My Alpha Has Ninety Days to Make Me Hate Him

LENA'S POV

The Luna's office still smelled like me when I opened the door. Cedar polish, old paper, the lavender sachets I tucked into the filing drawers.

Then the scent of lilies hit me.

There was a tall vase of them on my desk, white and waxy, crowding the corner where my photo of the first Omega shelter intake used to sit. The photo was gone. In its place were three neat stacks of folders, each one labeled in looping blue ink. Healers' Rotation. School Board. Eastwood Trade.

My handwriting had been on those files for four years. Now it was hers.

I set my empty box on the chair and started on the bookshelf. My books, my notebooks, the chipped mug the pups at the shelter had painted for my birthday. I was wrapping the mug in a scarf when the door opened behind me.

"Oh," Serena said. "You're here."

She was carrying a fresh cup of coffee and wearing a cream blazer that looked like it had been bought for the job. She glanced at the box, then at the half-empty shelf, and something satisfied settled into the corners of her mouth.

"Don't let me rush you," she said. "Take whatever you need."

"I'm only taking what's mine."

"Of course." She set her coffee down on my desk, on her desk, and touched one of the lilies like she was checking it was real. "I hope you don't think I wanted it to happen like this. Noah just feels the pack needs someone stable right now."

"Stable," I said.

"After everything." She tilted her head. "The banquet. The Harvest Moon. You nearly fell down the Pack House steps, Lena. People talk."

I tucked the mug into the box and didn't answer. Whatever she wanted from me, a crack, a tear, a raised voice, she wasn't getting it in this room.

Serena watched me pack for a few seconds. Then she pulled a slim folder from her bag and laid it on top of the stack.

The tab read Hollow Creek Sanctuary.

My hands stopped.

I'd started that program out of a garage with two cots and a space heater. Orphaned pups no pack wanted. Omegas who'd run from mates who hit them. Now it was a converted farmhouse on the east boundary with twenty-six beds, a schoolroom, and a waiting list.

"I'd like to take this over too," Serena said. "It makes sense for the Luna's office to manage it."

"It was never under the Luna's office. It's mine."

"It's run on pack land."

"Leased pack land. Under my name."

She gave me that soft, careful look again, the one she used in front of the elders. "Lena, I'm saying this as a friend. You look exhausted. You're coughing all the time. Those kids need someone who'll actually be around." She paused just long enough for it to sting. "For the long term."

For one second, I wondered if she knew. If Noah had told her about the blood, about Elara, about the clock ticking down under my collarbone.

No. He didn't know either. I'd never gotten the chance to tell him.

I looked at the folder. I thought about the girl who'd showed up at Hollow Creek last winter with her shoes duct-taped together, and how she'd cried when I gave her a room with a lock on the inside. Serena had never once visited. Not a single time.

I could fight her for it. Drag it to the council. Make it ugly.

And while I fought, the kids would be the ones caught in the middle.

"Okay," I said.

Serena blinked. "Okay?"

"You want the program, take it." I pulled out my phone, scrolled to a contact, and put it on speaker. "Dana, it's Lena. I need you to move something today."

My accountant answered on the second ring. "Go ahead."

"Every private donor to Hollow Creek. My personal trust, the Eastwood family fund, the Carvers, the Okafors. Everyone who gave because I asked them to. Contact them about redirecting their future support to a new foundation under my name. I'll send the paperwork tonight."

Serena's smile slipped.

"That's almost ninety percent of the budget," Dana said slowly.

"I know exactly what it is."

"Where's the future funding going?"

"Somewhere it'll be used for the kids, not for a title." I ended the call and slid the phone into my pocket.

Serena's face had gone a shade paler. "You can't just pull the funding. Those pups—"

"Will be taken care of. By me." I lifted the box onto my hip. "You wanted to run the pack's program, Serena. Now you can. The building and the paperwork are still there. Have fun with the budget."

I walked out and left her standing among the lilies.

---

I was loading the last box into my trunk when a black SUV with Silvercrest plates pulled into the driveway.

Julian got out, looked at the open trunk, and raised his eyebrows.

"So it's true," he said. "You walked out of the whole pack."

"News travels fast."

"Your Beta's mate told my Beta's mate. That's faster than any council." He leaned against my car, hands in the pockets of his coat. Up close in daylight, he looked less like a rival Alpha and more like a man who hadn't slept much. "I didn't come to gossip. I came with an offer."

"If this is about river rights, I'm not in the mood."

That pulled a smile out of him. "You'd lose again anyway."

"I'd win this time."

"Probably." The smile faded. "Silvercrest is building a sanctuary on our northern border. For rogues who want to stop being rogues, Omegas with nowhere to go, pups without packs. We have the land and the money. What we don't have is anyone who knows how to make a place like that work." He looked at me steadily. "You do. I've seen Hollow Creek."

I stared at him. "You want me to run it."

"I want you to build it. Your way."

"Julian, I'm not anyone's Luna anymore."

"Good," he said. "It's not a Luna job. You wouldn't belong to me or to my pack. You'd belong to the work. You can sign a contract, you can walk away whenever you want, and nobody stands next to you on a platform."

Something loosened in my chest, and for once it wasn't the Rot.

For six years, every place I'd stood had been beside Noah. The office, the platform, the head of the table. I'd never stopped to wonder if there was a version of me that didn't need him in the room to have a reason to be there.

Apparently there was. And someone had driven two hours to offer her a job.

The front door opened behind us.

Noah came down the porch steps slowly. His right hand was still bandaged from the window. His eyes went from Julian to the boxes in my trunk, and the air around him tightened the way it had on the Pack House landing.

"Ashf—" He stopped and corrected himself, cold and formal. "Alpha. You're on my land."

"I'm in your driveway," Julian said. "I was invited. More or less."

Noah looked at me. "Were you?"

I could have lied. I could have said Julian just showed up, that it meant nothing. Instead, I turned to Julian and spoke clearly enough that there was no way Noah could miss it.

"I'll take it. The sanctuary. I'll come to Silvercrest."

Then I looked at my husband and waited.

One word. That was all. Stay. Don't. Wait. I would have taken anything. The bond said he still loved me, so I gave him one last chance to prove the bond right in daylight, out loud, in front of someone else.

Noah's jaw worked. His bandaged hand curled at his side, and I saw the gauze pull tight across his knuckles. For a moment, I swear he was going to say it.

"Silvercrest suits you better," he said.

Then he turned around and went back inside, and the door closed quietly behind him.

Julian didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

I shut the trunk. The mark on my neck burned once, hard, like something inside it had flinched.

"When can I start?" I asked.

Julian studied my face. "Whenever you're ready."

"I'm ready now," I said. "I'm not coming back to this house."