My Mate Poisoned Me for His Mistress

Four days before the ceremony, Cash decided it was time to finish me.

Healer Vance came into the room at noon carrying an amber glass vial instead of the usual clear IV bag. Cash stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, his face unreadable.

"This is the maximum concentration," Vance murmured, tapping the glass with a gloved finger. "It will permanently shut down her wolf’s core by tomorrow evening. After that, the biological link will be hollowed out. She won't survive forty-eight hours past the ceremony."

"Do it," Cash said. He didn't even drop his arms. "I need her compliant on that platform. No sudden reflexes in front of Silvercrest."

When the thick liquid pushed through the plastic line, it hit my veins like boiling acid.

My inner wolf gave a ragged, tearing shriek in the back of my mind. It was so thin, so faint, it sounded like a dying ember hissed under water. The pain twisted every nerve ending in my chest, screaming at me to thrash, to rip the needle from my flesh.

Under the down blanket, my fingers dug into the edge of Parker’s claw pendant until the sharp point broke the skin of my palm.

*One, two, slow and deep,* I hummed against the blinding white heat. *Quiet river, go to sleep.*

I ran the verse a second time, clamping my jaw so tight my teeth felt ready to shatter. My pulse stayed a dull, heavy drag on Vance’s monitor.

*I will not die in this bed,* I promised the dying ember of my wolf. *I will stand on that platform. I will speak.*

***

With the date approaching, Aubrey stopped pretending to be a helper. She began acting like the Luna she believed she was about to become.

From my bed, through the open corridor and the ventilation grate, I tracked her movements. She signed pack supply requisitions with her own sharp scrawl, dismissing the head of the kitchen staff with a flick of her wrist. She sat at the head of the healer briefings. When older Omegas hurried past her in the hall, she barked corrections at their posture, her voice carrying the arrogant snap of an Alpha’s favorite.

Two days before the mating, she carried my ivory ceremonial gown into the dressing anteroom just down the hall.

Through the open door, I heard the rustle of the heavy silk.

"Here," Aubrey instructed Martha, the pack's elderly seamstress. Her tone was sharp. "Take this silver spool. I want my crest embroidered right along the front hem."

A heavy silence settled in the hall.

"Aubrey..." Martha’s voice was timid, trembling. "This gown was hand-stitched by Mara Tucker. Every vine on this hem is an ancient Ironveil stitch representing lifelong fidelity and sacrifice. Pack tradition says only the bride's bloodline can—"

"I don't care about pack tradition," Aubrey cut in, cold and flat. "Add my emblem. A silver knot, right next to her mother’s vines. Cash wants it done."

Martha hesitated for three long seconds. But fear won. "Yes, miss."

I stared at the ceiling as the needle began to pierce the fabric down the hall. The gown was doubly marked now. My mother’s sacred devotion stitched right beside Aubrey’s stolen claim.

*Let her mark it,* I thought, my blood cold. *Let her put her name on the crime.*

***

The night before the ceremony, Cash spent twenty minutes in front of the full-length mirror in the adjoining suite.

The door was propped open. Through the gap, I watched him smooth the lapels of his black ceremonial suit. He looked handsome, powerful, and utterly hollow.

He was practicing his vows out loud, his voice flat and rhythmic, like a businessman memorizing the clauses of a merger.

"I, Cash Collins, Alpha of Ironveil, take you into my pack and my blood..." He stopped, frowning at his reflection. He raised his chin, letting his mouth turn downward at the corners into an expression of heavy, tragic resolve.

"No," he muttered to himself. "Too reverent."

He shifted his shoulders, slumping them just slightly to look burdened. A grieving protector.

"Grief is better," he whispered to the mirror. "Alpha Darian respects a man carrying a tragedy."

He nodded once, satisfied with his performance, then walked out of the suite and approached my bedside. Healer Vance trailed behind him with a clipboard.

Cash reached down and pressed two rough fingers against the side of my neck.

My skin crawled at his touch, but my mind snapped instantly to the rhythm. *One, two, slow and deep. Quiet river, go to sleep.* My pulse beat under his fingertips with the sluggish rhythm of a corpse.

Cash held his fingers there for a moment, then pulled away and wiped his hand on his trousers.

"By tomorrow night, it will be done," Cash said to Vance.

He didn't look at my face once. He turned on his heel and walked out, his polished boots clicking rhythmically against the floor.

***

At three in the morning, the packhouse fell into a dead silence.

I lay in the shadows, staring into the pitch-black room. The needle was still taped to my arm, but the bitter, burning ache of the wolfsbane was suddenly changing.

The ice in my veins had stopped hurting. It had turned into something else.

*They underestimated what the poison would do to our bloodline,* my wolf’s voice echoed in my head.

Her voice wasn't raspy anymore. It wasn't a dying whisper. It rang out inside my skull, crystal clear, sharp as tempered steel.

*It didn't break us,* she spoke, her golden eyes flashing behind my eyelids. *It woke something older.*

Beneath my ribs, I felt it. It wasn't just the familiar presence of my wolf. It was a deep, ancient current vibrating in my marrow—a heavy, sovereign thrum that felt like rolling thunder under ice. A second heartbeat, older than Ironveil, older than Cash, humming with absolute power.

I curled my fingers beneath the pillow, feeling the cold, smooth curve of Parker’s claw.

*Tonight,* I whispered back to her into the dark. *On the platform. In front of everyone.*