My Alpha Has Ninety Days to Make Me Hate Him

LENA'S POV

The Harvest Moon celebration had been my idea three years ago.

I'd picked the long cedar tables and the lanterns strung across the Pack House rafters. I'd convinced the elders to invite neighboring Alphas so Blackthorn could stop pretending it existed on an island. Every year since, I'd stood at Noah's right side on the raised platform while he welcomed our guests.

Tonight, Serena stood there instead.

She wore deep green silk, the color of the pack banner, and she'd pinned her hair up so the whole room could see her neck. Noah's hand rested lightly at the small of her back as he guided her into place. He didn't look toward the side door, where I'd just walked in.

The room noticed. A hundred wolves noticed.

Conversation didn't stop, exactly. It thinned. Glasses lowered halfway to mouths. Beta Marcus's mate glanced at me, then quickly at the floor. Two of the elder women near the punch bowl leaned their heads together, and I didn't need wolf hearing to know what they were saying.

So it's over, then.

Noah lifted his glass. "Thank you all for coming."

I walked toward the platform anyway. My heels were quiet on the wooden floor, and the crowd parted for me the way it always had, except now it felt less like respect and more like people stepping back from something contagious.

I stopped at the bottom of the steps. Serena saw me first. Her smile wavered, then held.

"Lena," she said warmly, loud enough to carry. "We didn't think you'd make it."

"I wouldn't miss it," I said. "I planned it."

A few people laughed nervously. Noah finally turned his head. His eyes went over my dress, my face, the bare place at my collar where the Luna pin used to be, and something tightened along his jaw.

"You don't need to be up here," he said quietly.

"I know. That's why I came."

I climbed the three steps anyway and turned to face the hall. My chest ached the way it had for days now, a low, steady pressure, like a hand pushing against my ribs from the inside. I ignored it.

"Before Alpha Noah finishes his welcome," I said, "I have an announcement."

The room went completely still.

"As of tonight, I'm stepping down from all Luna duties. The healers' rotation, the school board, the trade council, all of it. I'm not waiting for the council to remove me, and I'm not asking anyone to pretend this is temporary." I paused and found Marcus's mate in the crowd. "I've loved serving this pack. That part was never a lie."

Someone in the back murmured, "She's really doing it."

I reached into my clutch and pulled out the silver key.

It was old and heavy, the kind of key that didn't open any real lock anymore. It had once opened the pack archives and the treasury vault, back before electronic seals. Now it was simply a symbol, passed from Luna to Luna, proof that the pack trusted you with everything it had.

Noah's mother had pressed it into my palm when she got too sick to hold it herself. She'd closed my fingers around it and said, Take care of him for me.

I'd tried.

I held it out to Noah.

He looked at it for a long moment. Serena shifted beside him, her hand drifting toward the key like she thought it was meant for her. Noah didn't let her reach it. He took it from me himself, his fingers closing around the silver so hard his knuckles went bone white.

I watched his throat move. I watched him not say whatever he was about to say.

"Good," he said.

That was it. One word, flat and final, in front of everyone we knew.

I nodded once, as if he'd confirmed a dinner reservation. Then I turned, walked down the steps, and crossed the hall without looking at anyone. Somewhere behind me, Noah started speaking again, his voice smooth and practiced, welcoming the Eastwood delegation.

He didn't miss a beat. He never did.

---

The night air hit my face like cold water.

I made it through the heavy oak doors and onto the landing at the top of the Pack House steps before the ground tilted.

It started in my chest, that pressure suddenly turning into a fist. Then it spread up into my throat and behind my eyes, and the lanterns hanging along the stone railing smeared into long streaks of gold. I reached for the railing. My hand closed on air.

The mark on my neck burned so hot I tasted metal.

Twin Rot. Elara had warned me it would come in waves.

My heel caught the edge of the top step. There were twenty-two of them, steep and old and worn smooth by a century of wolves, and I was going to hit every one.

I didn't scream. I didn't have the breath.

An arm caught me around the waist.

It stopped my fall so suddenly my head snapped forward, and then I was being pulled back against a solid body, a hand braced flat against my stomach. The world kept spinning for a few seconds. I clutched at a sleeve, expensive wool under my fingers, and waited for my vision to settle.

"Easy," a man's voice said near my ear. Low, unhurried. "I've got you. You're not going anywhere."

I knew that voice. Not well, but I knew it.

Julian Ashford, Alpha of Silvercrest. I'd sat across from him at two trade summits and argued with him for four hours over river rights. He'd won. I'd been furious for a week.

"Alpha Ashford," I managed. "You can put me down."

"You can't even stand." He said it plainly, not unkind. "Give it a minute, Luna."

"Not Luna. Not anymore."

"So I heard." He shifted his grip, turning me so I could lean against the railing instead of him, but he kept one arm firmly around my back. "You made quite an exit."

I laughed weakly, then coughed. I pressed my hand to my mouth, terrified I'd see black on my fingers. There was nothing. Not this time.

Julian went very quiet.

I felt him lean in, just slightly, his face close to my temple. He breathed in once. Then again, slower, the way wolves did when they caught a scent they didn't like.

When he pulled back, his dark eyes had gone sharp.

"Your blood smells wrong," he said.

My stomach dropped. "It's just perfume."

"It isn't." He kept his voice low. "It smells like something going bad. Like fruit left too long in the sun." His gaze dropped to my neck, to the edge of the gray mark peeking out from my collar. "What's happening to you, Lena?"

No one had called me just Lena in days. Not like that, like he actually wanted the answer.

I opened my mouth. I had no idea what I was going to say.

The doors behind us crashed open.

The force of it rattled the lanterns. I felt Noah before I saw him, the bond yanking tight under my skin like a chain pulled taut. Then he was on the landing, and his Alpha aura rolled out ahead of him in a wave so heavy the air seemed to bend.

He looked at me. Then at Julian's arm around my waist.

His eyes flashed gold. A low growl tore out of his chest, raw and unmistakable, and his shoulders bunched like he was a heartbeat from shifting right there on the stone. His hands curled. I saw the tips of his fingers darken, claws starting to push through.

Then he stopped.

It looked like it physically hurt him. His whole body locked in place, muscles straining against something only he could feel. The gold in his eyes flickered, fought, and slowly drained back to gray. His claws retracted. His chest rose and fell, hard and fast.

He didn't say a word. He just stared at Julian's hand on my back.

Julian didn't move it.

He didn't puff up or growl back. He simply stood there, steady and calm, holding me up while my husband shook with the effort of not tearing him apart. Then he tilted his head, almost curious.

"If she's no longer your Luna," Julian said mildly, "why do you look like you want to kill me?"

Under my collarbone, the mark flared white-hot.

And Noah, who always had an answer, said nothing at all.