After My Mate Chose A Rogue, I Took Back My Crown

Two weeks after Riley left me standing in an empty pack house to rush to Anna's hospital bed, it was his birthday.

His twenty-fifth.

I told myself I wouldn't go. I told myself that three times while I was melting the dark chocolate in a double boiler at four in the morning, my hands steady even though my wolf was pacing inside me like something caged. I told myself again while I was tempering it, watching the shine come up just right, the way the tutorial video had shown me. Riley liked things made a certain way. He never said so, but I had learned to read the silences.

I had gotten very good at reading silences.

The chocolate set in small, perfect squares, each one hand-cut. I wrapped them in parchment and tied the package with a gray-blue ribbon—Silverfang colors. Another small thing. Another gesture he would probably not notice.

I drove across territory lines just after dawn. The Silverfang guards at the border recognized my car and didn't bother hiding their smirks.

'Crown Luna,' one of them said, the title sitting in his mouth like a joke. 'He's not expecting you.'

'I know.'

'Anna's still here, you know. Recovering.'

I smiled at him the way I had been trained to smile at wolves who wanted to see me flinch. Composed. Untouchable. The expression that said I had not heard the thing he had just said, even though we both knew I had.

'Thank you for the update.'

I drove through.

The pack house was quiet. Most of the pack was out on a morning run—Riley's birthday tradition, the one he had told me about once in an unguarded moment months ago, back when I still believed unguarded moments meant something. I parked and sat in the car for a long time, holding the chocolate in my lap.

My wolf was very still now. Not peaceful. Braced.

I got out.

I walked up the steps. I pushed open the door. No one stopped me. I had been here enough times that my presence barely registered anymore—just another piece of furniture that had learned not to take up space.

I climbed the stairs to Riley's private quarters. The door was half-open.

I should have knocked. I know that now. But I had stopped knocking months ago, because every time I did, he made me wait just long enough to remind me that I was the one who needed permission to enter, not him.

So I didn't knock.

I pushed the door open, and I saw them.

Riley. And a female Delta I didn't recognize.

They were standing close—too close—his hand on her waist, her head tilted back in a way that exposed her throat. The air between them was thick with scent, the kind of scent that doesn't lie. Mate scent. Intimate. Sacred.

The kind he had never shared with me.

Not once.

The chocolate slipped from my hands. I didn't hear it hit the floor.

Riley turned. His expression didn't change. That was the thing I would remember later, in the days when I couldn't stop replaying it—his face stayed exactly the same. No guilt. No surprise. Just a faint flicker of irritation, like I had interrupted something mundane.

'Emory.'

My name in his mouth sounded like an accusation.

The Delta stepped back, her eyes wide, but Riley didn't move. He stood exactly where he was, his hand still resting on her waist for one more second before he let it drop.

'What are you doing here?' His voice was flat.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

My wolf was making a sound I had never heard before—low and broken and wrong.

'It's your birthday,' I said finally. The words sounded far away, like someone else was saying them. 'I brought—'

I looked down. The chocolate was scattered across the floor, the parchment torn, the gray-blue ribbon trampled.

'I brought you something.'

Riley's jaw tightened. Then he took a step forward, and his Beta aura rolled over me like a wave, heavy and cold and absolute.

'Leave my territory.'

The command landed in my chest like a blade.

I staggered back. My wolf howled inside me, and for the first time in two years, I felt her fully—not the quiet, patient thing I had trained her to be, but the Luna she had always been, furious and awake and done.

I looked at Riley. I looked at the Delta. I looked at the chocolate on the floor.

And then I turned, and I walked out.

I didn't run. I didn't cry. I walked down the stairs, through the empty pack house, out the door, across the driveway. I got into my car, and I sat there with my hands on the wheel, staring at nothing.

My wolf was very quiet now.

Not broken. Not buried.

Awake.

I started the engine, and I drove away from the Silverfang Pack house for the last time.

I didn't look back.