While Carrying His Pup, I Severed My Alpha Bond

I slipped out of the great hall while the fire still roared and the pack was still laughing. No one noticed. They were too busy with the venison and the music and Spencer's toast about unity and strength. I pressed my hand to my belly as I walked down the corridor toward our bedroom. The secret sat warm beneath my ribs. After three years of empty healer visits and quiet tears, I was finally carrying his pup.

I wanted to see his face when I told him. I wanted to watch his eyes go wide and then soft. I wanted him to pull me close and whisper something through the mind-link that only we would hear. The mate bond hummed faintly in my chest, that constant tether between us, and I followed it like a thread pulling me home.

The bedroom door was cracked open. I pushed it wider and stopped.

Cedar and rain. His scent. But underneath it, something else. Floral. Sweet. Wrong.

Spencer was on the bed. Aylin Thompson was beneath him. Her red lace top was on the floor. Her hands were in his hair. His mouth was on her neck.

I stood there. I didn't move. I didn't breathe. My wolf howled inside me, a sound so sharp it felt like my ribs were cracking. But I didn't make a sound out loud. I just stood there and watched my mate—my Moon Goddess-fated mate—pull back from another woman's throat and meet my eyes across the room.

He didn't look guilty. He looked irritated.

"Kailani." His voice came through the mind-link before his mouth even moved. Sharp. Annoyed. "What are you doing here?"

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. Aylin sat up slowly, tugging the sheet across her chest, her eyes wide and her lips parted like she was the one who'd been hurt. Spencer shifted his body in front of hers. Shielding her. From me.

"You weren't supposed to leave the banquet," he said, still through the link. His Alpha tone bled into the edges of it, that commanding pressure that made lower-ranked wolves bare their necks. "You're making a scene."

I wasn't making anything. I was standing in a doorway. Silent. Still. But my wolf was tearing herself apart inside me, clawing at the bond, trying to understand why it wasn't broken yet. Why it was still there, humming faintly, pulling me toward the man who was sitting half-naked on our bed with someone else.

"Kailani." Out loud this time. His voice was calm. Controlled. "Close the door and go back downstairs."

I looked at Aylin. She was the daughter of the pack's former head Omega. I'd seen her around the pack house my whole life, always hovering at the edges of rooms, always watching. She looked at me now with something that wasn't quite fear. It was closer to satisfaction.

I pressed my right palm flat against my sternum. An old habit. Something I did when I needed to hold myself together. The pup was still there. Still safe. Still mine.

Spencer's eyes tracked the gesture. His jaw tightened. "Don't be dramatic," he said through the link. "You brought this on yourself."

I blinked. My throat was dry. "I brought this—"

"You've been distant," he cut in, his Alpha tone sharpening. "Cold. Unworthy of my patience. I needed someone who actually wanted to be here."

My wolf snarled. I felt her rage like fire in my veins. But I didn't shift. I didn't lunge. I just stood there and felt something inside me go perfectly, permanently still.

I made three decisions in that doorway. Keep the pup. Raise it alone. Sever the bond.

I didn't say any of it out loud. I just turned and walked away.

Behind me, I heard Aylin's soft voice. "Is she going to tell the pack?"

Spencer's answer was quiet. Confident. "She won't. She knows better."

I walked down the hall. My legs felt steady. My hands didn't shake. The bond hummed in my chest, that cruel tether still pulling me back toward him, and I hated it. I hated that my own body was trying to drag me back to the man who'd just destroyed everything.

I didn't go back to the banquet. I went to the healer's ward instead. It was quiet. Empty. I sat on one of the cots in the dark and pressed both hands to my belly. The pup was still there. Still safe. That was all that mattered.

I didn't cry. I didn't howl. I just sat there and felt the bond ache through me like a wound that wouldn't close. My wolf whimpered, confused, desperate for an explanation that made sense. But I didn't have one. The Moon Goddess had matched us. The bond was supposed to be sacred. And he'd just thrown it away for the daughter of an Omega.

I stayed in the healer's ward that night. And the next. And the next. Spencer didn't come looking for me. He installed Aylin in a guest suite and told the pack it was charity. Helping a struggling pack member. No one questioned it. No one questioned him.

I wrapped the secret of the pup around myself like armor and waited. I didn't know what I was waiting for yet. But I knew it was coming.