My Mate Banished Me Before Discovering I Was Royalty

The second night in unclaimed territory, I found him beneath a deadfall.

I wasn't looking for company. I'd been walking north since leaving Ironcrest, following the ridge line where the forest thinned and the ground stayed frozen enough to leave fewer tracks. My Lycan wolf was awake now—a constant silver presence behind my ribs, restless and enormous—but I kept her contained. Shifting burned calories I couldn't afford to waste.

The snarling started when I was twenty feet from the fallen tree.

I stopped. The sound was low and continuous, not a warning but a defense. Something small and cornered. I crouched slowly and peered beneath the twisted branches.

A wolf-dog. Maybe two years old, maybe older—hard to tell under the matted fur and the scars. One ear was torn halfway down. His ribs showed through his coat. He bared his teeth at me, but his haunches were pressed against the frozen dirt, nowhere left to retreat.

I sat down.

Not close. Just sat, cross-legged in the frost, and waited.

He snarled for another five minutes. Then ten. I didn't speak. Didn't move. My wolf stirred inside me, curious, but I kept her still. The wolf-dog's eyes were yellow and wild and exhausted.

By the time the sky started lightening, he'd stopped snarling.

By the time the sun broke the horizon, he was pressed against my leg.

I named him Buster because he looked like he'd been through a fight and come out the other side still breathing. I shared my rations with him first—dried meat I'd packed from the Ironcrest stores before anyone thought to stop me—and ate what was left. He gulped the food without chewing, then sat and watched me with those yellow eyes.

"You're not going back either," I said quietly.

He didn't answer. Didn't need to.

We started walking together at dawn.

---

I smelled the Lycan patrol before I saw them.

It was late afternoon on the third day. Buster and I had been following a game trail that skirted the edge of what I knew was disputed territory—land that technically belonged to no pack but that everyone avoided because the Lycan Court claimed jurisdiction when it wanted to. The scent hit me first: pine and cold iron, layered with something sharper. Authority. Power that didn't need to announce itself.

I stopped walking. Buster stopped beside me, his ears flicking forward.

The Lycan Prince stepped out from the tree line thirty feet ahead.

I knew who he was immediately. Dominic Ashford. I'd seen him twice at inter-pack summits Ashton had dragged me to—events where Lunas were expected to smile and stay quiet while Alphas negotiated. He'd been on the raised platform both times, presiding over disputes with the kind of stillness that made other Alphas nervous. He was tall, dark-haired, and composed in a way that read as dangerous rather than calm.

He stopped the moment he saw me.

Something shifted in his expression—just a flicker, gone before I could name it—and then he went absolutely still. Not stiff. Still. Like a predator who'd just caught a scent and was deciding whether to move.

I didn't wait for him to speak first.

"I have intelligence," I said. My voice carried across the frozen ground between us. "About an illegal rogue alliance. Alpha Ashton Marshall has been running off-book meetings with rogue leaders for the past eighteen months. I have names, routes, and meeting points."

Dominic didn't move. His eyes—dark, unreadable—stayed on me.

"I want a formal audience with the Lycan King," I continued. "In exchange for the intelligence. That's the transaction."

Behind him, two other Lycan soldiers emerged from the trees. They were watching me with the kind of wariness people reserve for things they don't understand yet. My Lycan wolf stirred, her aura pressing outward just enough to make them shift their weight.

Dominic raised one hand slightly. The soldiers stopped moving.

"You're Gemma Reynolds," he said. His voice was quiet and carried more weight than Ashton's Alpha tone ever had. "Former Luna of Ironcrest."

"Former," I agreed.

His gaze dropped briefly to my neck—to the scar where Ashton's mark had been—and something in his expression tightened. When he looked back at my face, his eyes were harder.

"The intelligence," he said. "Is it verified?"

"I kept the records myself for two years," I said. "Ashton thought I was managing pack logistics. I was. I was also cataloguing every meeting he didn't put in the official logs."

Dominic was quiet for a long moment. The wind picked up, cutting through the trees, and I caught his scent properly for the first time.

Frost and cedar. Clean and cold and—

My wolf lunged forward inside me.

I locked her down hard, my jaw clenching, my hands curling into fists at my sides. The recognition was immediate and devastating and completely unwelcome. My body knew what he was before my mind could catch up. Mate. The word echoed in the hollow space where Ashton's bond used to sit, and I shoved it down with everything I had.

No.

Not again.

Not now.

Dominic's nostrils flared slightly. His shoulders tensed. He knew. He'd caught my scent—white jasmine and frost, the smell I'd never noticed on myself until my wolf woke—and his wolf had responded. I could see it in the way his hands flexed once at his sides, the way his breathing changed.

But he didn't say it.

He didn't claim me. Didn't step forward. Didn't speak the word I was bracing for.

Instead, he said, "The audience is granted. You'll come to the Lycan Court under my escort. The King will hear your intelligence personally."

I exhaled slowly. "Thank you."

"You'll be given quarters and provisions," he continued, his tone formal, careful. "You're not a prisoner. You're a guest."

"Understood."

He looked at Buster, who was pressed against my leg and growling softly at the Lycan soldiers. "Your companion comes with you."

It wasn't a question. I nodded.

Dominic turned to his soldiers. "We're returning to the Court. The guest travels in the center of the formation. No one approaches her without my direct order."

The soldiers nodded and fell into position.

Dominic looked back at me one last time. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes—dark and steady—held mine for a beat longer than necessary.

"Welcome to Lycan territory, Gemma Reynolds," he said quietly.

Then he turned and started walking.

I followed, Buster at my side, my wolf still howling inside me.

I didn't look back toward Ironcrest.

There was nothing there anymore.