. Pressed record. Held it near the crack in the door.

"When are you going to make it official?" Mya asked. "The pack's already talking. They know she's weak. Wolfless. Not fit to be Luna."

"Soon." A pause. The sound of movement, fabric rustling. "I'll call an Elder meeting. Formal rejection, strip her of the title. She can join the Omegas or leave. I don't care which."

My hand tightened on the phone. The mate bond twisted, sharp enough to make me bite my lip to keep from making a sound.

"And then?" Mya's voice dropped lower, intimate. "Then I become Luna?"

"You already are, in every way that matters."

The sounds that followed made my skin crawl. I stayed long enough to capture proof—voices, words, the unmistakable evidence of what they were to each other. Then I backed away, silent, until I reached the stairwell.

The east wing felt different when I returned. Smaller. Like a cage I'd been living in without realizing it.

I sat on the bed and pulled up my contacts. Found the number I'd kept buried under three layers of encryption. Elena answered on the second ring.

"It's time," I said.

Her voice came through clear and sharp. "You're sure?"

"Terminate everything. Border treaties, warrior training contracts, all shadow investments. Pull every dollar SSL has in Silverfang operations."

A pause. "That'll destabilize the entire pack."

"I know."

"Understood, Alpha." The title felt strange, hearing it out loud after so many years of hiding. "I'll have it done within the hour."

I ended the call. Deleted the number. Sat in the dark and waited.

---

Morning came with shouting.

I heard it from the east wing—Julien's voice, sharp with panic, echoing through the packhouse. Footsteps thundered past my door. Someone was running. Multiple someones.

I waited until the noise moved downstairs before I cracked the door open. No guards. They'd all been called away.

The main hall was chaos. Pack members clustered in groups, phones out, voices rising. I caught fragments as I moved through them, invisible in the confusion.

"—stocks dropped forty percent overnight—"

"—investors pulled out, all of them—"

"—border treaty with the Mountain Ridge Pack just dissolved—"

Julien stood in the center of it all, phone pressed to his ear, face pale. Mya hovered at his elbow, the moonstone pendant still around her neck, her expression shifting from concern to barely concealed panic.

"I don't care what the market's doing," Julien snarled into the phone. "Find out who's behind this. Someone's sabotaging us."

He ended the call. Turned to his Beta. "Get me the financial advisors. Now. And find out which packs are pulling their alliances."

The Beta nodded and hurried off. Julien's eyes swept the room, landing on me for half a second before dismissing me entirely. Just his wolfless mate, not worth his attention when his empire was crumbling.

I touched the base of my throat. Felt my wolf stir beneath my skin, patient and deadly.

He had no idea what was coming.