My Alpha Starved Me for His Mistress

The Tuesday morning sky was the color of old dishwater. I pulled my threadbare jacket tighter as I walked beside Tommy, one of our pack's lower-ranked wolves, toward the supply depot at the edge of Blackridge territory. The fabric was so thin I could feel every gust of wind.

In my pocket, I had a handwritten list. Flour, salt, dried beans. The basics. I'd rationed everything down to the gram because Dexter had told me three years ago that Silvercrest's treasury was empty. Every penny counted. Every sacrifice mattered.

I believed him.

I starved myself so the pack could eat. I scrubbed floors until my hands bled. I wore clothes that were practically rags. Because that's what a Luna does when her pack is struggling. She gives everything.

Tommy glanced at me as we walked. "Luna, you sure you don't want to add more to the list? We've got a little extra this month."

"No," I said quietly. "We need to save it. Winter's coming."

He didn't argue. No one ever argued with me. They just looked at me with this awful pity in their eyes, like I was some kind of martyr.

Maybe I was.

We passed an exclusive lounge on the Blackridge side. It had floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sleek modern furniture. The kind of place where wealthy wolves gathered. I barely glanced at it. Places like that weren't for wolves like me.

But then I saw him.

Dexter.

My mate. My Alpha. Standing inside the lounge in a tailored charcoal suit that probably cost more than our entire monthly supply budget. He looked relaxed. Comfortable. His hand reached out to fasten something around a woman's neck.

Elsie. His secretary.

The pendant caught the light. Moonstone. Rare, expensive, blessed by the Moon Goddess herself. The kind of thing you only bought when you had money to burn.

My feet stopped moving.

Tommy kept walking a few steps before he realized I wasn't beside him anymore. "Luna?"

I couldn't answer. I couldn't breathe.

Dexter was laughing. Elsie tilted her head back, showing off the pendant, and he kissed her throat.

Then the mind-link hit me.

It wasn't directed at me. It was a stray broadcast, the kind that happens when an Alpha gets careless with his mental shields. Dexter's voice, smooth and persuasive, bleeding into my awareness.

*"—my Luna is the problem, Callum. Barren. Greedy. She's been bleeding the pack dry for years. I've tried to manage the damage, but she just keeps spending—"*

The world tilted.

Barren. Greedy. Bleeding the pack dry.

I looked down at my hands. They were skeletal. I hadn't eaten a full meal in weeks because I thought we couldn't afford it. I wore rags because I thought every coin mattered.

And he was buying moonstones for his mistress.

Something inside me cracked.

No. Not cracked. Shattered.

A sound tore out of my throat. Not a scream. Something deeper. Primal. My wolf, silent and suppressed for three years, surged forward with a violence that buckled my knees.

The air around me exploded with raw Alpha aura.

Tommy stumbled backward, his eyes wide. Every wolf within a hundred meters froze. I felt them all turn toward me, their instincts screaming at them to submit.

I didn't care.

My vision went white. My wolf clawed at the inside of my mind, furious and awake and demanding justice. When the storm finally settled, I was on my hands and knees on the pavement, gasping.

But I wasn't broken.

I was awake.

For the first time in three years, I saw clearly.

Dexter had lied. About everything. The empty treasury. The struggling pack. My worthlessness.

He had stolen my inheritance. My birthright. And he had made me complicit in my own destruction.

I pushed myself to my feet. My hands were steady.

"Luna?" Tommy's voice was shaking. "Are you—"

"Go back to the packhouse," I said. My voice didn't sound like mine anymore. It was cold. Clear. Commanding. "Tell no one you saw me."

He nodded and ran.

I turned and walked away from the supply depot. Away from the lounge. Toward home.

Toward Silvercrest.

I was the last surviving heir of the founding Alpha bloodline. My parents had built that pack from nothing. It was mine by blood, by law, by every sacred rule the Moon Goddess had ever written.

And I was going to take it back.

---

The packhouse doors were heavy oak, carved with the Silvercrest crest. I pushed them open and walked inside.

No one stopped me. A few wolves glanced up, startled, but I didn't pause. I went straight to the Alpha suite.

My parents' rooms.

The doors were open. Inside, Elsie sat in the Luna's ceremonial chair, the one my mother used to sit in. She wore a custom moonstone brooch pinned to her silk blouse. She was barking orders at two Omegas, who were scrubbing the floor on their knees.

"Faster," Elsie snapped. "If I see a single streak, you'll do it again."

I stepped into the room.

Elsie looked up. Her eyes widened, then narrowed. "What are you doing here?"

I didn't answer. I walked past her to the desk in the corner and opened the bottom drawer. Inside, wrapped in aged leather, was the original Silvercrest Pack Charter. My mother's bloodline seal was pressed into the wax.

I pulled it out and turned to face her.

"Get out of my mother's chair."

Elsie laughed. "Your mother's chair? You're delusional. Dexter is Alpha here. You're just—"

Footsteps thundered behind me. Grant, Dexter's Gamma, appeared in the doorway. He was a big wolf, broad-shouldered and intimidating. He moved toward me.

"Luna, you need to leave," he said.

I held up the Charter.

Grant froze.

The room went silent.

"I am Luciana, daughter of Alpha Matthias and Luna Serena, last surviving heir of the founding bloodline of Silvercrest," I said. My voice didn't waver. "Under ancient pack law, I invoke my hereditary right as Alpha heir. This pack is mine."

Grant's hands dropped to his sides. His wolf recognized the truth before his mind did. Founding blood couldn't be overridden. Not by marriage. Not by Council vote. Not by anything.

Elsie stood up slowly, her face pale.

I looked at her.

"Get. Out."

She ran.