The Alpha's Fatal Choice: My Broken Mate Bond

Garrison placed the formal notice on my blanket as if he were serving a warrant to a stranger.

"Move your guards away from my door," I said.

"I can't."

"You can. You won't."

His eyes stayed on the floor. Three years earlier, I had promoted him after he refused to abandon an injured patrol partner during a rogue raid. Loyalty had once mattered to him.

Apparently loyalty had a rank limit.

"Bianca's statement was recorded at six this morning," he said. "She says she saw Elara in the service corridor before the toast."

"Elara is my maid. She works in the service corridor."

"The rogue carried Blackwood gold transferred through your household discretionary account."

I unfolded the attached evidence sheet.

The transfer bore my digital seal.

"My seal is stored in the Alpha House safe. Knox has the master override. Half the finance staff can prepare transactions for my approval."

"The rogue confessed before he died."

"To what?"

"That a woman paid him to poison Bianca."

"Did he name me?"

Garrison's silence answered first.

"He said the woman wore your office crest."

"That is not my name."

"It is enough for a tribunal."

"Not a lawful one."

He finally met my eyes. "The Alpha invoked emergency powers."

My heart gave a painful flutter. Sarah had warned me that stress could trigger arrhythmia, but anger kept me upright.

"Take me to Knox."

"Denied."

"I am still Luna until a tribunal removes me."

"You are also a suspect."

The word settled between us.

Suspect.

I wheeled myself toward the observation window at the end of the corridor. Garrison followed but did not stop me.

Below, in the courtyard, Knox walked beside Bianca.

She leaned on his arm even though Sarah's notes said the antidote had fully neutralized the venom. Theo held Bianca's hand and chattered about something that made her laugh. Knox bent to listen, his expression softer than anything he had shown in my room.

They looked like the family portrait I had spent years trying to protect.

Garrison came to stand beside me.

"The Alpha wants stability," he said.

"He wants comfort."

"Bianca brings warmth to the house."

I turned slowly. "I built the walls around that house."

"No one is denying what you contributed."

"You are guarding my hospital door while the person accusing me walks through my courtyard."

He had no response.

A cough tore through my chest. Bright blood spotted my palm.

Garrison looked uncomfortable but did not move to help.

"Doctor?" he asked.

"No."

I returned to my room and closed the door myself.

Elara arrived after dusk with clean clothes and a face swollen from crying. The guards searched her bag before letting her inside.

"They questioned me for four hours," she whispered. "They asked if you hated Bianca. They asked whether you ever said you wished she would disappear."

"What did you tell them?"

"That you ordered me to prepare the guest villa because you wanted her out of your private residence, not dead."

She reached beneath the folded clothes and pulled out a small velvet box.

"I also brought what you asked for."

Inside was my old family signet and a thin brass key.

The key opened the locked document drawer in my study. More important, it opened the private records cabinet where I had stored copies of every large household transaction.

"Did anyone see you take it?"

"No. And I copied the transaction ledger before the guards sealed your study." Elara pulled a thin flash drive from the seam of her sleeve. "The payment to the rogue appears in your account at four twelve yesterday afternoon. But your personal terminal was logged into the council budget meeting at that exact time. Deputy Clara can verify you never left the chamber."

I took the drive. "What terminal approved the transfer?"

"The record only says guest network. Whoever did it used a cloned version of your household seal."

"Can we identify the device?"

"Not from the copy I pulled. The server keeps the hardware address. Garrison has the original now."

That meant Knox's own investigators already possessed evidence that could clear me, if they bothered to follow it instead of building a story around Bianca's fear.

"Did Bianca know you were copying records?"

Elara's mouth tightened. "She asked why the east-wing router had been reset. She knew there was a network issue before the guards announced one."

A cold awareness settled through me. "Write that down. Sign it. Give Sarah a copy."

"No."

"Good."

I removed the signet and handed it back. "Keep that. If someone used my seal, I want the original out of the house."

Elara stared at me. "Are you leaving?"

"If I can prove I didn't fund that rogue."

"And if you can't?"

I looked toward the guarded door.

"Then Knox will put me on trial for surviving the murder someone else arranged."

After Elara left, I waited until the night nurse dimmed the corridor lights. Then I slid my hand beneath the mattress and pulled out the second item she had smuggled in: a one-way train ticket to the Northern Border, stamped for midnight the following night.

The Tribunal's provisional sanctuary code was printed in tiny black numbers along the bottom.

I folded the ticket once and tucked it into the lining of my hospital coat.

Before I put the ticket away, I opened the Tribunal portal on the bedside tablet and uploaded Elara's copied ledger. The system stamped it with a neutral timestamp and locked the file against later edits. If Knox's office tried to erase the guest-network trail, the Tribunal would still have the earlier version.

For five years, I had trusted pack procedure because I helped write half of it. Tonight, I trusted redundancy. If Knox wanted a tribunal, he would face a record he could not quietly reshape.

If the truth cleared me, I would walk out through the front gate.

If Knox refused the truth, I would disappear before his tribunal had the chance to bury me.