My Mate Ignored My Screams to Save His Mistress’s Son

Lorelei found me during my morning walk along the eastern boundary.

I had started taking these walks alone—early, before the pack house stirred, when the only sounds were birdsong and the distant rhythm of patrol wolves changing shifts. It was the only time I could breathe without performing.

She fell into step beside me without preamble, her stride matching mine. For a few minutes, we walked in silence. Then she spoke.

"I found something."

I didn't stop walking. "What kind of something?"

"The kind you're going to want to sit down for." She glanced sideways at me. "But since you won't, I'll just say it. Chelsea Diaz has debts in three different packs. Significant ones. And a pattern."

My hand drifted to my abdomen. The pup was quiet this morning. "What kind of pattern?"

Lorelei pulled a folded envelope from inside her jacket and handed it to me. "The kind where she cultivates multiple Alphas at the same time, extracts what she needs, and moves on before anyone compares notes. I talked to a Gamma in the northern territories. Chelsea was involved with his Alpha two years ago—same story. Childhood connection, hard times, a kid who needed stability. She stayed four months, cleaned out a portion of the pack treasury through 'emergency loans,' and disappeared the night before the Alpha's mate returned from a diplomatic trip."

I stopped walking. Opened the envelope. Inside were photocopies of financial records, handwritten testimonies, and a single photograph of Chelsea leaving a pack house with two suitcases in the middle of the night.

"There are two more," Lorelei said quietly. "Different packs. Same pattern. She's not a victim, Leyla. She's a strategy."

I stared at the documents. My wolf was utterly silent, which meant she was listening as carefully as I was.

"Does Weston know?" I asked.

"If he does, he doesn't care." Lorelei's voice was flat. "Or he's convinced himself it doesn't matter because the Moon Goddess told him she's part of his destiny."

I folded the papers back into the envelope and tucked it inside my jacket. "Keep watching. Don't let her know you're watching."

Lorelei's jaw tightened. "Leyla—"

"I mean it." I met her eyes. "If she realizes we're documenting, she'll adapt. And I need her to keep being exactly what she is."

Lorelei held my gaze for a long moment. Then she nodded. "Understood."

We walked back in silence. When we reached the tree line near the pack house, she paused.

"For what it's worth," she said, "I think you're the strongest wolf I've ever met. And when this is over, I'm coming with you. Wherever you go."

I didn't trust myself to speak. I just squeezed her hand once, briefly, and kept walking.

That afternoon, Eiden shifted in the main hallway.

I was coming down the stairs when I heard the commotion—a sharp yelp, the crash of something heavy hitting the floor, and then the unmistakable sound of claws on stone.

By the time I reached the bottom step, two Omegas were pressed against the wall, one clutching her arm, the other wide-eyed and frozen. In the center of the hallway stood a juvenile wolf—too large for his age, his fur patchy and ungroomed, his lips pulled back in something that wasn't quite a snarl but wasn't play either.

Eiden.

He was staring at the Omegas like they were prey.

"Shift back," I said, my voice calm and firm. Not an Alpha tone—I didn't have that authority—but the voice of a Luna who had spent five years managing volatile situations. "Eiden. Shift back now."

The wolf's head swung toward me. For a moment, I thought he might lunge.

Then Chelsea's voice came from the far end of the hall, breathless and sweet. "Eiden, baby, come here. Come to Mama."

The wolf turned. Padded toward her. Shifted back into a boy who looked far too pleased with himself.

Chelsea knelt and wrapped her arms around him, murmuring something I couldn't hear. Then she looked up at me, her eyes glassy.

"I'm so sorry, Luna. He's still learning control. It's been so hard without a proper pack to guide him."

I looked at the Omegas. One was bleeding from where she'd hit the wall. The other was trembling.

"He needs formal training," I said quietly. "A mentor. Structure. This isn't safe."

"I know." Chelsea's voice broke slightly. "I've been trying, but it's so much for one person. If only—"

"Leyla."

Weston's voice cut through the hallway. He was standing in the study doorway, his expression already set.

I turned to face him. "Weston, he shifted without control in a confined space. Two pack members were injured. If there had been pregnant she-wolves in this hall—"

"There weren't." His tone was clipped. "And Eiden is eight years old. He's learning. You're overreacting."

"I'm protecting the pack."

"You're projecting." He crossed his arms. "You're stressed about your own pregnancy, and you're taking it out on a child who's doing his best in a difficult situation."

I stared at him. My wolf was growling now, low and furious, but I kept my face completely calm.

"I see," I said.

Chelsea's voice drifted from behind me, soft and wounded. "No one has ever believed in my boy. Not his father. Not any of the packs we've been to. But Alpha Weston does. He sees Eiden's potential."

I watched Weston's expression shift—softening toward her, hardening toward me in the exact same breath.

"Go rest, Leyla," he said. "You're clearly exhausted."

I didn't argue. I turned and walked back up the stairs, my hand pressed against my abdomen, my wolf snarling inside my chest.

When I reached my chambers, I locked the door. Sat at my desk. And documented every single word.

That evening, Giuliana's encrypted message arrived.

I opened it on my private tablet, the one my father had given me years ago with security protocols even an Alpha couldn't breach.

*Preliminary legal assessment complete. Under mate-bond violation statutes, territory division will award you 80% of Ironridge holdings and majority of pack treasury. More critical: I have located Healer fertility records from your first three pregnancies. Records suggest repeated conception failures were never your biological fault. To establish this definitively, I am arranging full medical examination at independent Silvercrest healing ward under legal documentation. This will be required before rejection ceremony. Confirm your authorization.*

I read it twice. Then a third time.

My wolf went very, very still.

The failures were never mine.

I had spent five years believing my body was broken. Five years absorbing the pack's whispers. Five years protecting Weston's reputation while my own wolf weakened under the weight of that lie.

And it was never true.

I typed a single word: *Authorized.*

Then I sat back in my chair, my hand on my abdomen, and let myself feel it.

Not rage. Not yet.

Clarity.

Cold, absolute, devastating clarity.

Weston had let me believe I was barren. He had let the pack believe it. He had built his entire narrative—his prophecy, his destined heir, his divine mandate—on a foundation of my supposed failure.

And when the truth came out, it would destroy him.

I looked down at my abdomen, where the pup was beginning to stir again, and I whispered the only promise I had left.

"I will keep you safe. No matter what it costs."

Then I opened my documentation file and kept writing.