My Husband Traded Me to the Enemy Alpha King

I went downstairs first.

The kitchen was still a mess from three nights ago. The venison plate sat in the sink. And on the counter, half full and gone sour, was my glass of milk.

Nobody had even bothered to wash it.

I carried it back up the stairs and kicked the bedroom door wide open.

Elias was buttoning his shirt. Mara sat on the edge of the bed, picking frosting off the cake with one finger.

I hurled the glass at the floor.

It burst at Elias's feet. Milk and shards sprayed across his bare ankles, and he jumped back with a curse.

"Say it," I said.

"Vesper, have you lost your—"

"*Say it.* You put nightroot in that glass. You drugged me, and you carried me to Thorne's gate yourself."

He wiped a splash of milk off his shin. When he straightened, his face had gone hard.

"Fine. Yes. I sent you to Blackridge."

Just like that. No tears this time.

"I did it to protect the pack," he went on. "Six hundred wolves, Vesper. Children. Elders. You wanted me to let them die because you were too proud to make one sacrifice?"

"A sacrifice is something you *choose*."

Mara laughed and licked the frosting off her finger.

"Oh, listen to her." She stood and moved to Elias's side, sliding her hand into his. "You know what your problem is, cousin? You've always gotten everything. The best dresses. The Alpha's son. Everyone at every feast staring at your pretty face." She tilted her head. "Now you finally know what it feels like to be thrown away."

I stared at her. At the girl I'd shared a bedroom with for six winters after her parents died.

"I gave you a home, Mara."

"You gave me your leftovers."

I turned back to Elias and pointed straight at his chest.

"*You* sent me there. You. He didn't ask for me."

He didn't flinch. He stepped closer instead, sniffed the air near my collar, and pulled a face.

"And you came back stinking of him." His voice dropped low and cruel. "Do you know what the pack will say? That their Luna spent the night in the enemy King's bed. You're not clean anymore. I won't have a dirty Luna at my side."

Dirty.

From the man who'd tucked me into a stranger's sheets himself.

My wolf stirred under my ribs. She didn't growl. She went very, very quiet, the way she did right before a storm.

I lifted my chin.

"I, Vesper Lorne of Frostmere, reject you, Elias Durant, as my mate and my Alpha."

The words left my mouth, and the world tore in half.

Pain ripped through my chest like claws dragged from the inside out. My wolf threw herself against my ribs, howling, slamming again and again until I tasted blood. My knees hit the broken glass. I barely felt it.

Elias staggered too. He grabbed the bedpost, his face gray.

Then he laughed. Breathless and ugly.

"I accept," he gasped. "And let the record show *you* broke this bond. Not me. Whatever happens to you now, you did it to yourself."

The bond snapped.

Silence rushed into the space where he used to be. Cold. Enormous.

I knelt there, shaking, and Mara stepped right over my hand on her way to the door.

---

By noon, everyone knew.

Rejections echo through a pack link. Six hundred wolves felt their Luna's thread go dark.

I walked through the village to the healer's hut, and the silence followed me like a shadow.

Old Bram, whose leg I'd set last spring, turned his back when I passed. Ilsa, whose twins I'd delivered in a snowstorm, pulled her children inside and shut the door.

Nobody spoke to me.

But they all spoke about Mara. She stood at the well in the center of the square, holding up her left hand so the sun caught it.

My ring. The thin silver band with the moonstone Elias had slid onto my finger at our mating ceremony.

She'd taken it off my nightstand.

"Isn't it lovely?" she asked the women gathered around her. "Elias says it suits me better."

---

The healer's hut was locked.

I banged on the door until Elias's Beta opened it. Behind him, Elias leaned against my worktable with his arms crossed.

"I'm here for my things," I said. "My herbs. My medicine stock. The savings from five years of treating this pack. That money is mine."

"Nothing in here is yours," Elias said.

"I grew every one of those plants. I dried every root."

"On Frostmere land. With Frostmere coin." He pushed off the table. "You're a traitor, Vesper. You turned your back on your Alpha. Traitors don't get to walk away with anything."

I looked past him at the shelves. Jars of feverfew. Moonbark salve. The silverleaf I'd climbed the north cliffs to harvest the winter the sickness came.

The winter I'd saved his mother's life.

"Keep it," I said finally. "You'll need it when the fevers come back. Just remember who knew how to use it."

His smirk wavered. Only for a second.

---

The elders called the pack to the square at sunset.

Elder Corvan read the decision from a scroll. His hands trembled, but his voice didn't.

"Vesper Lorne, having rejected her Alpha and bonded herself to the scent of an enemy King, is hereby cast out of Frostmere. She will cross the border by nightfall and never return."

A murmur rolled through the crowd. Nobody objected.

Then hooves sounded at the gate.

Four riders in black leather waited just outside, their horses stamping in the cold. The lead rider was a broad, bearded man with a Blackridge crest on his shoulder.

"Vesper Lorne?" he called. "I'm Gareth Holm. The King sent us. We're to bring you back to Blackridge."

The crowd went dead quiet.

Elias's head snapped toward the gate. Something flashed across his face. Fear, maybe. Or jealousy.

Then Mara tucked herself under his arm, and Elder Corvan raised his hands over them both.

"May the moon bless your Alpha," he said, "and your new Luna."

The pack cheered.

The same wolves I'd fed. Stitched up. Sat beside through long nights while they burned with fever.

They cheered for her.

I turned my back on Frostmere and walked to the gate. Gareth held out a hand to help me onto the horse. I didn't take it. I climbed up on my own.

---

We rode through the night.

By dawn, the black towers of Blackridge cut into a pink sky. The castle gate swung open, and there he was.

Thorne stood on the top step, coat-less this time, his gray eyes fixed on me as I slid off the horse.

My heart pounded. I climbed three steps and stopped.

"You sent for me," I said.

"I sent an escort." His face gave away nothing. "Word travels fast. Your pack threw you out."

"Yes."

"And now you think Blackridge will take you in."

"I think you're the only one who saw what he did."

He held my gaze for a long, quiet moment. Then he turned to Gareth.

"Put her in the east wing. The last room at the end of the hall."

Gareth hesitated. "Sire, that wing hasn't been used in—"

"I know how long it's been." Thorne looked back at me, and his voice went flat as stone. "You have three days, Vesper Lorne. Rest. Eat. Heal. Then you leave my land."

He walked inside without another word.

The door swung shut behind him.

Three days.

I stared at the closed door and almost smiled.

Three days was more than enough.