My Alpha Let His Mistress Kill Our Unborn Child

The Alpha Command finally released me after what felt like hours but was probably only forty minutes. My muscles screamed as I pushed myself up from the floor, my injured hand leaving a smear of blood on the hardwood where the stitches had pulled open again.

I stood on shaking legs, staring at the locked door. My prison. My cage. Built by the mate bond I'd once thought was a blessing.

Then I heard it. The soft click of a lock disengaging.

I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs. Bruno, coming back to issue more commands. To break me down further until I became the obedient ghost he wanted.

But the wolf who entered wasn't Bruno.

Beta Eddie stepped inside, his shoulders rigid, his eyes fixed somewhere over my head. He wouldn't look at me. Couldn't look at me. The shame rolled off him in waves.

"Luna," he said quietly. His voice was tight, controlled. "The perimeter sensors on the North Ridge have experienced a... malfunction. They'll be offline for approximately fifteen minutes."

I stared at him, not understanding. Not daring to understand.

He finally met my eyes. Just for a second. But in that brief moment, I saw everything—the apology, the rebellion, the choice he was making. The line he was crossing.

"Fifteen minutes," he repeated. He pulled something from his jacket. A dark raincoat, folded tight. Beneath it, a thick envelope. "The storm will mask scent trails. The rain will wash away tracks."

My breath caught. "Eddie—"

"I don't know anything." He set the items on the bed, still not looking directly at me. "I was doing my rounds. I saw nothing. Heard nothing. When the Alpha asks, I'll tell him the truth—I have no idea where you went."

Tears burned behind my eyes. "You could lose everything."

"You already have." His jaw clenched. "Fifteen minutes, Luna. Don't waste them."

He turned and walked out, leaving the door open behind him. An invitation. An escape route. A betrayal of his Alpha in favor of something higher—the moral code that said a mate bond should never become a prison.

I grabbed the raincoat with trembling hands. Pulled it on over my ruined burgundy gown. The envelope went into the inside pocket—I didn't have time to count the cash, but it felt substantial. Enough to disappear.

Fifteen minutes.

I ran.

The storm hit me the moment I cleared the pack house. Rain like ice water, wind that tried to push me back. My heels were impossible, so I kicked them off, feeling the wet grass and then the rough forest floor beneath my bare feet.

No wolf to guide me. No enhanced speed or night vision. Just my human body, fragile and slow, crashing through underbrush in the dark.

Thorns tore at my dress. I felt the silk rip, felt scratches open on my legs. My injured hand throbbed with every movement, the stitches definitely torn now, blood mixing with rain.

But I kept running.

Behind me, the pack house lights glowed warm and golden. The gala was ending. Soon Bruno would return to that locked room. Soon he'd discover I was gone.

Fifteen minutes. Maybe I'd used five already.

I pushed harder, my lungs burning. The North Ridge loomed ahead, dark and steep. The border. The edge of Blood Claw territory and the beginning of neutral lands where rogues wandered and pack law didn't reach.

My foot caught on a root. I went down hard, my hands slamming into mud. Pain exploded through my injured palm. I bit back a scream, tasting blood where I'd bitten my tongue.

Get up. Get up. Get up.

I dragged myself to my feet. My dress was destroyed, hanging in tatters. My hair had come loose from its elegant style, plastered to my face by rain. I looked like a drowned ghost.

Fitting.

The border marker appeared through the trees—a tall stone carved with the Blood Claw Pack symbol. Beyond it, freedom. Beyond it, the unknown.

Behind me, I heard it. Faint but unmistakable. A howl cutting through the storm.

Bruno. His wolf, calling for his mate.

I looked back one last time. Saw the pack house in the distance, the territory I'd called home, the life I'd tried so desperately to build from the ashes of who I used to be.

Then I crossed the border.

The rain intensified, washing away my scent, my blood, any trace that I'd been here. The storm the Moon Goddess had sent to cover my escape, to give me this one chance at freedom.

I stumbled forward into neutral territory, into the dark, into whatever came next.

Behind me, another howl. Closer now. Desperate.

But I didn't stop running.