After My Mate Poisoned Me, I Took His Pack

The healer's examination room smelled like sage and something sharper underneath — antiseptic, maybe, or the particular sterility of a place where bodies get taken apart and reassembled.

I sat on the edge of the table while she pressed her fingers against my throat, just below the cold mark. Her touch was clinical. Impersonal. I appreciated that.

"How long?" she asked.

"Three years. Daily. In the morning supplement."

Her hand stilled. She didn't look at me. She kept her eyes on my neck, on the place where my wolf should have been humming under the skin.

"And you didn't know," she said quietly.

It wasn't a question, but I answered anyway.

"I thought I was barren. I thought the bond was failing because I wasn't strong enough to hold it."

She exhaled through her nose. A small sound. Then she stepped back and gestured for me to lie down.

The scan took twenty minutes. She ran her hands over my sternum, my abdomen, the base of my spine — places where a wolf's presence should register like heat under the surface. I felt her hesitate twice. The second time, she pulled her hand back like she'd touched something cold.

When she finished, she washed her hands at the basin in the corner. She took her time. I watched her shoulders and knew she was deciding how to say it.

"Your wolf is still there," she said finally, turning to face me. "But barely. The suppression is... comprehensive. Three years of cumulative exposure at this dosage — it's a miracle she didn't collapse entirely."

I sat up slowly. "Can it be reversed?"

"Yes. If the wolfsbane is fully cleared from your system. That will take weeks. Maybe longer, depending on how deeply it's embedded in your tissues."

I nodded. My hands were steady in my lap. "How long before the dose he planned to escalate would have been lethal?"

She didn't answer right away.

The silence stretched. I counted the seconds. At fifteen, she met my eyes.

"Weeks," she said. "Not months."

I let that sit in my chest. Weeks. I had been walking around with weeks left, and I hadn't known. I had been setting tables and negotiating alliances and smiling at pack functions while my wolf was dying by degrees inside me.

I pressed my thumb against the cold mark on my neck. The healer noticed.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"No," I said. "It's just cold."

She nodded slowly. "The bond severance. It will feel like that until the tribunal finalizes it. After that, the mark will fade entirely."

I wondered what it would look like. A scar, maybe. Or just smooth skin where something used to be.

"Thank you," I said.

She handed me a small vial. "Twice daily. It will help accelerate the clearance. And rest. Your body has been fighting a war for three years. Let it stop."

I took the vial and left.

---

Dorian Voss found me in the library that afternoon.

I had spread my documents across the table — the journal, the requisition logs, the healer's analysis, the recorder — and I was cross-referencing dates against the territorial treaty clauses I had memorized months ago. Buster was asleep under the table, his head on my foot.

Dorian knocked once on the doorframe, then entered without waiting for permission. He moved like someone who had never needed to ask.

"Luna Montgomery," he said.

I looked up. "Just Amora."

He raised an eyebrow. "Until the tribunal finalizes the rejection, you hold the rank. I'll use it."

I didn't argue. I gestured to the chair across from me.

He sat and pulled a folder from under his arm. "I've processed your dossier. The jurisdictional claim is airtight. Three separate treaty violations: harboring an unregistered rogue, poisoning a seated Luna, and failure to notify the Council before executing a formal rejection. Any one of those would be sufficient to compel a tribunal. All three together..." He paused. "This is not a case Alpha Baker can win."

"Good," I said.

Dorian's mouth twitched. Almost a smile. "The summons has been issued. Under Lycan law, he cannot refuse without committing a fourth violation, which would trigger immediate forced removal of his Alpha title. He will come."

I nodded. My hands were flat on the table, fingers spread over the open journal.

"When?" I asked.

"Two weeks. The Council requires time to convene representatives from the surrounding packs. This will be witnessed."

Two weeks. Fourteen days. I could survive that.

"What happens if he tries to use Alpha tone at the tribunal?" I asked.

Dorian's expression went very still. "On Lycan Council grounds, Alpha tone has no jurisdictional authority. If he attempts it, he will be removed from the chamber by force."

I let myself feel the relief of that. Just for a moment.

"Thank you," I said.

He stood. At the door, he paused. "You documented everything. For fourteen months. That took discipline."

"It took survival," I said.

He nodded once. Then he left.

---

That night, alone in the quarters Caelan had assigned me, I let myself remember.

It had been weeks before the Banquet. Late afternoon. I had been walking past Jameson's study when I heard voices.

The door was open. Not wide — just a crack, the kind of careless gap that happens when people feel safe.

I stopped.

Daisy's voice, low and amused. "How much longer?"

Jameson, easy and confident. "The wolfsbane is cumulative. Another few months at this dose and her wolf will collapse entirely. The healers will call it bond deterioration. No one will question it."

A pause. Then Daisy, laughing softly. "She still thinks she's barren."

"She's been taking the supplements the kitchen Omega gives her every morning. She thinks they're fertility herbs."

I stood in the hallway with my hand over my mouth.

Three years. Three years of grief. Every healer examination. Every month I bled and felt like a failure. Every night I lay awake and wondered what was wrong with my body.

It had been him. All of it. Every single piece.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I didn't go into that room and tear them apart.

I went to my quarters. I opened my logistics journal — the one I used for pack supply lines and training rotations — and I turned to a blank page.

At the top, in careful handwriting, I wrote: *Evidence.*

Then I began.