My Mate Rejected Me and Crowned His Mistress Luna

He followed me to the elevators.

I could feel him behind me, his presence heavy and suffocating. Eddie's hand tightened in mine, and I squeezed back, trying to reassure him even as my own heart hammered against my ribs.

"Wait," Alistair said, his voice low. "Just—wait."

I stopped. I shouldn't have, but I did. Maybe some part of me needed to hear what he'd say. What excuse he'd offer for the way he'd destroyed me.

He stepped around to face me, blocking my path. Up close, he looked worse. Dark circles under his eyes. A tightness around his mouth that spoke of sleepless nights and bad decisions.

"My Luna is useless," he said bluntly. "The pack's failing. I need—" He stopped, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in my scent. His pupils dilated. "You smell incredible."

I said nothing.

"I can offer you protection," he continued, his voice dropping to something that might have been seductive if it wasn't so pathetic. "A place in my pack. You'd be my Pack Mistress. All you'd have to do is warm my bed."

The words hung in the air between us.

Slowly, I reached up and removed my sunglasses.

Recognition hit him like a physical blow. His face went white. Then red.

"Kaia," he breathed.

"Hello, Alistair."

For a moment, he just stared. Then his expression twisted into something ugly. "You survived. Of course you did. What, did you spread your legs for some Rogue Alpha? Is that how you're still breathing?"

I felt Eddie flinch beside me. My wolf snarled, pushing against my skin, but I held her back.

"You look like hell," Alistair continued, his voice dripping with contempt. "Bet you've been living in the gutter, haven't you? Scraping by. That's why you're here—looking for scraps."

Before I could respond, a shrill voice cut through the lobby.

"Alistair!"

Nola.

She swept toward us in a cloud of expensive perfume and fake fur, her heels clicking against the marble. But underneath the designer clothes and carefully applied makeup, I could see the cracks. The desperation.

Her eyes landed on me, and her face contorted with rage.

"You," she hissed. "What are you doing here? How dare you show your face—"

"Nola," Alistair started, but she wasn't listening.

She was staring at my hand. At the locket I'd been holding for Eddie—the one Jericho had painstakingly repaired after Nola destroyed the original. My mother's locket.

"Still clinging to that old thing?" Nola's voice rose, shrill and mocking. "Pathetic. You're pathetic, Kaia. A rogue whore playing dress-up."

She lunged forward and snatched the locket from my hand before I could react.

"No—" I started, but she was already moving.

She threw it.

The locket arced through the air and landed in the lobby fireplace with a soft clink. Flames licked at the delicate silver, blackening it. Melting it.

The last piece of my mother. Gone.

Something inside me went very, very still.

"Mama?" Eddie's voice was small, frightened.

I looked down at him. His face was pale, his breathing shallow. The tension in the lobby was affecting him—too many aggressive wolves, too much hostile energy.

"It's okay, baby," I whispered, kneeling beside him. "We're leaving."

But Alistair stepped forward, his face twisted with anger. He'd been ignored. Dismissed. And his pride couldn't take it.

"You don't walk away from me," he snarled.

His Alpha Aura slammed into the lobby like a tidal wave.

It crashed over me, heavy and oppressive, trying to force me to my knees. My wolf rose to meet it, pushing back, but Eddie—

Eddie gasped.

His small body crumpled, his knees hitting the marble floor. His hands clutched at his chest, his mouth open as he struggled to breathe.

"Eddie!" I caught him before he could fall completely, my arms wrapping around his trembling body. "Someone get a healer! Now!"

Movement at the edge of my vision. A woman in healer's robes—Elena Winters, I recognized her from Shadow Ridge—started forward.

Nola stepped into her path.

"Don't," Nola said coldly. "We're not wasting pack resources on a rogue brat."

Elena hesitated, her eyes darting between Nola and Eddie's struggling form.

"Let him die," Nola continued, her voice carrying across the silent lobby. "One less piece of trash in the world."

Eddie's breathing grew more labored. His lips were turning blue.

And something inside me snapped.