After My Mate Accused Me of Attacking His Luna

The words tasted like ash and shattered glass on my tongue. "I, Emilia Warren, reject you, Duncan Cooper, Alpha of the Moonstone Pack, as my mate."

The moment the words left my lips, an invisible blade cleaved through my soul. My inner wolf wept, curling into a tight, agonizing ball in the back of my mind. Duncan stumbled back as if physically struck. The warmth in his eyes—the tender gaze that had healed my broken past—shattered into a million jagged pieces.

I didn't want to do it. Goddess, I loved him. But how could I stay bound to the son of the Lycan King who had slaughtered my parents? The blood of my birth pack stained his royal lineage. And if the crushing weight of my family’s ghosts wasn't enough, Grayson’s blackmail had forced my hand.

Duncan’s grief didn't last long. His deep-seated fear of abandonment, a scar left by his own father, twisted his heartbreak into a vicious, blinding rage.

"You chose him," Duncan snarled, his Alpha aura suffocating the air in his office.

"Duncan, please, it's not what you think—" I choked out, but he cut me off with a feral growl.

He had seen us the night before in the shadows of the greenhouse. He saw his Beta brother, Grayson, pressing me against the glass. What Duncan didn't see was the vial of liquid wolfsbane Grayson had brutally forced down my throat, threatening to hunt down the last surviving member of my fallen pack if I didn't comply. Duncan only saw the proximity. He saw my tear-streaked face and Grayson's hands on me, and his traumatized mind painted a picture of romantic betrayal.

When I tried to explain, the lingering wolfsbane burned my vocal cords, and Grayson’s deadly threats kept the full truth locked behind my teeth. Duncan refused to listen to my fragmented pleas.

His retaliation was swift and merciless.

By noon the next day, Duncan summoned the entire Moonstone Pack to the courtyard. My heart hammered against my ribs as I stood on the platform, stripped of my dignity. Beside him stood Anais Mitchell, a haughty noblewoman from a powerful family. She clung to his arm, her cloying scent of heavy roses masking the comforting vanilla and cedar of my mate.

"Emilia Warren has betrayed this pack and our bond," Duncan's voice boomed, hard and devoid of the love I once knew. "She is stripped of her Luna privileges. From this day forward, Anais is my chosen mate. Emilia is nothing but a servant."

The collective gasp of the pack echoed in my ears, but I was numb. The man who had once kissed my scars had just turned me into the lowest creature in his territory.

Now, three days later, my hands were raw and blistered from scrubbing the stone floors of the pack infirmary. I was a healer. I was supposed to be brewing salves and setting bones, not wiping away mud like a disgraced Omega.

Suddenly, a sharp spike of panic pierced my mind.

"Emilia!" The mind-link crackled with frantic energy. It was Lina, my best friend and fellow healer. "Get to the main pack house. Now. It’s Duncan."

"Lina, what’s wrong? Is he hurt?" Even after everything, my foolish heart still worried for his weakened wolf.

"Just come!"

I dropped my scrub brush, the soapy water soaking into my thin cotton dress, and ran. The biting autumn wind whipped through my hair as I sprinted across the pack grounds. My lungs burned, and my weakened wolf whined in protest, the residual wolfsbane still poisoning my veins.

I pushed open the heavy oak doors of the pack house, my chest heaving. "Duncan?"

The words died in my throat.

The grand living room was bathed in the warm glow of the fireplace, but the scene before me turned my blood to ice. Duncan was seated on the plush leather sofa. Straddling his lap was Anais. Her hands were tangled in his dark hair, and his large hands—the same hands that used to hold my face with such reverence—rested firmly on her waist.

He was kissing her neck, right over the mating gland.

A strangled gasp escaped my lips.

Duncan’s head snapped up. His eyes, cold and empty, locked onto mine. There was no guilt. There was only a calculated, cruel satisfaction. He didn't push Anais away. Instead, his grip on her waist tightened.

Anais turned her head, a wicked, triumphant smirk playing on her lips. "The floor in the hallway is muddy, servant," she purred, her voice dripping with venom. "I suggest you get a mop."

I stood frozen, the severed mate bond bleeding anew in my chest. I looked at Duncan, silently begging for a shred of the man I loved. But he only held my gaze, his jaw set in stone, and gave a slow, deliberate nod of agreement with Anais.

The message was clear. My Duncan was gone. This was my new, agonizing reality, and I had no choice but to bow my head, swallow my shattered pride, and survive.