After My Mate Claimed His Mistress, I Planned My Revenge

The Silvercrest pack house healing wing smelled like sage and antiseptic. I stood in the corridor, one hand pressed to my lower belly, feeling the faint flutter inside. My wolf stirred—cautious, guarded, but for the first time in five years, warm.

Junior healer Cayson appeared from the examination room and smiled. "Luna Cassandra," he said quietly. "We're ready for you."

"Thank you, Cayson." I tried to return the smile. He was young, maybe twenty-three, with kind eyes and careful hands. He treated me like I mattered. Not because I was Luna. Because I was a wolf carrying a pup who deserved to survive.

I started down the corridor. Then I caught it.

Jasmine and ash.

My wolf went still. Not the frantic, clawing stillness of panic. The quiet, predatory stillness of recognition.

I turned my head slowly. Jaylani stood in the supply alcove, her healer trainee robes spotless, her hands folded in front of her. She was watching me. Her expression was soft. Sympathetic. Perfectly calibrated to read as concern.

But the scent.

It was stronger now. Not faint. Not something I could convince myself I'd imagined. It was threaded into the antiseptic air, clinging to her robes, soaked into the walls of this corridor as though it belonged here. As though it had been here long enough to settle.

Jasmine and ash. Sweet on the surface. Burnt underneath.

My wolf knew what it meant. My mind had been building the dossier for weeks. And now my body—my pup—was here, in the same hallway as the she-wolf whose scent lived on my mate's collar.

Jaylani's lips curved into a small, gentle smile. "Luna," she murmured. "Congratulations. We're all so happy for you."

I didn't answer. I turned and kept walking toward the examination room.

Then she moved.

She stepped out of the alcove carrying a supply tray—metal instruments, gauze, a glass bottle that caught the light. She walked directly into my path. I saw it happening. I saw the angle of her body, the way her weight shifted forward, the deliberate tilt of the tray.

She collided into me.

Full body weight. Shoulder to ribs. The tray flew. I crashed against the corridor wall and my knees buckled. I hit the stone floor hard.

Something tore inside me.

I felt it. Not pain yet. Just the sensation of something giving way that was never supposed to move. Then the warmth. Blood spreading beneath me, soaking through my dress, pooling on the cold stone.

The tray clattered across the floor. Metal instruments scattered. The glass bottle shattered.

Jaylani gasped. A high, breathy sound. She stumbled backward, hands flying to her mouth. "Oh Goddess," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I didn't see—Luna, I'm so sorry—"

Her voice trembled. Perfectly calibrated.

My wolf snarled.

"Cassandra!" Cayson's voice cut through the corridor. He was at my side in seconds, dropping to his knees, his hands pressing against my abdomen. His face went white. "Get the senior healer," he barked at someone behind him. "Now. And prepare the Alpha suite."

I tried to speak. My mouth wouldn't work. The warmth kept spreading. I pressed my own hands over Cayson's. They came away red.

"Stay with me," Cayson said. His voice was steady but his hands were shaking. "Luna, stay with me. We're going to save your pup."

Then Jaylani screamed.

It wasn't the theatrical gasp from before. This was a raw, guttural sound that echoed off the stone walls. She crumpled against the corridor wall, clutching her abdomen, her face twisted in agony.

"The pup," she wailed. "I'm losing the pup. Someone help me. Please. I'm losing—"

Footsteps thundered down the corridor. Alpha authority, dense and undeniable, rolled through the air before he even appeared.

Jackson.

He rounded the corner and stopped. His eyes swept the scene. Me on the floor. Blood. Cayson's hands pressed to my belly. Jaylani collapsed against the wall, sobbing.

His gaze didn't linger on me. It went straight to her.

"What happened?" His voice was Alpha-flat. Commanding. Not asking. Demanding.

"I don't know," Jaylani gasped. "I was carrying supplies and the Luna—she just—I think I bumped her. Oh Goddess, Jackson, the pup. *Our* pup. I can feel it. I'm losing—"

Our pup.

The words hung in the blood-soaked air.

Cayson looked up at Jackson. His face was stark with disbelief. "Alpha," he said carefully, "Luna Cassandra is hemorrhaging. She needs the senior healer and the private suite. Right now."

Jackson's jaw tightened. He looked at Jaylani. She was sobbing, hands pressed to her flat stomach, her entire body trembling.

Then he spoke. And he used his Alpha tone.

"Senior Healer Marlowe will attend to Jaylani," Jackson said. The tone rippled through the corridor like a physical force. I felt Cayson's body go rigid beside me. "Prepare the Alpha suite for her. Immediately."

Cayson stared at him. "Alpha, with respect—"

"*Now.*"

The Alpha tone slammed down. Cayson's mouth closed. His hands didn't move from my abdomen but I felt the way his wolf submitted, the way his body locked under the weight of a command he had no biological ability to resist.

Senior Healer Marlowe appeared. An older wolf, gray-haired, steady. She looked at me. Then at Jackson. Then at Jaylani.

"Alpha suite," Jackson said. Not a question. A command.

Marlowe's face went carefully blank. She knelt beside Jaylani. "Let's get you to the suite," she murmured.

Jaylani whimpered and leaned into her. Jackson stepped forward and lifted Jaylani into his arms. She buried her face against his chest. He carried her down the corridor toward the Luna suite.

*My* suite.

Cayson's hands were still on my belly. "Luna," he whispered. His voice cracked. "I'm going to do everything I can."

I tried to reach for Jackson through the mind-link. Our bond. Five years of faith and love and sacrifice. The sacred connection the Moon Goddess herself had woven between us.

*Jackson. Please. Our pup. Please save our pup.*

I poured everything into it. Every night I'd waited for him. Every treatment I'd endured alone. Every moment I'd believed the bond was stronger than anything that could break it.

He severed the connection.

No words. No explanation. Just—silence.

The mind-link went dark. Cold. Empty.

I lay on the stone floor, bleeding, and my mate walked away carrying another she-wolf to my rooms.

Cayson lifted me as carefully as he could. "Back examination room," he said to someone. His voice was tight. "Get me everything we have."

They carried me to a small room at the end of the corridor. Thin walls. A single cot. Cayson's hands moved fast, applying pressure, checking vital signs, his face growing more stricken with every passing moment.

"Luna, I need you to stay awake," he said. "Can you hear me? Cassandra?"

I heard him. But my wolf was fading. And the warmth kept spreading.

The pup.

I tried to hold on. Tried to will my body to stop tearing itself apart. Tried to reach for the bond that was supposed to be unbreakable.

But Jackson had already answered.

And the silence was louder than any Alpha tone.