After My Alpha Forced Me to Kneel Before His Mistress

I returned to the pack house at dawn, when the halls were still empty and the only sound was my own footsteps on marble that no longer felt like mine.

The Luna suite was exactly as I'd left it three hours earlier—bed unmade, champagne glass still shattered on the floor where I'd dropped it, the silver circlet I'd worn for three years now sitting on Morgan's head somewhere in this building. I stepped over the broken glass and locked the door behind me.

Then I sat down at the small writing desk by the window and made a list.

What I had: Rosalind's sealed toxicology report, hidden in the lining of my winter coat. My own memory of the conversation I'd overheard through the cracked window—Morgan laughing that the Dawnridge territory seizure was 'almost too easy.' And nothing else that would hold before the Lycan Council.

What I needed: proof.

I stared at the list until the words blurred. Then I tore the paper into pieces small enough to flush and started planning.

Weston kept his study unlocked during the day—an Alpha's arrogance, the assumption that no one would dare enter without permission. He was away on pack business three days a week, meeting with allied Alphas in the northern territories. Morgan spent those same hours in the great hall, performing Luna duties with the kind of gracious attention I'd once given freely and she now wielded like a crown.

That left me a window. Narrow, but enough.

The first time I entered his study, my hands shook so badly I almost couldn't turn the pages. Financial records. Territorial agreements. Correspondence files organized by year. I found the Dawnridge acquisition buried in a folder marked 'Border Expansion'—dated two weeks after the raid, signed by Weston and countersigned by three Council witnesses I didn't recognize.

I pulled out my phone and started photographing pages.

The second time, I found payment records. Large sums transferred to unnamed external parties in the months leading up to the raid. The amounts were staggering—enough to hire mercenaries, enough to stage an attack that would look like rogue chaos but move with military precision.

I photographed those too.

The third time, I found letters. Correspondence between Weston and someone identified only as 'M.K.'—Morgan Kelly, I realized with a cold jolt—discussing 'clearing the Dawnridge obstacle' and 'securing the bloodline elimination.' The dates predated the raid by four months.

My hands stopped shaking. Something in me went very still, the way a wolf goes still before it strikes.

I copied everything. Then I hid the files in rotating locations: the lining of my winter coat, behind a loose stone in the fireplace of my quarters, inside a dusty pack history book on the shelf no one had touched in years. I moved them every two days, never keeping anything in the same place twice.

Morgan's mistake was assuming I was broken. Weston's mistake was assuming I was careless.

I was neither. I was just very, very quiet.

***

The Omega who had delivered my poisoned meals was a young she-wolf named Dara. I'd learned her name two years ago, during my first month as Luna, when I'd made it my business to know every Omega in the pack. She had a younger brother in the delta ranks and a mother who worked in the kitchens. She was terrified of Morgan.

I found her in the back-wing kitchen on a Tuesday evening, scrubbing pots alone. I didn't ask her about the wolfsbane. I didn't accuse. I just sat down at the corner table with two bowls of soup I'd made myself and asked if she wanted company.

She looked at me like I'd grown a second head.

"It's safe," I said quietly. "I made it. No one touched it but me."

She sat. We ate in silence. I asked about her brother—how his training was going, whether he'd passed his warrior trials. She answered slowly at first, then faster, like someone who hadn't been asked a real question in a long time.

The second evening, I asked about her mother. The third evening, I brought bread I'd baked that morning and asked if she missed home.

On the fourth evening, she set down her spoon and said, "She made me do it."

I didn't move. "Who?"

"Morgan." Dara's voice was barely a whisper. "She said it was just herbs. To help you sleep. But I saw the bottle after. It had a label. Wolfsbane extract."

My chest tightened. "Why are you telling me this?"

Dara looked at me with eyes that were too old for her face. "Because you learned my name. Three years ago, first week you were here. You asked how to say it right. No one else ever did."

I reached across the table and took her hand. "Thank you."

Two days later, I arranged for Dara to be transferred to garden duties—outdoor work, away from Morgan's direct oversight, under the supervision of an older Omega who owed me a favor from years back. No one questioned it. Omegas were moved around all the time.

I added Dara's testimony to my archive and kept moving.

***

Morgan must have sensed something, because three weeks after the banquet, she sent warriors to the Dawnridge memorial.

I arrived to find them toppling stones. Scattering the offerings I'd laid last month—flowers, candles, my mother's favorite lisianthus blooms pressed flat and wrapped in cloth. One of them was using a hammer to crack the carved names.

I didn't think. I just moved.

I hit the first warrior with nothing but human fists and fury, clawing at his face, screaming words I didn't recognize. He shoved me back. I lunged again. Another warrior caught my arms and twisted them behind my back, forcing me to my knees in the dirt.

"Let go of me!" I snarled. My wolf surged against my ribs, pressing so hard I thought my chest would crack open. "Those are my parents' graves!"

"Orders," the warrior said flatly. "From the Luna."

"I'm the Luna!"

"Not anymore."

They hauled me back to the pack house and dumped me in front of Morgan's feet. She looked down at me with an expression of perfect, practiced concern.

"Savannah attacked pack warriors without provocation," she told Weston when he returned that evening. "She's becoming unstable. I'm worried about the pack's safety."

Weston looked at me. I was still covered in dirt, my hands scraped raw, my dress torn at the shoulder. I opened my mouth to explain.

He turned to the guards. "Lock her in the silver cell overnight. Maybe that'll calm her down."

The cell was in the basement, lined with silver mesh that burned if you touched it. They shoved me inside and locked the door. I pressed my back against the stone wall—the only surface without silver—and wrapped my arms around my knees.

My wolf, dormant for twenty-four years, pressed against the inside of my ribs like a fist pounding on a locked door.

I closed my eyes and thought of the files hidden in my winter coat. The toxicology report. Dara's testimony. The letters predating the raid.

And I thought of the rogue courier I'd contacted two days ago—a wolf who owed my father a life-debt and had agreed to carry a message to the Lycan Court.

To Lycan Prince Armando Moreno.

The silver burned against my shoulders. I didn't move.

I just waited for morning.