My Mate Broke My Hand for His Luna

The service entrance smelled like wet stone and old grease.

I stood at the back door of the Ironveil Pack house at 5:47 p.m., thirteen minutes early, wearing the gray Omega shift that had been left in an envelope at the depot three days ago. The fabric was coarse. It scratched the back of my neck where Julian's mark used to burn. Now it was just cold skin.

A woman in kitchen whites opened the door without looking at me. "Pierce?"

"Yes."

"Tray duty. Hall service. Keep your head down, don't speak unless spoken to, don't look anyone in the eye." She handed me a black apron. "Tie that on. Move."

I tied the apron and followed her inside.

The kitchen was chaos—steam, shouting, the crash of dishes. Twenty wolves moved in tight formation, plating food, pouring wine, arranging garnishes with the precision of soldiers. No one looked at me. I was packless. I didn't exist unless someone needed me to carry something.

The woman shoved a tray into my hands. Crystal goblets filled to the rim with dark red wine. "Hall. North tables. Don't spill."

I took the tray and pushed through the swinging door into the banquet hall.

The heat hit me first. Then the light.

The grand hall was blazing. Candlelight everywhere—iron chandeliers, wall sconces, floating votives on every table. Gray banners hung from the vaulted ceiling, the Ironveil crest embroidered in silver thread that caught the light and threw it back in sharp angles. The tables were arranged in a horseshoe, all facing the raised head table where Julian and Jocelyn would sit.

Every ranked wolf in the Pacific Northwest was here. I recognized the crests on their formal jackets as I moved through the room—Clearwater, Ashridge, Stonebrook, Thornvale. Alphas. Betas. Their mates. All of them dressed in silk and velvet and leather, all of them laughing, drinking, filling the air with the layered scent of pack hierarchy and old bloodlines.

I kept my head down and my scent suppressed as tightly as a packless wolf could manage. It wasn't much. Without a pack bond to anchor me, my scent leaked around the edges no matter how hard I tried to tamp it down. Winter jasmine. Night rain. The faint, bitter tang of wolfsbane residue from pulling Caiden's poison every night for five years.

I reached the north tables and began setting down goblets. One in front of each chair. My hands didn't shake. I'd practiced this. Counted the steps in my head. Breathe in. Set the glass. Breathe out. Move to the next seat.

I made it through two tables before I felt it.

The bond.

It flared in my chest like a match striking in the dark—sudden, hot, gone. I was within twenty feet of the head table. Julian was there. I didn't need to look to know. The bond knew.

My step faltered. Just a fraction of a second. A hitch in my rhythm that no one else would notice.

Julian noticed.

I felt his attention lock onto me through the bond before I saw him. It was a physical sensation, like a hand closing around my throat. I forced myself to keep moving. Set down the last goblet. Picked up the empty tray. Did not look up.

From across the hall, I felt him watching.

I turned and walked back toward the kitchen, my spine straight, my pace even. The bond pulsed once in my chest—sharp, deliberate. Not the dull background hum I'd lived under for five years. This was Julian choosing. This was him pushing.

Contempt. Concentrated. Aimed.

It slid under my ribs like a blade and twisted.

I made it to the side table near the kitchen corridor before I had to stop. I set the tray down carefully. Pressed my palms flat against the table edge. Breathed through my nose, slow and controlled, until the nausea passed.

Behind me, the hall filled with more voices. More laughter. The sound of chairs scraping as wolves took their seats.

I flexed my right hand once beneath the cloth wrap I'd tied around it this morning. The Healer channels throbbed, a low ache that never quite went away anymore. But they were still there. Still intact.

I picked up the empty tray and walked back into the kitchen.

The woman in whites shoved another tray into my hands without looking at me. This one was heavier—small plates of roasted meat, arranged in perfect rows. "Hall. East tables. Go."

I went.

The second trip was easier. I knew where Julian was now. I knew the range of the bond's pull. I adjusted my route to stay outside the twenty-foot radius and kept my scent as flat as I could manage.

I served the east tables. Then the west. Then back to the north for the second course.

No one spoke to me. A few wolves glanced up when I set their plates down, but their eyes slid past me like I was furniture. Packless. Omega. Invisible.

I preferred it that way.

On my fourth trip, Julian was seated.

He sat at the center of the head table, Jocelyn on his right. He wore a black formal jacket with the Ironveil crest on the collar, his dark hair brushed back, his jaw tight. He looked exactly like what he was—an Alpha in his prime, surrounded by power, about to claim his Luna before every wolf who mattered.

Jocelyn leaned into him, whispering something. Her hand rested on his arm. Her scent—rosewater and amber—was everywhere, soaked into his jacket, his skin, the air around him.

I walked past the head table with a tray of empty goblets and felt Julian's wolf surge through the bond. Not at me. At her. Possessive. Satisfied.

I kept walking.

In the kitchen, I set the tray down and stared at the wall. Counted to sixty. My hand curled into a fist at my side. The thing under my ribs—the thing that had stirred when Julian confronted me outside the depot—shifted again. Low. Warning.

I unclenched my fist and picked up the next tray.

I was halfway back to the hall when Jocelyn stepped into the corridor.

She appeared so suddenly I almost dropped the tray. She stood between me and the door, blocking the narrow hallway, her cream gown glowing in the dim light. Up close, her smile was sharp enough to cut bone.

"Vivian." Her voice was low. The honeyed public tone was gone. "Walk with me."

It wasn't a request.

I set the tray on a side shelf and followed her deeper into the corridor, away from the kitchen noise, away from the hall. She stopped near a storage alcove where the walls muffled sound and turned to face me.

"The banquet is being observed tonight." Her eyes glittered. "Six allied packs. Every Alpha and Beta who matters. Do you understand what that means?"

I said nothing.

"It means," she continued, her voice dropping to a hiss, "that your presence here is at my sufferance. Not your right. You are here because I allow it. Because Julian allows it. And if you do anything—anything—to embarrass this pack, I will make sure you regret it for however many weeks your brother has left."

My jaw tightened.

Jocelyn's smile widened. She reached into the hidden pocket of her gown and pulled out a small folded card. Cream paper. Elegant script.

"Later tonight, you'll be called to the center of the hall." She held the card between two perfectly manicured fingers. "You'll make a statement. A public one. In front of everyone."

She unfolded the card and held it up so I could read it.

My eyes skimmed the first line: *I, Vivian Pierce, confess that I manipulated the sacred mate bond for personal gain...*

I stopped reading.

Jocelyn folded the card again and tucked it into the front pocket of my apron. Her fingers lingered there for a moment, pressing the card flat against my stomach.

"You'll read every word," she whispered. "Clearly. Loudly. And you'll mean it."

She stepped back. The honeyed smile returned. She smoothed her gown and tilted her head.

"See you out there, sweetheart."

She walked back toward the hall, her heels clicking on the stone floor, and disappeared through the swinging door.

I stood alone in the corridor.

The card in my apron pocket felt like it weighed ten pounds.

I pressed my right hand flat against my chest, over the cold mark, and counted to sixty.

Then I picked up my tray and went back to work.