My Mate Believed His Mistress Until I Disappeared

I sat on the floor of my quarters with Elianna's notebooks spread across my lap. Three years of her handwriting, small and precise in the margins of research data I'd spent months decoding after the attack. Not just formulas and compound ratios. Observations. The kind of things only Elianna would notice in the middle of groundbreaking work.

*Light through the east window at 6:47 a.m. has a quality like honey. Makes the sample slides look like stained glass.*

*Saw a cardinal this morning on the patrol route. First one this season. Felt like a good omen.*

*'The wound is the place where the Light enters you.' — Rumi. Thinking about this while calibrating the wolfsbane resistance markers. Wounds and healing. Same thing, maybe.*

I traced my finger over the last line. My throat felt tight.

Elianna had written these notes while developing the treatment that saved Grandma Pierce's life. The treatment Chelsea would claim credit for tomorrow if I didn't act. The treatment that had already been nominated for a Lycan Council honor under Chelsea's name.

I closed the notebook carefully and set it on top of the others. Then I stood and walked to the window. The pack grounds were dark except for perimeter lights marking the patrol routes. Somewhere out there, Richard was in his office. Or his quarters. Or wherever Alphas went when they couldn't sleep.

Lyra stirred faintly in my chest. Not a howl. Just a whisper of awareness, like she was checking to see if I was still there.

*I'm here,* I told her silently. *We're both still here.*

I pressed my thumb against my wrist. The gesture was automatic now. Muscle memory from five years of swallowing things I couldn't say.

Tomorrow morning, I would stand in front of Richard, Daniel Reyes, and Gamma Harris. I would speak the formal rejection words that would sever the bond the Moon Goddess had built between us. The words were already written in my mind, precise and clear:

*I, Skye Montgomery, reject you, Alpha Richard Pierce, as my mate.*

Ten words. That's all it took to unmake five years.

I thought about the pain. The rejection would hurt both of us — a searing, soul-deep agony that every wolf knew about and no wolf wanted to experience. Richard would feel it. His wolf would feel it. And for once, for the first time in five years, he would feel exactly what I had been carrying every single day he chose not to mark me.

I should have felt satisfaction at that thought. Or grief. Or rage.

I felt nothing.

Just a vast, cold clarity that had settled into my bones somewhere between the cold-storage vault and this moment.

I turned away from the window and began the final preparations. The encrypted files were already transferred to the off-site server. The provisional research claim was filed with the Lycan Council under my name, my methodology, my compounds. The fellowship acceptance from Silverpeak was confirmed. Mrs. Pierce's vehicle arrangement would be waiting at the northeast service gate at 0400 hours.

Everything was ready.

I sat back down with the notebooks and opened the last one. Elianna's handwriting filled the final page, dated three days before the rogue attack.

*Skye came by the lab tonight. She didn't say anything, just sat in the corner chair while I worked. I think she's lonely. I think Richard doesn't see her the way he should. I want to say something, but I don't know what. How do you tell your sister that her fated mate is failing her? How do you say that out loud without breaking something that might still be fixable?*

*Maybe it's not fixable. Maybe some bonds are fated but not meant to survive.*

*I hope I'm wrong.*

I closed the notebook and pressed it against my chest. My eyes burned, but no tears came. I'd cried enough in five years. Tonight, I needed to be clear.

"I'm going to make this right," I whispered to the empty room. To Elianna, lying in her coma three floors below. To Lyra, silent in my chest. To myself. "I'm going to make all of it right."

I stood and packed the notebooks into the duffel bag with the rest of my essential belongings. Then I lay down on the narrow bed, fully clothed, and stared at the ceiling.

Sleep didn't come. I didn't expect it to.

I just counted. Every detail Chelsea had confessed in the cold-storage vault. Every crime. Every manipulation. Every word.

I counted them because tomorrow, when I severed the bond, I would need to remember why.

I counted them because memory was the only weapon I had left.

And I counted them because somewhere in this pack house, Daniel Reyes was pulling financial records related to the rogue attack. Mrs. Pierce was filing her own calculations. And the structure Richard had built on guilt and blindness was already fracturing in ways he couldn't see yet.

I pressed my thumb against my wrist one final time.

Then I closed my eyes and waited for dawn.