My Alpha Used Wolfsbane to Steal My Wolf

Dawn came cold and grey. I woke before the sun, my thumb already pressed against my wrist, and lay still in the dark. Somewhere beyond the pack house walls, the border patrol was changing shifts. I heard the distant howl—routine, unremarkable. I wondered if Pierce Coleman was out there. I wondered if he'd found the package.

I couldn't afford to wonder. I got up.

By mid-morning, the visiting delegates had arrived—three allied packs, their Alphas and Lunas filling the main hall with the scent of foreign territory and political posturing. The ceremony was two days away. Tradition required Remington to present me with ceremonial jewelry today, in front of witnesses, as a public declaration of my status.

I stood at the back of the hall and watched the room fill. Victor Crane was near the front, his Beta authority keeping the seating organized. Dorian Walsh stood by the entrance, arms crossed, scanning faces with the flat efficiency of a career soldier. Hallie sat at Remington's right, wearing a dress I'd never seen before—deep blue, cut to display the hollow of her throat where no mark sat yet.

Remington called the room to order. His voice carried easily, warm and commanding, the Alpha everyone wanted to believe in. "We gather today to honor tradition," he said, smiling at the delegates. "Before the Moon Goddess and our allied packs, I present my mate with the symbol of her place at my side."

He gestured. I walked forward.

The room watched. I felt every gaze like a weight on my skin. I reached the front and stopped three feet from Remington, the distance we'd practiced. He didn't meet my eyes. He reached into a velvet box on the table and withdrew a chain—thin, silver, unremarkable.

He stepped forward and fastened it around my throat.

The burn started immediately. Low, constant, the familiar sting of wolfsbane-laced metal against skin. I'd felt it before—the birthday gift, the cuff he'd given me last winter—but this was worse. This was meant to be worn in public, displayed, a brand I couldn't remove without his permission.

I didn't flinch. I smiled instead—the smile I'd perfected over three years, the one that looked like gratitude and cost me everything.

"Thank you, Alpha," I said quietly.

Remington's hand lingered at my nape for half a second, his thumb pressing just hard enough to remind me he could. Then he stepped back and addressed the room. "My mate is honored to serve this pack."

Applause. Polite, measured, the sound of wolves who knew how to perform approval. I stood there with the chain burning and my thumb pressed hard against my wrist beneath the table's edge, cataloguing faces. The Luna from the northern pack looked uncomfortable. The southern Alpha's Beta was watching Remington, not me, his expression unreadable. Victor Crane's jaw was tight again.

I memorized it all.

When the hall finally emptied, I returned to my room and stood in front of the mirror. The chain sat against my collarbone, a thin line of silver that looked almost delicate. Beneath it, my skin was already flushed pink, the beginning of a burn that would darken by tomorrow.

I took a photograph. Added it to the file. Then I pressed a cold cloth against my throat and breathed through the sting.

That evening, I walked past Remington's private quarters on my way to the kitchens. The door was ajar—carelessly, as though my presence had never registered as something worth securing against.

I should have kept walking. I didn't.

Through the gap, I saw them. Remington stood behind Hallie, fastening something around her neck—delicate, glinting, unmistakable. The moonstone pendant. The traditional Luna's stone, the one that should have been mine if any of this had ever been real.

His lips brushed her throat. "Soon, Luna," he murmured.

Hallie's eyes slid to the door. She saw me.

She smiled—slow, deliberate, the same sweetness she'd worn in the main hall when I knelt to clean coffee. She didn't pull away from Remington. She leaned back into him instead, her hand coming up to touch the pendant, her gaze holding mine.

I stood there for three full seconds. Long enough to let her see that I wasn't broken. Long enough to let her think she'd won.

Then I turned and walked away.

Behind my ribs, my wolf snarled—louder now, insistent, pressing against the cage the wolfsbane had built. Heat flooded my chest, sharp and furious, and for a moment I thought I might shift right there in the hallway.

*Not yet,* I whispered.

The wolf pushed harder. I felt her—not a voice, not quite, but a presence. Rage and recognition and something that felt almost like laughter.

*Soon.*

I made it back to my room and locked the door. My hands were shaking. I pressed both palms flat against the wall and breathed until the trembling stopped.

Two days. I had two days to hold this together.

Outside my window, the border patrol howled again—routine, distant. But this time, I thought I heard something else beneath it. A second call, deeper and unfamiliar. A Lycan's howl, maybe, or just the wind.

I didn't know. I couldn't afford to hope.

I sat on the edge of my bed and opened the journal one last time. I didn't write anything new. I just read the last entry, the one I'd written three days ago after finding the collar.

*I will not survive tomorrow. I will win it.*

I closed the book and set it aside. Then I lay down, the silver chain burning against my throat, and waited for dawn.