My Alpha Poisoned Our Pups

Lorelai moved into the Luna suite forty-eight hours after the rejection ceremony. I knew because I could hear the furniture being dragged across the floor above me—heavy, deliberate scrapes that echoed through the pack house like nails on stone.

They'd relocated me to a room near the service corridor. It was small. Clean. The kind of space you'd give to an omega who worked in the kitchens. The window faced the laundry yard. I could smell bleach and detergent every time the wind shifted.

I didn't unpack. I kept my clothes folded in the corner and my mother's quilt on the bed. Buster slept on the floor beside me, his grey muzzle resting on his paws. He was ten years old. My father had given him to me before he died. Buster wasn't a full wolf—he was a wolf-dog, the offspring of a shifted wolf and a domestic breed—but he'd been mine longer than anything else in this pack.

He was the only thing I had left that Jace hadn't touched.

I came back to the room on the third evening and found him convulsing on the floor.

The bowl by the door was overturned. Chunks of raw meat were scattered across the stone. Silver-laced foam flecked his muzzle. His body was rigid. His legs kicked in spasms that looked like running but weren't.

I dropped to my knees. My hands found his ribs. His heart was hammering so fast I couldn't count the beats.

"Buster," I whispered. "Buster, stay with me."

His eyes rolled toward me. They were clouded. Unfocused. But he saw me. I know he saw me.

I scooped him into my arms and ran.

The pack house hallways blurred. I didn't register faces. I heard voices calling after me but I didn't stop. The infirmary was on the second floor. I took the stairs two at a time. Buster's weight was nothing. He felt hollow.

Sable was at her desk when I burst through the door. She looked up, startled, then stood quickly when she saw what I was carrying.

"Luna—"

"He's been poisoned," I said. My voice was shaking. "Silver. In his food. You need to treat him now."

Sable's face went carefully blank. That blankness again. The same expression she'd worn in the infirmary three days ago.

She gestured to the examination table. I laid Buster down as gently as I could. His body was still seizing. Foam dripped from his mouth onto the metal surface.

Sable worked quickly. She administered a sedative. She checked his gums, his eyes, his heartbeat. She did not ask me where the silver came from. She did not write anything down.

"I'll do what I can," she said quietly.

I stood at the edge of the table with my hands pressed flat against the metal. Buster's breathing was shallow. Erratic. His ribs rose and fell in stuttering jerks.

"Please," I said.

Sable didn't look at me. She prepared another injection. Her hands were steady.

Buster died at 11:47 that night. His body went rigid one final time, then slack. His eyes stayed open. Fixed on my face.

I sat on the infirmary floor with his cooling body in my lap and did not make a sound.

Sable left the room. She did not offer condolences. She did not document the silver content. She simply walked out and closed the door behind her.

I stayed there until dawn. My hands were buried in Buster's fur. It was still soft. Still warm in places. I memorized the pattern of grey and white across his shoulders. The scar on his left ear from a fight with a rogue when he was three. The way his paws smelled like dust and grass.

When the sun came up, I carried him to the edge of the forest and buried him myself. The ground was hard. My hands bled. I didn't care.

I went back to the room near the service corridor and retrieved the meat from the overturned bowl. I wrapped it in cloth and put it in my pocket.

Then I walked to Jace's office.

He was at his desk when I entered. Gareth stood beside him, reviewing a stack of patrol reports. They both looked up.

I closed the door behind me. My hands were shaking. I pulled the cloth-wrapped meat from my pocket and set it on the desk.

"Lorelai poisoned Buster," I said. My voice was steadier than I expected. "This is the meat she left in his bowl. It's laced with silver. He died last night."

Jace looked at the cloth. He did not unwrap it. He did not touch it.

"Teagan," he said. His voice was calm. Patient. The tone you'd use with a child throwing a tantrum. "Buster was old. He was dying anyway. You need to stop—"

"She poisoned him," I said again. Louder this time. "She put silver in his food and left it in my room. You need to—"

"Enough."

The word hit me like a physical blow. My mouth snapped shut. My body went rigid. The Alpha tone pressed down on me like a hand around my throat.

Jace stood. He walked around the desk and stopped in front of me. His aura filled the room—heavy, suffocating, absolute.

"You will stop embarrassing this pack," he said quietly. "The animal was already dying. You're making a scene over nothing. Do you understand?"

I couldn't speak. My body wouldn't let me. The Alpha tone had locked my jaw.

My wolf slammed against the inside of my chest. She'd been quiet since the infirmary. Silent since the rejection. But now she was awake and she was furious. She clawed at my ribs. She howled inside my skull. The sound was so loud I thought my head would split.

But the Alpha tone crushed her. It pressed down on her the way it pressed down on me. She fought. She snarled. She tore at the compulsion with everything she had.

And then she went silent.

Not sleeping. Not resting. Silent in a way that felt permanent.

Something inside me cracked. Not my bond. That was already broken. This was something else. Something deeper.

My eyes went flat. Dead. I looked at Jace and felt nothing.

"I understand," I said.

My voice was hollow. Empty. It didn't sound like mine.

Jace nodded. He stepped back. The Alpha tone lifted.

I turned and walked out of his office. I left the cloth-wrapped meat on his desk. I did not look back.

Gareth's voice followed me into the hallway. "Alpha, should I—"

"Leave it," Jace said. "She'll calm down."

I walked back to the room near the service corridor. I sat on the bed with my mother's quilt pulled around my shoulders. My hands were still shaking. My wolf was still silent.

I pressed my thumbnail into my palm until I felt the skin break.

The pain was small and sharp and real.

I added two items to my list: silver-laced meat, cloth-wrapped. Witness testimony, none.

Then I sat in the dark and waited for whatever came next.