My Alpha Publicly Replaced Me With His Luna

The mate bond in my chest went dead cold at precisely eight o'clock.

It was the exact minute Greyson had promised to mark me. I stood at the double doors of the banquet hall, my fingers curling around the cheap leather cord hanging against my collarbone. It was the only gift the Alpha had ever given me.

Through the bond, his emotions suddenly flatlined into a wall of gray stone. Then came the smell.

Greyson’s cedar scent wasn't alone. It was smothered under heavy jasmine and vanilla—Sutton Gray’s scent, layered so thick over his skin that it burned the back of my throat.

I looked toward the dais. Greyson was already there. Sutton was pressed tight against his side, practically glued to his ribs. Her neck was tilted back, and Greyson’s heavy hand gripped the nape of her neck in that careless, dominant way he used on subordinates. Catching the chandelier light on Sutton’s chest was a rare moonstone pendant. The Luna stone he swore he never bought.

A hot, sickening surge pulsed through the bond. Greyson’s arousal wasn't mine. It hit my veins like raw battery acid, sharp and humiliating, completely unhidden.

He knew I was standing there. He just didn't care.

Greyson released Sutton's neck and stepped to the edge of the elevated platform. He didn't look at my face. He looked right through me, the way someone looks at grease on a windshield.

"Pack of Ironveil," Greyson’s voice boomed. He dropped his Alpha tone onto the room, a heavy, suffocating pressure that forced the Delta guards at the door to lower their heads. "Witness."

He drew a breath, his dark eyes leveling directly on me.

"I, Greyson Rose, Alpha of Ironveil, reject you, Zara Wells, as my mate."

The ritual vow tore into me like a jagged blade of pure silver. The mate mark on my right shoulder went from ice to ash, then ripped away entirely, like a door slamming shut in an empty room. Agony exploded behind my ribs.

My breath caught in my throat. My knees gave out, slamming hard onto the polished wood floor.

I clamped my jaw shut. I bit the inside of my cheek until copper flooded my mouth, swallowing every sound. I would not scream for him. I would not give him that.

Greyson didn't hesitate. He turned to Sutton, caught her by the waist, and pulled her roughly against his chest. He bared his fangs and sank them deep into the crook of her neck.

The wet puncture echoed through the breathless room. Sutton gasped, arching into his body, her fingers tangling in his dark hair. The sweet, cloying reek of their completed bond exploded outward, filling the hall.

Greyson had made her Luna.

The silence was absolute. Dozens of wolves I had cooked for, cleaned up after, and healed for six long years stared down at their shoes. Beside the dais, Beta Marcus Hale crossed his arms, a nasty little smirk tugging at his mouth. No one moved. No one spoke.

Greyson pulled back, wiping a smear of red from his chin with the back of his hand. He looked down at the floor, dismissive, done with me. Sutton, incandescent with newly claimed power, smoothed her skirt and smiled. It was the sharp, ugly grin of a victor.

I grabbed the edge of a dining table, digging my fingernails into the wood until the varnish splintered under my grip.

*Get up,* I told myself. *Get up right now.*

My muscles trembled with bond-shock, but I dragged myself upright. My spine locked straight. Under the heavy, wolfsbane-laced iron cuff welded to my right wrist, my blood suddenly pulsed hot. A strange, sharp heat flared under the metal, like an ember catching dry leaves.

Sutton glided down the dais steps, her heels clicking on the hardwood. She stopped ten paces from me, eyes gleaming with open malice.

"A wolfless Omega shouldn't have to suffer the humiliation of staying where she isn't wanted," Sutton said, projecting her voice so every corner of the room heard. "I invoke the ancient Challenge Circle. Pack law, before the witnesses."

A low murmur rippled through the crowd. The Challenge Circle was a death sentence for a wolfless wolf. Fight in fur, or yield and be banished forever.

Sutton tilted her head, mocking. "Crawl out on your belly, Zara. Or shift and face me—if you can."

On the dais, Greyson folded his arms over his chest. He didn't say a word. He just watched, treating my destruction like basic housecleaning.

Near the back pillars, far from the light, an elderly man in plain traveler's clothes stiffened. His weathered hand shot out, his fingers locking like steel talons around the muscular forearm of the tall, dark-haired man standing beside him. Neither of them looked away from me.

I didn't blink. I reached behind my neck, grabbed the thin leather cord Greyson had given me years ago, and snapped it with a single, sharp jerk.

I dropped the broken string onto the floor, kicked it aside, and met Sutton’s cruel eyes without flinching.

"I accept," I said clearly.

Sutton’s eyes flashed yellow as she dropped into a crouch, her bones cracking into her first shift.