My Alpha Rejected Me While I Carried His Pup

The dining hall still smelled like my cooking.

I stood at the threshold with Analia's breakfast tray balanced on my palms, and the scent hit me before I could brace for it: rosemary, venison fat, the faint char of wood smoke from the hearth. I'd spent eight years perfecting those recipes. I'd learned which herbs Damian's recovering wolf responded to best, which cuts of meat settled easiest after a long patrol. I'd hand-ground the spices myself.

Now I carried a plate of poached eggs to the woman sitting in my chair.

The pack was already assembled. Morning meal. Ranked wolves filled the long tables — Betas at the head, Gammas and Deltas spreading down the sides. The fire crackled in the stone hearth. Sunlight poured through the windows I'd chosen when we renovated this wing, the ones that caught the eastern light just right.

Damian sat at the center of the head table. Analia was beside him, in the Luna's seat. Her hand rested on the armrest I used to grip when pack disputes ran long and my patience wore thin. She looked comfortable. At home.

I walked forward. My footsteps were quiet. No one looked up.

I set the tray down in front of Analia without a word. She glanced at it, then at me, her expression pleasant and empty.

"Thank you," she said sweetly. Loud enough for the table to hear.

I stepped back.

Damian reached over and plucked a piece of toast from her plate. He bit into it, chewed, swallowed. His hand settled on the back of Analia's neck — fingers spread wide, thumb pressing against the spot where a mate mark would sit if he'd bitten her. He hadn't. Not yet. But the gesture was clear.

He fed her a bite of egg from his own fork.

The pack watched. Some pretended not to. Others stared openly, their eyes flicking between Damian's hand on Analia's neck and my face. I kept my expression blank.

Damian finally looked at me. His gaze was flat. Dismissive.

"Omega scraps," he said, gesturing at the tray. "This is what you're serving now?"

I'd made those eggs myself an hour ago. Poached them in the broth I'd simmered overnight, the way he used to like. The toast was from the batch I'd baked yesterday before the Banquet, before everything broke.

I said nothing.

Analia laughed. It was light. Musical. The kind of laugh that sounded like wind chimes and felt like a blade.

"It's fine," she said, touching Damian's wrist. "She's doing her best."

The implication hung in the air: that my best was barely adequate. That I was trying and failing. That this was charity.

I pressed my left hand flat against my thigh. The scarred one. The pressure helped.

Around the hall, wolves who had called me Luna three days ago looked away. No one spoke. No one moved.

I turned and walked back toward the kitchens. Behind me, Damian's voice rose in conversation with his Beta. Easy. Relaxed. The sound of a man unburdened.

I pushed through the kitchen door and stopped.

My hands were shaking again.

---

The Luna suite had been mine for eight years.

I'd painted the walls myself the summer after Damian's memory started coming back. Soft gray-blue, the color of early morning sky. I'd planted the herb garden on the balcony — rosemary, thyme, mint, the wild sage that grew best in partial shade. I'd chosen every piece of furniture, every lamp, every curtain.

Now it was Analia's.

I could see the changes from the corridor. The door stood half-open. Inside, the furniture had been rearranged. The reading chair I used to curl up in was gone. The small desk where I'd kept pack records had been pushed against the far wall. The curtains were drawn back differently, letting in harsher light.

The herb garden was still there. But someone had pulled up half the plants and replaced them with decorative flowers. Roses. Peonies. Showy, fragrant things that served no purpose.

I stood in the doorway and looked at the bed.

New sheets. Deep red, like Analia's dress at the Banquet. The quilt I'd made — hand-stitched over two winters, each square a different phase of pack history — was folded at the foot, half-hidden under a fur throw I didn't recognize.

Analia stepped out of the bathing room. She was wrapped in a silk robe, her hair damp and loose. She saw me and smiled.

"Oh good," she said. "I need you to take these down to the laundry." She gestured at a pile of clothes on the floor. My clothes. The ones I'd left in the closet.

"And the dog," she added, her tone light. "The smell is making me nauseous. I know it's not his fault, but with the pregnancy — I just can't have him here."

I looked past her, toward the corner where Barnaby's bed used to sit.

It was gone.

"Where is he?" My voice came out steady.

"Damian had him moved to the kennels this morning," Analia said. She sat down at the vanity — my vanity — and began brushing her hair. "But honestly, even that's too close. The scent carries. Could you arrange to have him rehomed? Somewhere far from the pack house?"

She met my eyes in the mirror. Her expression was pleasant. Concerned, even.

"I'm sure you understand," she said softly. "It's for the pup."

I understood.

I understood that this was not about the dog. It was about erasing the last piece of my life that had nothing to do with Damian, nothing to do with the bond, nothing to do with rank or duty or the role I'd played. Barnaby had been mine. Just mine.

Something cracked.

Not loudly. Not visibly. But I felt it — a fissure opening somewhere deep, in a place I'd kept carefully sealed for eight years.

I pressed my scarred hand against the doorframe.

"I'll take care of it," I said.

Analia smiled. "Thank you. You're so helpful."

I left before she could say anything else.

---

Maren found me in the kennels an hour later.

Barnaby was in the last pen, curled on a thin blanket. He lifted his head when he saw me and his tail thumped once, uncertain. I knelt and pressed my face into his fur. He smelled like himself — warm, familiar, uncomplicated.

"I need you to do something," I whispered.

Maren crouched beside me. She was small, scarred across one cheek from an old challenge she'd lost. She'd been Omega longer than I'd been Luna. She was the only wolf in this house who still looked me in the eye.

"Anything," she said quietly.

"Get him out. Tonight. There's a family two territories over — they owe me a favor. Take him there. Tell them I sent you."

Maren's hand settled on my shoulder. "And you?"

I looked at her. "I'll follow soon."

She didn't ask how. She just nodded.

I stayed with Barnaby until the sun started to set. Then I stood, pressed my hand one last time against the doorframe to steady myself, and walked back toward the pack house.

Behind me, Maren murmured something soft to the dog.

I didn't let myself look back.

---

The Pack Run feast was three days later.

I stood in the serving line with the other Omegas, ladling stew into bowls while the ranked wolves gathered around the long outdoor tables. The night was clear and cold. Firelight danced across the clearing. Laughter rose and fell in waves.

Damian sat at the head table with Analia tucked against his side. His hand rested on her belly now, openly possessive. She was glowing. Radiant. Every inch the Luna.

I kept my head down and served.

Then Analia's voice cut through the noise.

"Theodora, come here."

I looked up. She was smiling. Waving me over.

I set down the ladle and walked to the head table.

"Show them your shoulder," Analia said brightly. "The scar. I was just telling everyone about it."

I froze.

Analia tilted her head, her expression curious and kind. "It's from the rogue attack, right? The one where Damian lost his memory? I heard you got hurt."

The clearing went quiet.

I said nothing.

"It's huge," Analia continued, her voice light. "I saw it the other day. I've just been wondering — was it from something heroic? Or…" She trailed off, laughing softly. "I mean, no judgment. Sometimes people just get in the way during fights."

Damian glanced at my shoulder. I was wearing a loose tunic, but the scar was visible at the neckline — the thick, puckered tissue where the beam had crushed me in wolf form when I'd shifted to shield him.

He waved a hand dismissively. "She was always getting in the way."

The pack laughed.

Not everyone. But enough.

I stood there, my left hand pressed flat against my thigh, and felt the phantom ache of shifting — the memory of my wolf surging forward to take the blow meant for him, the crack of bone, the weight of the beam, the two claws I'd lost when my paw was pinned.

Damian had forgotten.

Or he'd decided it didn't matter.

I turned and walked back to the serving line.

Behind me, Analia's laugh rang out again, bright and musical.

I picked up the ladle.

My hands didn't shake.

But something inside me — something I'd kept carefully locked for eight years — finally, quietly, let go.