My Mate Traded Me to Rogues for His Mistress

I woke to the smell of earth and canvas.

My body felt wrong. Heavy. Like someone had filled my veins with lead and left me to sink. I tried to move, but my muscles screamed in protest. Everything hurt.

I forced my eyes open.

A tent. Low ceiling, rough fabric walls, a single lantern casting shadows across packed dirt. Not the bridal suite. Not the pack house. Somewhere else entirely.

Panic hit me like ice water.

The rogues. Alexander had traded me to the rogues. I was in their camp, and I was alone, and—

"You're awake."

I jerked my head toward the voice. Pain exploded through my skull, but I didn't care. I had to see.

A man sat cross-legged near the tent entrance, crushing something in a stone bowl. His hands moved with practiced precision, grinding herbs into paste. He didn't look at me. Didn't rush over. Just kept working.

"Don't try to sit up yet," he said. "The Wolfsbane is still in your system. You'll only hurt yourself."

His voice was calm. Too calm. Like he was discussing the weather, not the fact that I was his prisoner.

I tried to speak, but my throat was raw. All that came out was a rasp.

He finally looked up. Dark eyes, sharp features, a scar cutting through his left eyebrow. He studied me the way my grandfather used to study patients—assessing, calculating, seeing things I couldn't hide.

"You're a Healer," he said. Not a question. A statement.

I managed a nod.

"I could smell it on you. Under the poison." He set the bowl aside and reached for a waterskin. "Most people reek of fear when they're dying. You smelled like mountain sage and silver birch. Old bloodline."

He moved closer, offering the water. I flinched.

He stopped. Waited. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're a rogue."

"I'm Juan Diaz." He set the waterskin within my reach and backed away, giving me space. "And you're Camilla Wells, the Luna who was traded like livestock by her own mate."

The words hit harder than they should have. Maybe because they were true.

I grabbed the waterskin with shaking hands and drank. The water was cool and clean, washing away some of the bitterness coating my tongue. When I finished, I looked at him properly.

"Why am I alive?"

"Because I don't kill Healers." He picked up the bowl again, adding something that smelled sharp and medicinal. "Especially ones who've been poisoned by their own pack."

"You could ransom me."

"To who? The Alpha who dumped you in the mud?" His expression didn't change, but I heard the contempt in his voice. "He made it clear you're worthless to him."

I looked away. The mark on my neck throbbed, a constant reminder of Alexander's betrayal.

Juan stood and brought the bowl over. "This will help purge the Wolfsbane. But you'll have to mix the final ingredients yourself. Healer's magic only works when the Healer does the work."

I stared at the paste. Recognized some of the components—bloodroot, activated charcoal, something that looked like crushed moonstone. "Where did you get these?"

"I have resources."

"These are rare. Expensive."

"So is a Healer's life." He set the bowl in my lap along with three small vials. "The rest is up to you."

I looked at the vials. Knew what they were without asking. The final components of a purge ritual—the kind my grandfather had taught me for emergencies. The kind that would hurt like hell but might save my life.

My hands shook as I uncorked the first vial. The smell alone made my stomach turn. I added three drops to the paste, then the second vial, then the third. The mixture turned black, thick as tar.

"Drink it," Juan said quietly. "All of it."

I lifted the bowl to my lips. The taste was worse than the smell—bitter and rotten and wrong. I forced it down anyway, swallowing until the bowl was empty.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the pain hit.

It felt like my insides were tearing apart. Like every cell in my body was rejecting the poison and trying to expel it all at once. I doubled over, gasping, and Juan was there with a bucket.

I vomited. Black, tar-like liquid poured out of me, reeking of sulfur and decay. The Wolfsbane. The dark magic. Everything Alexander had put inside me.

It went on forever. Wave after wave of agony, my body purging itself while Juan stayed beside me. He didn't speak. Didn't try to comfort me with empty words. Just held my hair back and offered water when I could breathe again.

When it finally stopped, I collapsed against the bedroll, shaking and weak but alive.

Juan handed me a damp towel. "Better?"

I wiped my mouth. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because you don't deserve what he did to you." He sat back, watching me with those dark, assessing eyes. "And because I have a proposition."

I should have been afraid. Should have refused to listen. But I was too tired, too broken, too angry to care.

"What kind of proposition?"

His eyes flashed gold. Not yellow like Alexander's corrupted gaze. Pure, molten gold—the mark of something ancient and powerful.

Lycan.

"I'm not just a rogue," he said. "I'm royalty in exile. And I've been watching the Silverfang Pack rot from the inside for months."

I stared at him. At the gold fading back to brown. At the calm confidence in his posture.

"You want revenge," he continued. "I want justice. Your former pack is dying because of that witch, and the innocents inside don't deserve to suffer for their Alpha's stupidity."

"What are you asking?"

"An alliance." He leaned forward. "I provide the army. You provide the healing. We go back together, expose the truth, and save the ones worth saving."

"And Alexander?"

"Gets what he deserves."

I should have hesitated. Should have thought it through. But the mark on my neck burned, and I could still taste the poison, and I remembered the way Alexander had looked at me in the mud.

Like I was nothing.

"Partners," I said. "Not subordinates."

Juan's mouth curved into something that might have been a smile. "Partners."

He offered his hand.

I took it.