After My Mate Poisoned Me, I Took His Pack

The weeks between the study door and the Banquet were the longest of my life.

Not because time moved slowly. Because I had to watch everything with new eyes and keep my face from showing what I saw.

Daisy moved into my quarters three days after I overheard them.

She didn't ask. She walked in while I was at a border negotiation and rearranged everything. When I came back, my ceremonial furs were folded on the chair — her chair now, apparently — and the air smelled wrong. Sweet and sharp, like fruit left too long in the sun.

I stood in the doorway and made myself breathe.

She was at the vanity. My vanity. Brushing her hair with the silver comb that had belonged to my mother. The only thing I had left of her.

"Oh," Daisy said, catching my reflection in the mirror. Her smile was warm. Apologetic. "I hope you don't mind. Jameson said I could use the Luna's quarters while you're... adjusting."

Adjusting. As if I were the one who needed to adapt.

I walked to the desk and opened my journal. I wrote the date. The time. The scent in the air. The comb in her hand. Then I looked up and smiled.

"Of course," I said. "Stay as long as you need."

Her eyes flickered. Just for a second. Like she'd been expecting a fight and didn't know what to do when she didn't get one.

I left. I went to the archives and documented the conversation while it was still fresh. Then I went to the cellar.

---

Buster was in the corner, curled on a pile of old blankets someone had thrown down for him. When he heard my footsteps, his head came up. His tail thumped once against the stone.

I knelt and wrapped my arms around his neck.

"I know," I whispered into his fur. "You tried to tell me."

He had growled at Daisy from the first day. Not the playful warning he gave to squirrels or the mailman. A low, steady sound that came from somewhere deep in his chest. The kind of growl that meant *wrong*.

Jameson had called it a behavioral problem. He'd had two Deltas drag Buster down here and lock the door.

I visited every night after that. I brought him food I'd saved from my own plate. I sat on the floor and let him press his warm body against mine, and I talked to him the way I couldn't talk to anyone else.

"It won't be long," I told him. "I'm going to get us out. I just need a little more time."

His tail thumped again. He believed me.

I wished I could believe me too.

---

The ceremonial furs appeared in the main hall four days later.

I was crossing through on my way to the training grounds when I saw her. Daisy, standing near the hearth, wearing the silver-and-white furs that were only supposed to be worn by the seated Luna at formal pack events.

She wasn't at a formal event. She was drinking tea and chatting with two of the younger she-wolves like it was nothing.

I stopped walking.

One of the Gammas — a wolf named Toren who had served under me for two years — saw me freeze. He looked from me to Daisy and back again. His face went carefully blank.

I walked past without saying a word.

In my journal that night, I wrote: *Daisy wore the ceremonial furs in the main hall, 3:00 PM. Witnesses: Toren (Gamma), Lissa and Maren (pack members). No one corrected her. No one looked at me.*

I underlined the last sentence twice.

---

The wolfsbane sample took me a week to obtain.

Petra brought the supplement every morning at 6:15. She was an Omega, sweet-faced and eager to please, and she genuinely believed she was helping me. I could see it in the way she smiled when she handed me the cup.

"The Alpha says this will help," she'd say. "You'll have a pup soon, Luna. I'm sure of it."

I smiled back every time. I drank half the cup in front of her so she wouldn't worry. Then I poured the rest into a vial I kept hidden in my desk drawer.

When I had enough for a full sample, I wrapped it carefully and sent it to a border-pack healer I'd worked with during a supply negotiation two years ago. A wolf who owed me a favor and wouldn't ask questions.

The analysis came back in ten days.

*Trace wolfsbane. Dosage consistent with long-term suppression protocol. Cumulative exposure at this level will result in permanent wolf collapse within 6-8 months.*

I read it three times. Then I folded the paper, placed it in the back of my journal, and wrote the healer's name and contact information on the page before it.

My hands didn't shake. I didn't let them.

---

Daisy's absences were harder to track.

She left pack lands every two weeks, always for a full day, always without explanation. Jameson never questioned it. The pack accepted it.

I started following the supply requisitions instead.

Ironveil's records were meticulous — I had organized them myself. Every purchase, every shipment, every ounce of resources moving in and out of pack territory was logged and cross-referenced.

There were discrepancies. Small ones. Supplies ordered under false categories. Routes that didn't match our legitimate trade partners. A contact in the Ozarks who appeared three times in six months with no corresponding goods received.

I pulled the files. I traced the payments. I found the name of the rogue pack.

Then I found the birth record.

A daughter. Born five years ago. Mother: Daisy Olson. Father: Jameson Baker.

I stared at the page for a long time.

Five years.

He had been with her for five years before he ever met me. The mate bond I thought the Moon Goddess had given us — the bond I had poured everything into — had been a lie from the first day.

I wrote the date in my journal. I underlined it once. Then I closed the book and went to see Buster.

---

The morning after I found the birth record, Daisy cornered me in the hall.

"Amora," she said, her voice soft and concerned. "Are you all right? You seem... distant lately."

I looked at her. At the ceremonial furs draped over her shoulders. At the silver comb tucked into her hair. At the mark on her neck that wasn't cold.

"I'm fine," I said.

She smiled. "If you ever need to talk, I'm here. I know this must be hard for you."

I smiled back. "Thank you, Daisy. That's very kind."

She walked away. I stood in the hall and counted to sixty. Then I went to my quarters and added the conversation to my journal.

Witness: none. Location: east hall, second floor. Time: 9:47 AM.

I was running out of time. I could feel it.

But I wasn't running out of pages.