My Mate Rejected Me for His Mistress

The morning sun hit the pack house stones like cold grease. Downstairs, servants hurried back and forth with floral garlands and silver tableware for the Ascension banquet. Nobody looked at me. To them, I was just Anya—the quiet Omega who cleaned the hearths and kept the kitchen receipts straight.

Being invisible is a curse right up until the second it becomes a weapon.

At eight o'clock, I walked into the pack administration hall carrying a stack of yellow grocery receipts and my household ledger. The clerk at the front desk barely glanced up from his coffee.

"Just reconciling the kitchen and pantry accounts for the Alpha's transition," I said softly, my voice small and meek.

He waved a dismissive hand toward the heavy oak filing cabinets along the back wall. "Take your time. Just don't mix up the quarters."

"I won't," I murmured.

I slipped past the iron gates and moved straight to the third row, second drawer. The official Ironveil Pack treasury files.

My fingers pressed against the scarred vein on my left wrist to steady the faint tremor in my hands. Then, I pulled the thick quarterly binder and opened my own worn notebook beside it.

Line by line, I matched them.

Every single dollar I had poured into Wesley’s household over the past three years came from sixteen-hour shifts at the bakery and the small textile mill in town. In his father’s books, my money had been logged as *Voluntary Omega Tithe*.

In the pack's main treasury, however, Wesley had pulled matching amounts out forty-eight hours later under vague, generic labels: *Tactical Reserve Contingency*, *Border Perimeter Maintenance*, and *Liaison Discretionary*.

Nine hundred dollars on June fourth.

One thousand four hundred on July tenth.

Two thousand eight hundred on August second.

The numbers clicked together like teeth on a zipper. The dates of his "perimeter repairs" matched the exact invoices for cedar timber, plumbing fixtures, and imported granite shipped to the lakeside cabin. He wasn't just using pack money to keep his mistress. He was taking my actual blood money, washing it through Ironveil's books, and laying marble floors for another woman to walk on.

My breath came slow and shallow. I took my pen, copied down the transaction codes, the bank wire references, and the forge-stamped signatures, and pressed the copies flat between the pages of my notebook.

"You're digging deep for grocery bills, Anya."

The voice was low, rough, and right behind me.

My heart gave a hard thump, but I didn't jump. I closed the ledger with deliberate care and turned around.

Ronan Voss stood three paces away. He was Wesley's Beta—broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed, and carrying the calm, steady weight of a real warrior. He wore his formal dress uniform, but his posture was loose. His eyes dipped to the treasury ledger resting under my forearm, then climbed to my face.

He didn't yell. He didn't summon the guards.

"Beta Voss," I said, keeping my chin level. "The numbers were off."

"I know," he replied quietly.

I blinked, waiting for the trap.

Ronan crossed his arms, leaning back against the row of iron filing shelves. "Wesley’s requisition requests cross my desk before they reach the council. Half the patrol routes on the eastern ridge haven't had new cold-weather gear in two winters because the funding vanished into thin air."

His gaze hardened, dark with disgust. "I knew where it was going. But a Beta doesn't have the legal standing to challenge an Alpha's heir without formal cause. Not without tearing the pack apart from the inside."

"And an Omega has even less," I said.

"Usually," Ronan said. He stepped forward, closing the distance between us by half a foot, his voice dropping to a whisper meant only for me. "Wesley thinks you're going to bow your head tonight. He thinks you'll stand beside him on the dais, take the public collar, and let him lock you in the cellar while Lydia wears the Luna crest."

He paused, holding my eyes until I saw the cold fire burning in his.

"If you take this before the Lycan Council delegates tonight," Ronan said evenly, "I will not stand with him. I will take the witness stand. I will swear under blood oath to every line item in those files."

My chest hitched once. It was the first time in three years a wolf in this pack had looked at me and seen a person instead of dirt.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because Ironveil deserves an Alpha," Ronan said. "Not a thief."

He didn't wait for a reply. He turned on his heel and walked out into the corridor, his boots clicking sharply against the polished marble.

I took a slow, steadying breath. I opened the back page of my notebook and wrote his name beneath Maren’s: *Beta Ronan Voss — Attesting Witness.*

***

By two in the afternoon, the pack house had emptied. Wesley and Lydia had driven out to the Thornfield border for a pre-ceremony social luncheon with her family's delegates.

I waited until their black SUV cleared the main gate, then took the dirt utility path toward the lake.

The cedar cabin sat in quiet sunlight, the surface of the water rippling like dark glass. I didn't break a lock. Wesley kept a spare brass key tucked beneath a fake stone by the back porch steps—the same trick he used at our quarters when he forgot his wallet.

The front door swung open without a sound.

The place smelled suffocatingly of spiced vanilla, expensive perfume, and Wesley’s cedarwood. It made my stomach twist, but I forced my feet forward. I had twenty minutes before their lunch ended.

I went straight to the master bedroom.

Lydia’s wardrobe spilled across the king-sized bed—dresses bought with pack funds, silk robes, leather boots. I walked past them to the vanity mirror. There were three shallow drawers on the right. I pulled the bottom one all the way out, reached into the hollow space behind it, and felt the faint seam of a false plywood base.

My fingers caught the edge and lifted.

Inside lay a slim, maroon leather notebook.

I flipped it open. It wasn't written in standard ledger script. It was a private cipher, half human shorthand and half Thornfield pack dialect. But the numbers didn't lie. Columns of deposits, bank routing numbers, and dates. Alongside them were notes written in a woman’s sharp, slanted handwriting: *W.H. monthly allowance. Cabin timber. Transfer from Ironveil North.*

On the very last page, there was an entry from three days ago: *Wire cleared. Final balance for the run.*

Lydia wasn't planning on staying in Ironveil forever. She was bleeding Wesley dry before his ascension was even signed into law.

I pulled out my phone, stepped into the shaft of daylight near the window, and photographed every single page. One by one. The date stamps, the signatures, the totals. When I finished, I slid the book back into its hiding spot and pressed the false bottom flush.

I turned to leave, but caught a glimpse of something dark on the armchair near the door.

Wesley’s heavy wool scarf.

I stepped over and picked it up. The wool was thick with his cedar-and-rain scent, but layered so heavily with Lydia’s slick, musky pheromones that it was undeniable. Any Council hound could smell the mated rut on it from fifty feet away.

I pulled an airtight, scent-proof evidence pouch from my jacket, shoved the scarf inside, and pulled the zipper tight until it clicked.

I stepped out of the cabin, locked the door, and slipped the key back into the dirt.

The sun was dropping behind the ridge now, casting long, sharp shadows through the pines. In four hours, the Ascension Ceremony would begin.

Wesley thought he was crowning himself king tonight.

He had no idea I was bringing the guillotine.