My Mate Lied About My Death to Steal My Pack

The pack house settled into silence around two in the morning.

I waited another hour, listening to the guards outside my door settle into their rhythm. One snored softly. The other hummed under his breath, some pop song I didn't recognize.

I slipped back into the slipstream.

This time, I wasn't hunting for Xavier's sick trophy collection. I was following the money.

The pack's financial system was supposed to be secure, protected by layers of encryption and Council oversight. But Xavier had gotten sloppy. Arrogant. He'd reused passwords, left backdoors open, treated the pack's resources like his personal bank account.

I found the ledgers within minutes.

My father had left the pack wealthy. Strong borders, well-equipped warriors, emergency funds that could sustain us through years of hardship. The numbers glowed in my mind's eye as I traced them forward through time.

Three years ago, everything changed.

Large withdrawals. Luxury car dealerships. Jewelry stores. High-end hotels. Xavier had bled the pack dry, spending money meant for border sensors on diamond necklaces. Funds allocated for warrior armor had purchased sports cars.

Aurora's rage burned white-hot in my mind. *He left our warriors defenseless so he could buy toys for his whores.*

I kept digging, my tracker training guiding me through the digital maze. And then I found them.

The forged Council decrees.

They were crude, really. Any Council member would have spotted them immediately. But Xavier had never submitted them for verification—he'd simply shown them to the pack, using his Alpha tone to prevent anyone from questioning their authenticity.

The first decree declared me dead. Killed in a training accident in the Northern Territories. It was dated six months after I'd left.

The second decree named Xavier as the rightful Alpha, claiming my father had secretly amended his will before his death.

Lies. All lies.

But lies the pack had believed because their Alpha had commanded them to believe.

I pulled back from the slipstream, my hands shaking. Not from fear. From fury so cold it burned.

I had everything I needed now. The conquest list. The financial corruption. The forged documents. Xavier had built his kingdom on a foundation of lies, and I was going to bring it crashing down.

But first, I needed to survive the night.

---

Morning brought an unexpected visitor.

The lock clicked. The door swung open. And a woman I hadn't seen in over a decade swept into my cell like she owned it.

Xavier's mother looked exactly as I remembered—beautiful, cold, and utterly self-absorbed. Her designer clothes probably cost more than most pack members made in a month. Diamonds glittered at her throat and wrists.

"Cynthia Montgomery," she purred, settling into the room's only chair like it was a throne. "How the mighty have fallen."

I said nothing. Just watched her with the patience my instructors had drilled into me.

"I heard my son had finally taken his rightful place," she continued, examining her manicure. "I had to come see for myself. And look—here you are, caged like the rabid bitch you always were."

Aurora snarled, but I kept my face blank.

"You Montgomerys always thought you were so special," she said, her voice dripping with venom. "Your father, with his noble bloodline and his precious legacy. He took my son in, gave him scraps from the Alpha's table, and expected gratitude."

"My father honored Xavier as my mate," I said quietly. "He welcomed him as family."

"He made him feel inferior!" She leaned forward, her composure cracking. "Every day, Xavier had to watch you parade around with your Alpha blood, your birthright, your destiny. Do you know what that does to a wolf? To know he'll never be good enough, no matter what he achieves?"

"So you encouraged him to destroy us."

Her smile was razor-sharp. "I encouraged him to take what should have been his. To breed out your precious Montgomery line with good, strong Gamma blood. To prove that leadership isn't about bloodline—it's about power."

She stood, smoothing her skirt. "I found a wealthy mate in the Mountain Ridge Pack. I don't need the Silver Moon's charity anymore. But before I left, I wanted to see you broken. And here you are."

She walked to the door, paused. "Xavier always hated you, you know. Even when you were children. Especially when you were children. Every kindness your father showed him was just another reminder that he wasn't born to this. That he had to earn what you got for free."

The door closed behind her.

I sat very still, processing. Xavier's corruption wasn't opportunistic. It was calculated. Revenge dressed up as ambition.

Good.

That made what I was about to do so much easier.

---

The alarm shrieked through the pack house just after sunset.

I heard the commotion from my cell—running footsteps, shouted orders, Xavier's voice booming with irritation.

"It's probably another glitch! Derek, take your squad and check it out. I'm not leaving my mother's welcome dinner for a faulty sensor."

Derek. The young Delta who'd looked away during my humiliation.

I closed my eyes and reached for the pack link, just barely, just enough to sense the borders.

The alarm wasn't a glitch.

Rogues. At least a dozen of them. Moving toward the weakest point in our defenses—the eastern border where Xavier had removed the sensors to save money.

And Xavier was sending inexperienced warriors to face them alone.

I stood, walked to my door, and knocked.

The guard opened it, looking annoyed. "What?"

"Tell your Alpha," I said clearly, "that if he doesn't send reinforcements to the eastern border in the next five minutes, Derek Walsh and his entire squad are going to die."

The guard laughed. "The Alpha doesn't take orders from prisoners."

"Then their blood," I said softly, "will be on his hands."

I sat back down and waited.

Somewhere in the distance, wolves began to howl.