After My Alpha Betrayed Me, I Took His Pack

I stood in front of the full-length mirror in our bedroom—*his* bedroom, really, though the pack still called it ours—and smoothed the silk of my gown one last time. Deep emerald green, the color Jackson once said made my eyes look like cut glass. I'd chosen it deliberately. Tonight was our fifth mating anniversary, and I intended to look every inch the Luna he'd married.

The dining table downstairs was set with precision: candles that cost more than most pack members spent on groceries, wine from the cellar he thought I didn't know he kept locked, and a meal I'd overseen personally because I no longer trusted our kitchen staff not to gossip. The anniversary gift I'd wrapped sat beside his plate—cufflinks engraved with the pack insignia, because sentimentality had stopped working on Jackson Moreno years ago, but vanity never failed.

I checked my phone. He was twenty minutes late.

My wolf stirred uneasily in the back of my mind, a low whine I felt more than heard. *He's not coming*, she murmured, and I silenced her with the practiced ease of someone who'd been having this conversation for longer than I cared to admit.

"He'll be here," I said aloud to the empty room, my voice steady. I didn't believe it, but I said it anyway.

Another ten minutes passed before I heard the front door open. I didn't move from my seat at the table. I'd learned not to rush to greet him—it only made the disappointment land harder.

Jackson walked into the dining room still wearing his patrol jacket, dirt on his boots, and that look on his face I'd come to recognize as guilt wearing the mask of authority. He met my eyes for a fraction too long—his tell, the one he didn't know I'd catalogued within our first year together—and I felt something cold and familiar settle in my chest.

"Border patrol picked up rogue scent near the eastern perimeter," he said, his voice carrying that alpha command that worked on everyone but me. "I need to handle it personally."

I didn't blink. "On our anniversary."

"It's urgent, Adalee." He was already turning toward the door, as though the conversation was over simply because he'd decided it was. "I'll make it up to you."

The candles flickered between us, their light catching on the untouched plates and the gift I'd wrapped with hands that hadn't trembled even once.

"Of course," I said softly. "Go."

He hesitated—just for a second—and I wondered if some part of him wanted me to fight, to demand he stay, to give him an excuse to justify what he was about to do. But I'd stopped performing that role a long time ago.

The door closed behind him with a sound like a period at the end of a sentence.

I sat in the silence for exactly sixty seconds, counting each one, before I pulled out my phone and opened the encrypted message thread I kept with Dara Osei, my most trusted Beta.

*Where is he?*

Her response came within moments. Dara didn't ask questions I didn't want to answer, which was why I trusted her with things I trusted no one else with.

*The Howling Moon. VIP section. He's not alone.*

I stared at the screen until the words stopped looking like words and started looking like confirmation of something I'd known for years.

I stood, smoothed my gown one last time, and walked out of the house without bothering to blow out the candles.

---

The Howling Moon was loud, crowded, and reeked of spilled beer and wolf musk—the kind of place Jackson used to complain about before he started spending his Friday nights there. I stepped through the entrance and felt the shift in energy immediately: pack members recognizing their Luna, conversations dropping off mid-sentence, eyes tracking my movement with the nervous awareness of wolves who knew they were watching something they shouldn't be.

I didn't acknowledge any of them. My attention was fixed on the VIP section at the back, where a familiar silhouette sat far too close to a woman whose laugh carried across the room like nails on glass.

Regina Carroll. Rogue-turned-Beta. Jackson's old flame, newly returned and apparently determined to reignite what should have stayed ash.

I walked to the bar, ordered an unsweetened tea, and let a thin, deliberate thread of my Luna aura bleed into the room—not enough to command, just enough to announce.

Jackson's head snapped up like I'd yanked a leash.

Regina noticed a beat later, her hand still draped possessively over his shoulder, her smile sharpening into something uglier. She didn't move. Neither did I.

I carried my tea to a table adjacent to their booth, sat down with the kind of composure that made grown wolves nervous, and took a slow, deliberate sip.

Regina leaned forward, her voice pitched just loud enough to carry. "Luna Adalee. What a surprise. Shouldn't you be at home?"

I met her gaze over the rim of my cup. "I was. Then I decided I'd rather be here."

Her smile faltered, just slightly, and I watched her recalculate. She was smart enough to recognize a threat but too arrogant to know when to back down.

"Well," she purred, "since you're here, maybe you'd like to see what Jackson and I have been up to." She tapped her temple—mind-link—and I felt the intrusive press of her consciousness against mine, projecting images, texts, timestamps. Receipts. Evidence. A calculated humiliation designed to break me in front of the pack's highest-ranking members.

I let her finish. Then I set my tea down with a soft *clink* that somehow cut through the noise.

"I've been waiting for you to find the courage to end this, Jackson," I said, my voice quiet, clear, and cold enough to frost glass. "I will accept your rejection the moment you find the spine to offer it."

I stood, smoothed my gown one last time, and walked out of The Howling Moon with my head high and my heart buried so deep no one would ever find it.

Behind me, I heard Regina's furious snarl and Jackson's stunned silence.

I didn't look back.