After My Alpha Mate Found Out I Was Lycan

The new attendant arrived on a Tuesday morning, three weeks after Theo hit the stone.

I was sitting at the small desk in our quarters when Miller opened the door without knocking. A young Omega stood behind him, head down, hands folded. Male. Maybe nineteen. His scent carried the faint nervous edge of someone who'd been given instructions he didn't want to follow.

"This is Fenn," Miller said. "He'll handle your meals and personal needs from now on."

I looked at Fenn. He didn't look back.

"I don't need an attendant," I said.

Miller's jaw tightened. "You're the Luna. You'll have one."

The mate bond pulsed once—not a command, just a warning. I pressed my thumb against the mark on my neck and nodded.

Miller left. Fenn stayed.

I watched him move around the room, setting down a breakfast tray he'd brought, adjusting the curtains I hadn't asked him to touch. His movements were careful. Practiced. The kind of careful that came from knowing someone was watching.

"Who assigned you?" I asked.

He froze for half a second. "The Beta, Luna."

Darian Voss. Of course.

I looked at the breakfast tray. Eggs. Toast. A cup of tea that smelled faintly bitter beneath the bergamot. The same bitterness I'd been tasting for months.

"Thank you," I said quietly. "You can leave it."

Fenn bowed and left.

I waited until his footsteps faded down the hall. Then I poured the tea into the potted plant by the window and wrapped the food in a cloth. Later, when the halls were empty, I'd dispose of it where no one would find it.

I'd been doing this for four days now.

The first morning after Fenn arrived, I told him I had stomach sensitivity and would be eating lighter meals I prepared myself. He'd looked uncertain but hadn't argued. Omegas didn't argue with Lunas, even Lunas whose mates had stopped pretending to care if they lived or died.

Since then, I'd been retrieving food from the pack's communal stores in the early hours before dawn, when Fenn wasn't on duty and the kitchen staff hadn't yet arrived. Bread. Fruit. Cheese. Things that came sealed or whole, things Rose couldn't have touched.

The dizziness had eased first. Then the muscle weakness. My wolf was still buried—still silent in that suppressed space where she should be—but the pressure had changed. Like something that had been slowly drowning could finally reach air.

Not enough to shift. Enough to confirm.

I pressed the dried wolfsbane sprig between my fingers and felt the small brittle leaves crumble.

Rose had been poisoning me for months.

And Miller had given her the access to do it.

---

The Pack Harvest Banquet was held in the great hall on the first Saturday of November.

I dressed carefully. The gown was deep green, long-sleeved, high-necked to cover the mark. I braided my hair back and kept my face neutral. The Luna role required presence. I could give them presence.

Miller was already in the hall when I arrived, standing near the Alpha table with his Beta. He glanced at me once, nodded, and turned back to his conversation. No greeting. No acknowledgment beyond the bare minimum required by protocol.

I took my seat at the Alpha table and waited.

The hall filled slowly. Ranked wolves and their families, lower-rank pack members filling the long tables that stretched toward the back. The air smelled like roasted meat and wine and the particular tension that came from too many wolves in one space trying to pretend everything was fine.

Then Rose arrived.

The room went quiet.

She stood in the doorway wearing a gown identical to mine. Same cut. Same color. Same high neck. Her hair was styled the same way. She smiled—small, deliberate—and walked toward the Alpha table.

Every eye in the room tracked her movement.

I sat very still.

Rose stopped beside Miller. Her hand settled on his shoulder. She leaned in and murmured something into his ear, her voice just loud enough for me to catch the edges: "...a Luna whose wolf is actually present..."

Miller's mouth curved. Not quite a smile. Close enough.

Inside my chest, something twisted.

The wolfsbane still saturating my system reacted before my mind could. The room tilted. My vision whited at the edges. I tried to stand and my legs buckled.

I hit the stone floor hard.

My muscles seized. Convulsions I couldn't control, my body arching, breath locking in my chest. I could hear voices—distant, muffled—but I couldn't respond. The stone was cold against my cheek. My fingers scraped uselessly at the floor.

Through the haze, I saw Miller look down at me.

Then he turned and crossed the room to Rose, who had begun crying. Loud, theatrical sobs. He pulled her into his arms.

"Someone get the Healers," he ordered. "Rose needs attention."

I lay on the floor and watched the Healers—all three of them—move past me toward Rose.

No one touched me.

The convulsions eased slowly. My breath came back in shallow gasps. A junior Omega—a girl I didn't know—finally knelt beside me and helped me sit up.

"Can you walk, Luna?" she whispered.

I nodded. Barely.

She helped me to my feet and guided me out of the hall. The entire pack watched us leave.

Miller didn't look up.

---

The infirmary was empty except for the lower-rank Healer who checked my pulse and avoided my eyes.

"You should rest," she said quietly.

I nodded.

She left.

I lay on the narrow bed and stared at the ceiling, cataloging.

Rose's dress had been premeditated. The taunt had been timed. Miller's abandonment had been performed for an audience. Every ranked wolf in that hall had just watched their Alpha choose his childhood obsession over his convulsing mate.

I noted their names. Their ranks. Who had looked away and who had kept watching.

Then I turned my head and looked at the bed beside mine.

Theo had been moved to a private room two weeks ago, but this was where he'd lain in the first days after the fall. I stared at the bed frame and remembered him lying there, skull bandaged, chest rising and falling in shallow rhythm.

I slid off my bed and knelt beside his old one.

There—beneath the frame, tucked against the wall—a loose stone.

I pried it free.

Underneath, folded small, was a piece of paper in Theo's handwriting.

Coordinates. A location outside pack territory.

And four words: *For Chase. If anything happens.*

I memorized the numbers. Then I tore the paper into pieces so small they couldn't be reassembled and let them fall through the grate in the infirmary floor.

Chase Webb. Theo's assistant. The Delta who'd been outside pack territory the night Theo fell.

Theo had left him something.

I pressed my thumb against the mark on my neck and felt the mate bond pulse faintly—Miller's satisfaction threading through the link like smoke.

Inside the suppressed silence where my wolf should be, something stirred.

Not dead.

Waiting.