My Husband's Love Was a Lie,So I Made Him Lose Me Forever

After I finished the tonic, Alaric kissed the tears from my face, then dismissed the den staff and undressed me himself, drawing my bath with practiced hands.

He had done this for me countless times without complaint. In the beginning, I'd felt embarrassed and tried to call someone in to help.

But he'd gazed at me with open adoration. "A body this beautiful? I'd never let anyone else so much as glimpse you."

"You're mine alone."

Every detail of my daily life, large or small, he insisted on handling personally, and he seemed to relish every moment of it.

What made it rarer still was that in three years of our mating bond, he had kept no one but me. His den staff consisted entirely of males. There wasn't a single she-wolf to be found inside the manor walls.

Alaric was young and held the highest seat of power any Alpha could claim. Even Alpha Lucian Grimvale had once tried to send him a pair of unmated Omegas as a gift following a successful territory negotiation, a gesture of goodwill between packs.

He refused outright, in front of every Alpha at the Moon Council table. The insult nearly started a war. Three of Lucian's enforcers put him on the ground in the stone courtyard afterward, and they didn't stop until someone pulled them off.

I'd seen him that night, his shirt soaked through with blood, not a rib left uncracked, and I wept and cursed him for being a fool.

But even through the pain, he smiled and pulled me close. "Don't cry. I'd sooner betray the whole world than betray you."

Back then, I believed I was the luckiest mate alive.

Everyone in the territory knew that Alpha Blackmoor kept a Luna he treasured like the very eyes in his head. They envied me endlessly.

Yet that woman, Vesper, had shattered something. For the first time, the husband I'd loved for years felt like a stranger, and every tender moment between us felt like an elaborate lie.

By the time I came back to myself, I was wrapped in thin silk and cradled in Alaric's lap.

He nuzzled my neck, coaxing, and I turned my head away on instinct. His scent, cedar and cold iron and woodsmoke, was the same as always, but something in me flinched from it now. "I'm tired. Not tonight."

Alaric blinked, then softened. He ruffled my hair, eased me down onto the pillows, and tucked the covers snugly around me.

I waited until his breathing grew deep and even before opening my eyes in the dark.

Even in sleep, his arms were locked around me, refusing to let go. He loved me so completely. How could any of it be a lie?

The next morning, Alaric was in high spirits, eager to take me to the wildlands outside the territory, a quiet stretch of forest the pack owned under an old land trust where no enforcers stood post.

Before I could answer, someone appeared at the study door requesting a word.

The visitor barely got two words out before Alaric's brow creased and he snapped, "It's my day off. I made it perfectly clear that no one was to come to the den."

I tugged at his sleeve. "Don't be angry. It might be something urgent."

I called the visitor forward to deliver the message, but the instant the figure raised its head, Alaric strode over and placed himself between us, blocking my view entirely.

His throat worked. He looked at me with something close to guilt.

"I just remembered, there is something pressing I need to handle. I'll be quick. I won't miss the wildlands, I promise."

I studied him in silence. The visitor wore the dark jacket of one of the den attendants, but the frame beneath it was slender and soft. And there was a scent beneath the fabric, faint but wrong. Not birch bark or clover honey, not any wolf I recognized from the manor. Something sweeter. Something that didn't belong here. Given how rattled Alaric was, who else could it be but the woman he kept at the nesting den?

My thumb pressed against the inside of my ring finger, hard, until the knuckle ached. I kept my expression neutral and my voice light. "If it's that urgent, you should go. No need to rush back on my account."

The moment I said it, Alaric turned on his heel and left without looking back.

I watched his figure disappear through the front hall, past the two enforcers flanking the door who straightened as he passed, and a bitter taste crept across my lips.

This was the first time he had ever left me for another woman.

The restlessness gnawed at me until I couldn't stand it. After a long hesitation, I took one of the unmarked vehicles from the garage and followed him myself.

The moment they turned out of the lane in front of the Blackmoor estate, Alaric stopped the car and yanked the cap off the so-called attendant's head. Silk-dark hair spilled down past her shoulders.

"Who gave you permission to show your face anywhere near my mate?"

The woman shrank back like a startled fawn, her eyes wide and brimming with hurt.

"I didn't mean to. Please don't be angry."