My Alpha Refused to Release Our Bond After Betraying Me

The mop handle was smooth under my palms. Three days of corridor work had worn calluses into the spaces between my fingers, the kind that would take weeks to fade. I didn't mind. Calluses were honest. They didn't lie about what you'd been doing with your hands.

I was working the third-floor corridor outside the pack clinic when I heard Mason's voice—low, clipped, giving orders to someone I couldn't see. I kept my head down and pushed the mop in long, even strokes. The lemon cleaner smell was sharp enough to sting my eyes.

Footsteps. Three sets. Mason passed first, flanked by two ranked warriors whose names I'd stopped bothering to remember. He didn't look at me. His gaze slid over me the way it might slide over a piece of furniture someone had left in the hallway—noted, irrelevant, already forgotten.

I wrung the mop and kept working.

Romina's voice came next, half a step behind him. "Quinn."

I stopped. Turned. The mop dripped onto the floor I'd just cleaned.

She stood in the center of the corridor, one hand resting on the swell of her belly, the other holding a small leather-bound planner I recognized as the one the previous Luna—me—had used to track pack events. She'd taken that too. Of course she had.

"When you finish here," she said, her tone pleasant, generous even, "please also clean the Luna's suite bathroom. The previous occupant left it in a state."

The two warriors exchanged glances. One of them—the younger one with the scar through his eyebrow—looked at the wall very quickly.

I looked at Romina. She was smiling. It was a good smile, warm and patient, the kind that said she was doing me a favor by giving me work. Her eyes were a different story. They were watching me the way a cat watches something small and injured.

I wrung the mop again. Water pooled on the floor between us.

"Of course," I said.

Her smile tightened. Just a fraction. Just enough that I knew she'd heard what I hadn't said.

She turned and followed Mason down the corridor. The warriors went with her. I listened to their footsteps fade, counted to twenty, then finished mopping.

---

The Luna's suite smelled like lavender and something sharper underneath—bergamot, maybe, or citrus. Romina had redecorated. The curtains were different. The bedspread was cream instead of navy. My mahogany dresser was gone. In its place stood a sleek white vanity with a mirror framed in gold.

I walked through the bedroom without looking at the bed and went straight to the bathroom.

It wasn't dirty. Of course it wasn't. Romina had left it spotless, because this wasn't about cleanliness. It was about making me come here, making me see what she'd done with the space that used to be mine, making me scrub a bathroom that didn't need scrubbing.

I filled the bucket, wrung the mop, and started with the tile floor.

The cabinet beneath the sink was slightly ajar. I crouched down to close it and saw the bottles inside—shampoo, conditioner, a jar of face cream, and in the back corner, a small amber bottle with a medical label. I didn't touch it. I just looked.

Wolfsbane extract. Medical-grade. The kind the pack healer used for treating certain infections, always diluted, always under supervision.

It had no cosmetic use.

I memorized the bottle's position—third from the left, behind the conditioner, label facing out. Then I closed the cabinet, finished the floor, wiped down the sink and mirror, and left.

My hands didn't shake. They hadn't shaken in years.

---

Elara found me that evening in the storage corridor near the kitchen. She didn't speak until we were alone, until the sound of dinner prep had faded and the only noise was the hum of the industrial freezer against the far wall.

She pressed a folded note into my hand. I opened it.

*Received. Moving. Line compromised. Stay visible.*

I read it twice, then folded it back up and handed it to her. She tucked it into her pocket and pulled out something else—a small black device, no bigger than a keychain, with a single button on the side.

"Signal jammer," she whispered. "Twenty-meter radius. Mason's allies are monitoring outgoing communications. Zayn can't reach you directly until he's closer."

I took it. The metal was cool against my palm.

"How long?" I asked.

Elara shook her head. "I don't know."

I pocketed the device. "Then I'll keep cleaning bathrooms."

She looked at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she nodded once and left.

I stood in the storage corridor for another minute, listening to the freezer hum. My wolf stirred—not quite waking, but no longer entirely still. It felt like something shifting in deep water, testing the current.

*Wait,* I told it silently. *Just a little longer.*

I walked back toward my room. My thumbnail found the center of my palm—press, hold, release.

The mark on my neck was still cold.

---

Two days later, the pack held a formal dinner in the main hall. Ranked wolves and their families, about forty people total. I was assigned to serve water and clear plates.

I arrived early, filled the pitchers, and set them on the side table near the kitchen doors. The dining hall was already filling—Betas and Gammas taking their seats, their mates smoothing skirts and adjusting jewelry. Mason sat at the head table with Romina beside him. She wore cream lace again. Empire waist. Her hand rested on her belly.

I was the last to be seated at the staff table near the back, the first to have my plate set in front of me. I hadn't chosen it. The Omega who served me—a young woman named Cara—had simply placed it there and moved on.

I didn't eat immediately. I never did. I watched the room instead, counting exits, noting who sat where.

Midway through the meal, Romina made a small sound—sharp, surprised. Her hand flew to her throat.

I looked up.

Her skin was erupting in hives, red welts spreading across her neck and collarbone. She clutched the edge of the table, her breathing rapid and shallow, and then she fell.

It was a controlled fall. I saw it. The way she tucked her arm, the way she turned her shoulder to avoid landing on her belly. But it produced chaos anyway—chairs scraping, voices rising, Mason on his feet shouting for the healer.

The pack healer arrived within seconds, dropping to her knees beside Romina. She checked her pulse, her airways, her pupils. Then she looked at Mason and said one word.

"Wolfsbane."

Romina raised one arm. Her hand was shaking. Her finger pointed directly at my place setting.

Two warriors moved immediately. One lifted my plate, the other checked the rim. The second warrior looked at Mason and nodded.

"Traces confirmed," he said.

I sat very still. My hands were flat on the table. My thumbnail pressed into my palm—press, hold, hold.

Mason's eyes met mine across the hall.

I looked back at him and said nothing at all.