My Alpha Wanted His Mistress as Luna

Three nights before the banquet, Jared’s mother summoned me to her parlor.

Eleanor sat on a high-backed velvet armchair, tea steaming on the glass table between us. She had the same sharp, slate-grey eyes as Jared, but lacked even his thin veneer of warmth.

"Four years, Victoria," she said, resting her manicured hands over her silver cane. "Four years since you took the Luna mark, and the nursery in the east wing sits empty."

"Conception is in the hands of the Moon Goddess, Eleanor," I answered, keeping my hands folded neatly in my lap.

"Don't hide behind piety," she snapped, her chin lifting with practiced entitlement. "The pack needs certainty. Jared needs an heir. A wolfless Luna was a bitter pill for our elders to swallow, but we accepted it because Jared insisted. Now? It looks like barren rot at the head of our bloodline."

She leaned forward, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper coated in false maternal sorrow. "If you cannot confirm a pregnancy by the banquet, I will raise the question of succession before the allied Alphas. For the good of Shadowridge. You understand, don't you, dear?"

It was an ultimatum dressed as tradition. She wanted me cornered. She wanted me to weep or beg for more time.

"I thank you for your candor, Eleanor," I said evenly.

I stood, bowed my head just enough to satisfy protocol, and walked out.

The heavy oak doors clicked shut behind me. Standing alone in the carpeted hallway, I let out a single, sharp exhale. My pulse hammered in my throat, but my fingers remained steady. I walked briskly back to my office, sat behind the desk, and pulled up the banquet seating charts. I adjusted the place cards for the visiting packs, perfectly aligning every name. Every slight, every veiled threat, was just another line of data.

***

The night of the annual Pack Banquet, the Great Hall hummed with noise, laughter, and the rich scents of roasted meat and pine.

Over a hundred wolves filled the long banquet tables. To our left sat the visiting delegations—three allied Alphas, their Betas, and high-ranking elders from the northern territories. Jared occupied the Alpha throne at the center of the dais. He looked radiant, glowing with health and arrogance, casually nursing a tumbler of aged scotch.

He looked like a leader whose foundation was made of solid granite. Only I knew the stone beneath his boots was hollowed out by stolen coin.

Midway through the third course, Eleanor stood up.

The low chatter in the hall tapered off as she tapped a silver fork against her crystal goblet. She smiled warmly at the visiting dignitaries, smoothing the front of her embroidered gown.

"Allied packs, elders, brothers and sisters of Shadowridge," Eleanor began, her voice carrying effortlessly through the vaulted rafters. "We gather tonight to celebrate another year of peace and abundance. But true abundance is not measured only in full granaries or fortified borders. It is measured in tomorrow."

Beside me, Jared didn't flinch. He took another leisurely sip of scotch, his eyes fixed on the far wall.

"An Alpha’s sacred duty is to ensure the dawn," Eleanor continued, turning slowly toward the high table. The warmth left her expression, replaced by a cold, righteous glare directed squarely at me. "And that dawn requires blood. Pure blood. Strong blood."

The room grew distinctly quieter. Silverware clinked against china, then ceased altogether.

"We have waited with great patience," Eleanor said, raising her voice so every wolf in the room caught each syllable. "Four long years. Yet our pack remains without an heir. Shadowridge deserves a Luna whose wolf is strong enough to carry an Alpha’s lineage. Not an empty vessel holding our future hostage."

A suffocating hush descended over the Great Hall. A hundred pairs of eyes shifted from Eleanor to me. Pity flickered across the faces of a few elders; the visiting Alphas watched with cold, appraising interest.

Blood rushed to my ears. I parted my lips, preparing to stand and deliver a measured, chilling rebuttal that would strip the smugness from her face.

Before I could draw a breath, Jared struck.

He didn't speak aloud. He didn't turn his head. Instead, he slammed his Alpha tone straight through our mate bond.

*Kneel.*

The word ripped into my mind like a whip of raw static. It wasn't a request; it was a physical compulsion hammered directly into my central nervous system.

*Accept it,* his voice hissed across our link, ruthless and heavy with proprietary force. *Bow your head and take it.*

The sheer biological weight of an Alpha’s command crushed down on my spine. It felt like a lead anvil dropped behind my sternum. The air left my lungs in an involuntary gasp. My chair scraped backward as my balance gave out.

My knees buckled.

I dropped.

Slowly, helplessly, my body obeyed the mate bond’s violent pull. My knees struck the cold stone floor of the dais with a dull, hollow thud that seemed to echo through the dead silence of the hall.

Gasping quietly, I pressed both palms flat against the freezing slate to keep from pitching forward onto my face. My hands trembled against the stone, my knuckles white under the chandeliers. The mark on my neck burned with a foul, sickening heat—a collar tightened by the man who had sworn before the Moon Goddess to honor me.

Above me, Jared sat with his legs crossed, his profile carved from stone. He looked down at me from the corner of his eye, his expression completely neutral, offering neither mercy nor acknowledgment.

Around us, the allied Alphas looked away in second-hand embarrassment. Eleanor smiled, pleased with the total subjugation of her son's wolfless mate.

I kept my head down. I felt the chill of the floor seep into the skin of my knees. I endured the crushing weight of his command, memorizing the ache in my joints and the bitter taste of copper on my tongue.

I didn't break. I didn't shed a tear.

I simply opened the mental ledger in my mind, turned to a new page, and wrote down this moment alongside the rest.