After erasing my pack identity, the betrayed alpha regretted

My fingertips grazed the parchment-like blood bond, the fifth-year creases oozing with cold coffee.

When I stormed into the Bond Hall, clutching that sodden scarlet paper, the clerk's s pupils constricted, "Ms. Lagerfelt, the system lists your bond status as... single."

"Impossible!"

"Anders and I-"

The clerk's head snapped up, a growl rumbling in his throat: "System records show Mr. Anders Trier's legal mate is Ms. Caroline Chastain."

"Her werewolf imprint matches his perfectly."

"Caroline Chastain"-the name struck like a silver-tipped icicle.

All of Black Hessen knew Anders' childhood diaries reeked of my scent; he'd fallen from a triple-tree oak while chasing my runaway familiar, breaking his wolf bone but laughing as he licked my tears.

And Caroline... merely the "stand-in" he'd claimed smelled "Five-tenths like me" during my overseas veterinary studies.

The Bond Hall's revolving door shattered into ice shards behind me. I stumbled into the downpour

My phone vibrated on the leather seat-Anders' message appeared

"Baby, canceled the North American Wolf Pact's billion-dollar hunt,"

"Bought Blood Moon roses; the cake's laced with silver honey. Want to nuzzle your ear tonight, just like our first moonlit run."

Memories sliced through the rain: at eight, his broken left arm oozed but he still smiled at sight of me; at sixteen, snowflakes dusted the white tip of his wolf as he stood beneath my window; at eighteen, he lit firecrakcers in the sky with my name in the sky?

Across the ocean, his video calls came daily,

On the cracked video screen, his irises bled into wolf-black,. "Baby," he slurred "I drank the entire pack's alchol supply. Every time I close my eyes, your scent fades... I'll howl myself to death under the next full moon."

I surprised him on my return.

Pushing open the club door, I saw him kissing a girl-her profile a Five-out-of-ten mirror of mine.

My bag thudded to the floor.

I ran, and he chased like a madman: calls, messages, standing in the rain, pleading: "It's not what you think! I missed you too much... Just hugs and kisses, I swear! Jessica, I love you to the point of madness..."

By the fifth night of rain, his wolf form had half-shifted on my doorstep. A werewolf's body should withstand torrents, but his body heat flared like a dying star, searing my palm when I pressed it to his forehead.

"Jessica..." He snarled.

"Don't send me away... I'll rip out my own throat before-"

I dragged him inside.

In the infirmary, as I applied moonwort salve to his rain-burned skin, his hands clamped around my wrist.

"Swear you'll stay," he growled.

I nodded, fool enough to believe a liar's howl.

Five moons later, Caroline Chastain walked into Anders' office wearing a glamour.

"Her parents are dying of shadow rot," Anders said.

"In our pack, we honor the Blood Oath: no wolf left behind."

When she bent to file documents, her collar shifted, revealing a scarlet mark at her nape.

Anders caught my stare.

"She's a prodigy," he said, pouring two glasses of wine.

"Fired her, and the Black Hessen pack would call us dishonorable."

I tolerated it for a season, watching her place wolfsbane in my tea, listening to Anders lie about "late-night pack meetings" while his scent lingered in her office.

Once, I found a torn pact fragment in his study, inscribed with Caroline's name. But each time I confronted him, he'd press my hand to his chest, where his heart thrummed the rhythm of our old mating call.

Until today, when the Bond Hall's system revealed the truth: he'd tied her to his soul with a blood pact, while keeping me as his public moon.

As the car pulled into the villa district, my tears had dried.

My knuckles grazed the enchanted door handle.

Through the oak, Anders' voice rumbled like distant thunder

or-then heard Anders and his friend in the living room.

"Caroline took a moonblade scratch-nothing a vial of wolfsbane salve can't fix."

His friend's words carried the heavy pant

"Stay with Jessica. The last time she smelled a lie, she shredded her dorm's oak table."

Anders lounged on the sofa.

Two buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing the edge of a scarlet mark that pulsed when he spoke: "How many times? No smoking-Caroline can smell nicotine through Five layers of silver."

He crushed the cigarette, casual.

"Alright, love-sick fool."

The friend chuckled, lowering his voice.

"Alright, love-sick fool." The friend chuckled, lowering his voice.

"But if Caroline's your true mate-, why bind yourself to Jessica? Is she more than a moonlit stand-in?"

Anders' Adam's apple bobbe

" I thought she was just a replacement, planned to dump her when Caroline returned. But after sending her away, I dreamed of her every night. I couldn't take it, so I brought her back as an beta. I can't live without Jessica, but Caroline... I can't let her go either. "

His friend sighed: "Anders, Jessica will rip out your throat if they find you've bound a secondary mate.."

Anders was silent for a long time, throat bobbing.

"Then she must never know."

I remembered this morning, his gentle kiss on my forehead. Every time he got drunk, mumbling: "Baby, I can't live without you."

How he'd hold my cold hands to his chest:

"This heart beats only for you."

All lies.