My Mate Gave Our Baby to His Mistress

Dexter came to me three days after our dinner conversation, his face carefully neutral in that way that meant he'd already made a decision and was simply informing me of it.

"I had Soren run a private evaluation," he said. We were in his study, door closed. "Kinslee's scent markers are... inconsistent with Lycan bloodline standards."

I looked up from the territorial documents I'd been reviewing—real ones this time, to sell the performance. "What does that mean?"

"It means she won't pass the Council's verification." He said it flatly, like discussing a failed crop yield. "We need an alternative."

I set my pen down slowly. "Alternative?"

"The Omega quarters child. Novalee." He crossed his arms, leaning against the desk. "She's young, manageable. We present her as a ward of your household for the observation period. Just temporarily. The Council envoy won't know the difference."

Beneath the table, I pressed my nails into my palms so hard I felt skin break.

"You want me to claim an Omega child as my ward?" I kept my voice uncertain, not resistant. Just... processing.

"For seven days." His tone carried that sub-frequency pressure, not quite compulsion but close. "It's administrative. A formality. Once the territory transfers, we return her to the quarters and no one's the wiser."

I looked down at the documents. Let silence stretch.

"Lillian." His hand touched my shoulder. "Three hundred acres. Prime packland. We're not losing that because Kinslee's scent profile isn't cooperating."

I exhaled slowly, like I was surrendering to logic I didn't quite like. "If we do this... pack protocol requires a legitimate custody trail. The Council will audit the paperwork."

"So we file it properly."

"Which means a mandatory observation period." I pulled out the forged documentation, pointing to a clause I'd written myself two nights ago. "Seven days. The child has to reside in the Luna's private quarters to establish legal guardianship for the envoy's review."

Dexter barely glanced at the page. His eyes caught on 'seven days' and 'legal guardianship' and stopped reading.

"Fine. Draw up the transfer documents."

"You'll need to sign them," I said quietly. "For the Council registry."

"Then bring them here."

I did. Three pages, dense with legalese I'd spent hours crafting to look sufficiently bureaucratic and boring. Dexter signed on the second page without reading past the header. His signature was quick, careless, already thinking about the acres.

I took the documents with steady hands and walked them directly to Karla's office.

She looked at the signature, then at me.

"File it," I said. "Council registry. Immediately."

She was out the door in thirty seconds.

I stood in the empty office and counted my heartbeats until they slowed.

Then I went back to the pack house and prepared the Luna's quarters.

They brought Novalee at dusk.

An Omega attendant I didn't recognize carried her in like a parcel—not cruel, just efficient. The woman set the child down in the center of the sitting room, gave a brief nod, and left without a word.

Novalee stood exactly where she'd been placed. Small. Watchful. Utterly still.

I closed the door and turned the lock. Not to trap her. To keep everyone else out.

For a long moment, neither of us moved.

Then I knelt. Slowly. Until I was at her height.

"My name is Lillian," I said softly. "You're going to stay here for a little while."

She stared at me with eyes too old for a four-year-old face. Calculating. Waiting for the other thing. The thing that always came after adults used soft voices.

I didn't reach for her. Didn't smile. Just stayed where I was, kneeling, hands loose in my lap.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

No response.

"There's food in the next room. And a bed. You can use them whenever you want."

Still nothing.

I stood slowly and walked to the small table near the window, where I'd set out bread, cheese, sliced fruit. I poured water into a cup and left it there. Then I moved to the far side of the room and sat in the armchair, giving her space.

Novalee didn't move for five full minutes.

Then she walked to the table. Not directly—she circled it first, checking angles, making sure I wasn't between her and the door. When she reached the water, she drank in desperate, gulping swallows, like someone who'd learned liquid didn't come reliably.

I watched her pockets bulge as she stuffed bread crusts into them. Watched her glance at me after each piece, waiting for me to stop her.

I didn't move.

She ate three slices of cheese standing up, never sitting, never relaxing.

When she was done, she retreated to the corner farthest from me and sank down onto the floor, back against the wall, knees pulled to her chest.

I stayed in the chair.

An hour passed. Then two.

At some point I stood and moved a blanket and pillow to the floor near her corner—not close, just within reach. Then I returned to the chair.

"The bed's softer," I said quietly. "But you can sleep wherever feels safe."

Her eyes tracked me. Still calculating.

I dimmed the lights and settled into the chair with a book I didn't read.

Sometime after midnight, I heard her breathing even out. I looked over. She'd pulled the blanket around herself but stayed on the floor, curled tight, one hand clutching the fabric like it might be taken.

I set the book down and crossed the room. Slowly. Quietly.

I knelt beside her.

In sleep, her face looked even younger. The watchfulness gone, just exhaustion and something that might have been peace if peace were something she'd ever known.

I reached toward her arm where her sleeve had ridden up.

Wolfsbane scars. Layered. Old burns over older burns, a systematic pattern that spoke of years, not accidents.

My wolf slammed into my consciousness like a battering ram.

My vision went white. My eyes blazed silver—I felt the light, felt the heat, two full seconds of uncontrolled Lycan fire I couldn't suppress.

And inside my head, for the first time in seven years, my wolf spoke.

*Daughter.*

The word was a roar and a whisper and a grief so vast I couldn't breathe around it.

I pressed my hand over my mouth to keep the sound in. Forced my eyes closed. Forced the silver back down, back down, not yet, not yet.

When I could see again, Novalee was still asleep.

I sat on the floor beside her in the dark, my hand hovering over her small shoulder, not quite touching.

"I'm here," I whispered. "I'm here now."

She didn't wake.

But somewhere deep in my chest, my wolf—dormant, broken, silent for seven years—unfurled like a blade.

And began to sharpen.