After My Mate Claimed His Mistress, I Unleashed My Power

The communal dinner was meant to be a morale booster, a way to unite the pack after the "tragic accident" at the Alchemy Hall. Instead, it felt like a wake for my dignity.

I sat at the far end of the High Table, a spot usually reserved for lower-ranking guests, while Henrik sat at the head. To his right, where the Luna should have been seated, was an empty chair. But Violette Hill wasn't sitting; she was fluttering around the table, playing the role of the gracious hostess, pouring wine and tea for the Elders with a shy, trembling smile that had the male warriors cooing in sympathy.

"The poor thing," I heard a Gamma whisper. "So traumatized by the fire, yet she still serves us."

I gripped my fork until my knuckles turned white. They didn't know she was the arsonist. They only knew the lie Henrik had fed them—that I was the incompetent alchemist who had nearly blown up our home.

Violette approached me last. She held a steaming porcelain pot of Firebloom tea, a brew enhanced with mild magic to warm the blood during winter. It was boiling hot.

"Luna Sienna," she murmured, her eyes downcast. "Let me serve you."

As she leaned over, her foot seemed to catch on the leg of my chair. It was a clumsy, theatrical stumble. The pot tipped.

I saw it coming a split second before it happened, but I couldn't dodge without revealing my supernatural reflexes. The scalding liquid splashed across my left forearm and shoulder. The pain was instantaneous and blinding, searing my skin as the magical heat clung to my flesh like oil.

I bit my tongue so hard I tasted copper, refusing to scream. I stood up abruptly, clutching my arm as steam rose from my blistering skin.

"Oh no!" Violette shrieked, dropping the pot. It shattered loudly on the stone floor. "I'm so sorry! I tripped!"

Henrik was out of his seat in a heartbeat. He rushed around the table, his heavy boots thudding against the floorboards. My heart gave a foolish, desperate flutter—he was coming to check on me.

He pushed past me, his shoulder checking mine hard enough to make me stumble back.

"Violette!" He grabbed the Omega's hands, inspecting them frantically. "Did the splash hit you? Are you burned?"

"I... I was just startled," Violette whimpered, pressing her face into his chest. "Luna Sienna moved so suddenly..."

Henrik turned to me, his eyes blazing with irritation. "Look what you've done, Sienna. You're always in the way. Can't you sit still? You've upset her."

Silence fell over the hall. The pack watched as their Alpha scolded his injured mate for the crime of being burned. The humiliation burned hotter than the tea.

"My apologies, Alpha," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "I will remove myself from your sight."

I didn't wait for dismissal. I turned and walked out, head high, even as the skin on my arm bubbled and wept.

***

I had been banished from the Alpha's quarters to the guest wing—a dusty suite in the east tower that hadn't been used in years. It was fitting, I supposed. I was a guest in my own life now.

Sitting on the edge of the narrow bed, I pulled a small, hidden jar from the lining of my coat. It was a salve I had brewed years ago using ingredients from the Blood Moon territory—Silver-leaf and Moon-dew. It was potent Lycan medicine.

As I applied the cool, shimmering paste to my burns, the angry red blisters began to recede almost instantly. The relief was physical, but the ache in my chest only deepened.

The guest wing shared a ventilation shaft with the Alpha's office below. It was a flaw in the building's design I had meant to fix years ago. Now, it was my window into hell.

"...she's useless, Violette," Henrik's voice drifted up, muffled but distinct. "The Council suspended her. She can't brew, she can't fight, and she certainly can't lead."

"But she's your mate, Henrik," Violette's voice purred, sounding nothing like the terrified girl from dinner. "The bond..."

"The bond is a shackle," Henrik spat. I could hear the clinking of glass—he was drinking. "Ten years, and no heir. She's barren, Violette. A barren wolf is no Luna of mine. But you... you're carrying the future."

I froze. Barren.

He knew damn well we had never conceived because I had been secretly taking contraceptive herbs to prevent bringing a pup into a war zone during the early years. But for him to weaponize it... to call me useless...

The phantom pain of the mate bond snapping echoed in my ribs. It felt like a rotting tooth finally being pulled. I didn't cry. Tears were for wolves who had hope. I had something better: clarity.

***

Midnight cloaked the Silver Glade territory in shadows. The pack was asleep, save for the patrols. I knew their routes perfectly; I had designed them.

Moving like a ghost, I slipped out of the guest wing and made my way toward the blackened skeleton of the Alchemy Hall. The suspension Henrik had placed on me was actually a blessing—no one expected me to be working, so no one was watching the lab.

The air inside the ruins was acrid, tasting of ash and melted plastic. I didn't need light; my wolf's eyes adjusted to the gloom, shifting to a luminescent gold.

I stepped over a pile of charred beams and made my way to the epicenter of the blast. Violette had claimed she mixed the wrong compounds. A simple mistake. But the blast pattern was too uniform, too hot.

I crouched down near the remains of the storage vat. I took a deep breath, filtering out the smoke, searching for the underlying notes.

There.

Beneath the scent of burnt wood and chemicals, there was something sharp and rotten. *Sulfur and Rogue-weed.*

Rogue-weed was a pungent herb that grew only in the desolate lands outside pack territories. It was useless for alchemy, but rogues used it to mask their scent from trackers. Why was it here?

I dug through the ash until my fingers brushed against something hard. It was a fused fragment of a glass container. It should have been vaporized, but the bottom remained. I brought it to my nose.

The residue inside wasn't a volatile compound. It was an accelerant. And mixed into the sticky sludge was the undeniable, fear-tinged scent of Shane Owens.

My lip curled back, revealing my fangs.

This wasn't an accident. It was a demolition. They hadn't just blown up the lab to hide incompetence; they had used rogue materials to do it. Violette wasn't just a mistress; she was a traitor working with outsiders. And Henrik, the blind fool, was about to hand her the keys to the kingdom.