Not His Mate, But A Queen
Kaelen was supposed to be my destiny. The future Alpha of our pack, my childhood love, and my fated mate.
But one night, I smelled another woman on him—a sickly sweet Omega scent I knew all too well. I followed him and found them under the great oak, locked in a lover's kiss.
His betrayal was a slow and deliberate poison. When his precious Omega, Lyra, staged a fall, he cradled her like she was made of glass.
But when he sabotaged my saddle during a dangerous jump, causing my horse to throw me and break my leg, he called it a "warning" not to touch her. His care for me afterward was just damage control to avoid my father's suspicion.
At a public auction, he used my family's money to buy her a priceless diamond, leaving me humiliated and unable to pay.
I finally understood what I’d overheard on the pack’s mind-link days before. To him and his brothers-in-arms, I was just a "pampered princess," a prize to be won for power. Lyra was the one they truly desired.
He thought he could break me, force me to accept being second best. He was wrong. On the night of my 20th birthday, the night I was supposed to be bonded to him, I stood before two packs and made a different choice. I rejected him and announced my union with a rival Alpha, a man who sees me as a queen, not a consolation prize.
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Chapter 4
Aria POV:
The morning I was discharged, Kaelen was waiting for me outside my room, his face set in a look of practiced concern. I walked right past him without a word, my gaze fixed on the man leaning against a sleek black car at the end of the hall.
Silas.
He pushed off the car, a charming, easy smile on his face. "Ready to escape this prison, Princess?"
I managed a small, tired smile in return. Kaelen stiffened behind me, his disapproval a palpable wave in the air.
"Where are you taking her?" Kaelen demanded, his voice laced with an authority he no longer had over me.
"None of your business," Silas shot back, opening the passenger door for me. "Some of us know how to treat a lady after she's been through an ordeal."
As I settled into the plush leather seat, I ignored Kaelen's burning stare. Silas slid into the driver's seat and pulled away smoothly.
"There's a special auction tonight," Silas said, his eyes on the road. "Rare herbs, enchanted artifacts, precious stones that can soothe a wolf's spirit. My treat. Consider it a 'welcome back to the world of the walking' gift."
"Spending my father's money to impress me, Silas?" I asked, a hint of my old fire returning.
He laughed, a genuine, rich sound. "Hardly. I have my own ventures. Overseas investments. More than enough to keep a future Luna in the style she deserves."
His blatant flattery was so audacious it was almost refreshing. I found myself smiling for the first time in days. "Fine. But I'm choosing the destination."
My target was a legendary blue diamond known as the "Tear of the Moon Goddess." It was said to have calming properties, to quell the inner turmoil of a werewolf's soul. Right now, my soul felt like a raging tempest. I needed it.
The auction house was a study in opulence, filled with the elite from every major pack. Silas and I took our seats near the front. Just as I was beginning to relax, a familiar chill went down my spine.
Kaelen had just walked in. And on his arm, looking doe-eyed and innocent, was Lyra.
My jaw tightened. Of course. He wouldn't let me have one evening of peace. I knew, with a sinking certainty, exactly what was about to happen.
When the "Tear of the Moon Goddess" was presented, a hush fell over the room. It was magnificent, a flawless diamond that seemed to pulse with a soft, internal light.
Lyra's hand shot up immediately, placing a bid. Then she glanced over at me, saw the desire in my eyes, and with a practiced, martyred sigh, she lowered her hand. She whispered something to Kaelen, her expression a perfect blend of longing and self-sacrifice.
Kaelen’s face hardened. He looked directly at me, his gaze a challenge. Then he stood up, his voice ringing through the silent hall.
"My companion fancies that stone," he announced, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Whatever she wants, she gets." He then named a price so astronomically high it made the entire room gasp.
The message was clear. It wasn't about the diamond. It was about humiliation.
Every wolf in that room knew Kaelen was my intended. They knew he was the future Alpha of Silver Moon. And they were all watching as he publicly chose an Omega over his future Luna, using my family's own wealth to do it.
The whispers started, hushed and pitying. I became the joke of the night, the jilted princess. A hot, furious shame washed over me.
No. I would not let him do this to me.
I raised my paddle, my hand steady despite the trembling fury inside me. I would have that diamond. I didn't care what it cost. This was no longer about a stone; it was about my pride.
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9.3
Six years ago, my adoptive family framed me for commercial espionage, stripped me of my identity, and threw me out. Now, I finally returned to the Solis estate as a commercial pilot to take back what was mine.
But the first thing my adoptive mother did was threaten me with that forged evidence again. She demanded I take my sister Kiana's place in a marriage contract with a disabled man, simply because Kiana refused to marry him.
When I refused, Kiana ambushed me at the airport with a mob of reporters. She cried for the cameras, publicly accusing me of causing our father's and brother's deaths. She painted me as a ruthless monster who bankrupted the company and ruined the family. The crowd instantly turned on me, screaming that I was a murderer and a gold-digger. Kiana wanted to completely destroy my reputation so I would have no choice but to submit to her arrangement.
I looked at her fake tears, feeling a cold, absolute fury. How dare she use the tragic deaths of the only family members who actually loved me as a prop for her sick show? They had ruined my life once, and now they wanted to bury me alive.
I didn't hesitate. I slapped her hard across the face right in front of the flashing cameras.
"That was for my father and brother."
Then, my real fiancé, a decorated Delta Force commander, rolled through the crowd in his wheelchair. He tossed a classified Pentagon file to the reporters, completely clearing my name and exposing Kiana's lies. I married him to start my revenge, but as I stepped into his heavily secured penthouse that night, I realized my powerful new husband had been preparing for me for a very long time.
7.4
My mother was dying and desperately needed a half-million-dollar deposit for an experimental heart surgery by tomorrow.
I swallowed my pride and begged my wealthy husband, Garrick, to save her life.
Instead of helping, he laughed coldly and threw a thick stack of divorce papers right in my face.
"A hen that can't lay eggs gets slaughtered," he sneered, ruthlessly poking my flat stomach.
He revealed that his secretary, my supposed friend Lacey, was already pregnant with his heir.
To him, our three years of marriage was just a business transaction, and now that my family was bankrupt, I was nothing but damaged goods.
He flicked a humiliating five-thousand-dollar check at me as his final act of charity, then locked me out of our townhouse into the freezing, pouring rain.
I had spent years enduring agonizing hormone treatments for a fertility issue that wasn't even my fault, only to be discarded like trash when I needed him the most.
Was my dignity, my absolute devotion, and my mother's life really worth nothing to him?
Driven by pure, reckless desperation, I threw myself directly into the path of a moving Rolls-Royce Phantom on Fifth Avenue.
It belonged to Holden Tillman, the ruthless patriarch of the Tillman empire—and the uncle Garrick lived in absolute terror of.
I thought I was walking into my death, but instead, I became his fiancée, ready to make Garrick and Lacey pay for every tear I shed.
7.4
I was the wife of Damien Valenti, the most ruthless mafia Don in Chicago.
But to cement his power and marry a rival family's daughter, he exiled me to the slums without a single dime.
"Stay not as my wife, Izzy, but as my whore."
That was his final ultimatum before dumping me out of his black SUV like trash.
Terrified of losing me, my five-year-old son, Angelo, secretly hid in the car to follow me.
Two days later, in a squalid Indiana motel, Angelo caught severe pneumonia.
I had no money and no doctor. In sheer desperation, I sliced my own wrist with broken glass, pressing my bleeding arm to his pale lips, begging him to drink and live.
But my little boy died in my arms.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Damien was sipping vintage champagne with his new bride, casually dismissing the life of his own flesh and blood.
The grief turned me into a monster. I spent twenty years clawing my way through the underworld to destroy his empire, only to die with a bullet in my chest.
I gave him my absolute devotion, yet he traded our family for political power without a single ounce of hesitation.
Opening my eyes again, I was back in that hellish neon-lit motel room.
Angelo was burning with fever and fighting for air, but he was still breathing.
This time, I wasn't the naive girl who loved Damien Valenti. I was a woman holding two decades of their darkest secrets, and my vendetta had just begun.
8.6
Scarlet Underwood had always fancied herself in love with Alpha Alex, she always knew he would be the one she would get married to. It was a dream come true to finally walk down the aisle and become not only his mate but the Luna of the pack.
However, everything came crashing down when Kayla, Scarlet's best friend, claimed she was pregnant with Alpha Alex's child.
Hurt, betrayed, and angry, Scarlet runs away.
She gets attacked by rogues but is saved by Damien, the feared Lycan King, and it is painfully obvious by the sparks flying that they are mates.
Damien, the reclusive Lycan King, is unsure what to do with his mate.
He harbors a dark secret that may threaten to harm her if she chooses to stay with him, but he can't deny the burning attraction and pull he feels to her.
Will Scarlet open up her heart to the possibility of love after having been burned once?
And will Damien find a way around the curse and claim his mate?
Join Damien and Scarlet on their journey of love, sacrifice, and betrayals!!!
9.4
Dorene survived a terrifying night with a bleeding, dangerous intruder in her hotel penthouse, only to receive a far more devastating blow the next morning.
A black and gold envelope arrived. It was an engagement invitation. Her boyfriend of seven years, Kadyn, was marrying her sweet, innocent best friend, Dolly.
Refusing to hide, Dorene crashed the gala in a blood-red gown. But Dolly was ready. Grabbing Dorene's wrists, Dolly purposely threw herself backward into a tower of champagne glasses, shrieking about her stomach and her unborn baby.
"If anything happens to Dolly or my child, I swear to God, I will destroy you!"
Kadyn roared, holding the weeping Dolly in the broken glass. He didn't ask a single question. He branded Dorene a jealous monster. To completely break her dignity, he publicly handed her over to the city's most notorious, sleazy playboy just to appease Dolly's fake tears.
"Give him a shot," Kadyn told her coldly.
Seven years of love were ground into the marble floor. She was framed, publicly humiliated, and discarded like trash by the two people she trusted most.
Dorene didn't shed a single tear. She gave them a smile of pure, freezing mockery and walked out of the gilded cage into the freezing Manhattan night. She didn't know that as she left, the lethal, blood-stained man from her penthouse was watching from the shadows, ready to help her burn their world to the ground.
8.6
Book Two of the Betrayed Luna to Alpha Queen Series
Can be read as a standalone or after Book One
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"They were supposed to hate me. All four of them. But the Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes, she just has a twisted sense of humor."
-----
"Let me die free rather than live as his possession."
Those were Lyralei Ravenwood's last words before she jumped off Widow's Cliff, choosing death over marriage to a monster hiding behind a charming smile.
She should have died.
Instead, she wakes in the camp of the Four Great Alphas..the most powerful, dangerous men in the ancient werewolf world. Men who look at her with resentment. Men who make it clear she's not welcome.
The Moon Goddess sent her to unite them against a rising darkness.
But they don't want unity. They don't want her.
Lyra didn't ask to be sent anywhere. She just wanted to escape a cage.
Now she's trapped with four hostile Alphas who see her as an obligation rather than a person. Who resent every breath she takes. Who make it clear that prophecy or not, she will never command their loyalty.
But something is awakening between them. Something ancient and undeniable.
The Primordial Mate Bond-a force that links one soul to multiple Alphas, pulling them together whether they want it or not.
As shadow wolves attack and an ancient evil rises, Lyra must navigate not just war, but the far more dangerous battlefield of four hearts that were determined to hate her.
Because feelings without trust are torture.
CONTENT WARNING: This book contains mature themes including explicit sexual content, violence, death of major characters, psychological trauma, and morally complex situations. Recommended for readers 18+