After My Mate Marked His Mistress

The flowers arrived at noon.

Cheyenne carried them herself—white lilies in a crystal vase, their scent cloying and funeral-sweet. She set them on the nightstand with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"I heard about the attack," she said softly. "I wanted to check on you."

I looked up from the bed, keeping my face carefully neutral. The bandages on my thigh were fresh, the stitches underneath still pulling with every small movement. Dr. Thorne had left an hour ago. The recovery room was private, soundproofed, empty except for us.

"That's kind of you," I said. My voice came out thin, uncertain. Exactly what she expected.

Cheyenne's smile widened. She moved closer, her steps light and unhurried, and sat on the edge of my bed. The mattress dipped under her weight. I felt the shift through my injured leg, a dull warning ache.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

I nodded.

Her hand drifted to the bandaged area, fingers tracing the outline of the gauze with clinical interest. "Rogues are so unpredictable," she murmured. "It's a miracle Caleb got there in time."

"He saved me," I whispered.

"He did." Her fingers pressed down slightly. I stiffened. "Just like he saved you two years ago. After the other attack."

The room went very still.

Cheyenne's eyes met mine. There was something bright and sharp in them now, something that had been waiting.

"That one was messier," she continued quietly. Her fingers pressed harder, finding the exact spot where the rogue's claws had torn deepest. "More blood. You screamed that time, didn't you?"

Pain lanced up my thigh. I gasped, hands flying to grip the sheets. The stitches pulled. Fresh blood seeped warm through the bandage.

Cheyenne leaned in close, her breath warm against my ear.

"I picked that rogue myself," she whispered. "Starved him for three days. Told him where you'd be driving that night. Promised him territory if he did the job right."

My chest locked. I couldn't breathe.

"The wolfsbane was my idea too." Her claws extended slowly, pressing into the wound. I bit down on a scream. "Caleb wasn't sure at first. But I explained how much easier everything would be if you couldn't smell us. Couldn't hear us through the walls. Couldn't sense what he really wanted."

Tears blurred my vision. Not from sadness. From the white-hot agony radiating from my leg.

"Marcus Webb on the Beta council?" Cheyenne's voice was almost conversational now. "Caleb paid him fifty thousand to bury the investigation. No witnesses. No evidence. No consequences."

She released her claws and sat back. Blood stained her fingertips. She wiped them slowly on the white bedsheet, leaving four parallel streaks.

"You're wolfless, Lillian. Sense-blind. One signature away from losing your Luna protections." She stood, smoothing her skirt. "There's nothing you can do."

She picked up the vase of lilies, adjusted them slightly, and walked to the door.

"Get well soon," she said sweetly.

The door clicked shut.

I lay frozen, staring at the ceiling. Blood soaked through the fresh bandages. My hands were still gripping the sheets, knuckles white.

Inside my chest, my wolf surged.

The aura exploded outward like a bomb. The mirror above the washbasin cracked straight down the center with a sound like a gunshot. The vase on the nightstand rattled. The lights flickered once, twice.

Rage. Pure, incandescent rage.

My wolf slammed against the suppressants, clawing for the surface. I felt her massive silver form trying to tear through my skin, felt the aura radiating outward in waves that made the air shimmer. My eyes burned. Gold bled into my vision, turning the white ceiling molten.

No.

I clamped down. Hard.

My jaw locked. My teeth ground together. I forced my breathing to slow—one count in, hold, two counts out. The aura flickered, surged again. The mirror's crack spread wider.

Four minutes.

I counted every second. Felt every muscle in my body shake with the effort of holding her back. The suppressants fought the surge, chemical restraint battling biological fury. My wolf howled inside my skull, a sound only I could hear.

Slowly, incrementally, the aura collapsed inward.

The lights steadied. The rattling stopped. The gold drained from my eyes, leaving them grey and flat.

I lay still, chest heaving, staring at the cracked mirror.

Emotional provocation. That was the tell. That was the risk.

Cheyenne's cruelty had nearly shattered my cover in under five minutes. If she'd stayed. If anyone had been in the hallway. If the aura had breached the walls—

Caleb would know.

I closed my eyes and began the work of metabolizing what I'd just heard.

Cheyenne orchestrated the original attack. Starved the rogue. Gave him my location.

The wolfsbane was her idea. Caleb implemented it.

Marcus Webb. Regional Beta council. Fifty thousand. Buried investigation.

I repeated each fact in my mind, stripping away the emotion, converting confession into evidence. My wolf's hearing had captured every syllable. Every breath. Every inflection.

Tribunal-grade detail.

I opened my eyes. The cracked mirror reflected my face back in fractured pieces—pale, bloodless, perfectly composed.

I would not let rage expose me again.

I would feel nothing until it was time to act.

And when I acted, I would feel everything at once.