My Mate Chose His Trainee Over His Luna

The Denver pack hospital smelled like antiseptic and wet fur. I lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling tiles. Someone had tried to make the room less sterile by hanging a landscape painting on the wall, but all I could see were the mountains in the picture. Snow-covered peaks. Just like the ridge.

Healer Maren Calloway stood at the foot of my bed, holding a clipboard. She was older, maybe fifty, with gray streaks in her dark hair and eyes that had seen too many broken wolves to waste time on comfort.

"Your core temperature stabilized," she said. Her voice was flat. Clinical. "But the damage is extensive."

I didn't say anything. My throat felt raw, like I'd been screaming, though I didn't remember making a sound under all that snow.

Maren flipped a page on her clipboard. "The extreme hypothermia caused cellular trauma throughout your body. Your wolf took the worst of it. She tried to protect you by pulling heat inward, but she couldn't sustain the effort. The bond between your human form and your wolf has been compromised."

I blinked. The words didn't land at first. They just hovered in the air, too big to fit inside my head.

"What does that mean?" My voice came out hoarse.

Maren looked at me. Her expression didn't change. "It means your wolf will never fully stabilize. She'll flicker in and out. You may be able to shift occasionally, but it will be painful and unpredictable. Your wolf is fractured, Elena. Irreversibly."

The room tilted. I gripped the edge of the blanket, my knuckles going white.

"And the spinal injury you sustained as a teenager has worsened," Maren continued. "The trauma from the avalanche exacerbated the existing damage. Shifting will put additional strain on your spine. I don't recommend it."

I swallowed hard. "What else?"

Maren hesitated. It was the first time her clinical mask slipped, just for a second. Then she straightened her shoulders and met my eyes.

"You will not be able to carry pups."

The words hit like a physical blow. I felt the air leave my lungs.

"The damage to your reproductive system is permanent," she said. "I'm sorry."

She wasn't, though. Not really. She was a healer. She delivered bad news every day. This was just another prognosis, another file to close.

I nodded slowly. "Okay."

Maren watched me for a moment, like she was waiting for me to break down. When I didn't, she made a note on her clipboard and left.

The door clicked shut.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling, and felt the mate bond pulse. It was faint, like a heartbeat in the distance. Dallas's guilt bled through the connection, thick and suffocating. I could feel it pressing against my chest, trying to burrow its way inside me.

It made me sick.

I closed my eyes and tried to block it out, but the bond didn't work that way. It just kept pulsing. Guilt. Regret. Panic. All of it pouring into me like poison.

I wanted to rip it out.

---

Dallas came two hours later.

I heard his footsteps in the hallway before I saw him. Heavy. Uneven. He pushed the door open and stood in the doorway, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. He looked terrible. His hair was a mess, his eyes bloodshot, and his jaw was tight, like he'd been clenching it for hours.

He didn't say anything at first. He just stood there, staring at me.

I stared back.

"Elena," he finally said. His voice cracked on my name.

I didn't respond.

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "I talked to Maren. She told me—" He stopped. Swallowed. "She told me what happened. To your wolf."

I kept my face blank. "Okay."

"Elena, I—" He ran a hand through his hair, his Alpha composure fracturing. "I didn't know it would be this bad. I thought—"

"You thought what?" My voice was flat.

He flinched. "I thought you'd be okay. You're strong. You've always been strong."

I almost laughed. Instead, I just looked at him.

"Livia had the most to lose," he said suddenly. The words came out in a rush, like he'd been holding them in and couldn't keep them down anymore. "She's the future of the pack's tournament program. She's been training for years. If something happened to her, it would've—"

"I'm your mate," I said quietly.

Dallas froze.

"I'm your marked Luna," I continued. "And you left me buried in the snow."

"I didn't leave you," he said quickly. "I sent the patrol back. I called for backup. I did everything I could—"

"You gave her the harness."

He stared at me. His jaw worked, but no sound came out.

"There was one harness," I said. "And you chose her."

"It wasn't like that," he said. His voice rose, defensive. "You don't understand. If you'd seen it clearly, if you'd been thinking straight, you would've understood. Livia's young. She has her whole life ahead of her. She has potential. She—"

"She's not your mate."

Dallas stopped. His mouth opened, then closed.

I waited. I waited for him to say he was sorry. I waited for him to tell me he'd made a mistake, that he'd been panicking, that he'd do anything to take it back.

But he didn't.

He just stood there, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his face twisted with something I couldn't name. Guilt, maybe. Or frustration. Or both.

"Elena," he said quietly. "I did what I thought was right."

I looked at him. Really looked at him. And I realized I was waiting for something in his eyes that simply wasn't there.

No remorse. No recognition. No understanding of what he'd done.

Just an Alpha who believed his decisions were always justified.

I turned my head away and stared at the wall.

"Get out," I said.

He didn't move.

"Get out," I repeated. My voice was still flat. Still calm. But something in it made him step back.

He opened his mouth like he wanted to argue. Then he turned and walked out.

The door clicked shut.

I lay there in the silence, feeling the mate bond pulse one more time. And I knew, with absolute certainty, that I was done.