She Fled the Alpha,And Found Her Fated Mate

But I simply said what I always said, gentle and yielding as I had been trained to be. "If the Alpha King requires your presence, you should go. Don't worry about returning on my account."

The tension bled from his face the instant those words left my lips. He turned, hauled the woman up from the ground, and strode away without so much as a glance back over his shoulder. Which meant he never saw the grief that pooled in my eyes like standing water, dark and still.

Fenris had never once abandoned me for Council duties before. He used to stay up through the deepest hours of the night, drafting territorial reports by the glow of a single flame, just so he wouldn't miss a single moment with me during the day.

He always said our time together was precious. Yet now he cast me aside for another woman without a second thought.

Their retreating figures blurred behind my tears. I made some excuse to dismiss the pack attendants, then followed in secret, keeping downwind so my scent wouldn't carry.

He dragged her into a narrow, deserted passage between the outer dens before finally stopping. His voice was a snarl, low and animal.

"Have you lost your mind? I told you, show your face in front of Elara, and I will kill you."

His fingers closed around Seraphina's throat. As his grip tightened, angry red marks bloomed across her pale skin, and the faintest scent of fear, sharp and acrid like crushed nettle, rolled off her in waves.

Seraphina let out a frightened sob.

"My Alpha... I didn't mean to. I dreamed last night that something happened to the pup. I was so worried I just had to see you."

The savagery on Fenris's face froze. Slowly, his hand loosened. Something soft flickered behind his eyes, a gentleness I had once believed was reserved only for me, and his voice dropped to a murmur.

"It was only a dream. Don't take it to heart."

Seeing his expression thaw, Seraphina grew bold. She burrowed into his chest, pressing her nose against the hollow of his throat where his scent was strongest, and her voice became a wheedling purr.

"But I was so scared. Just spend the day with me. Please?"

He peeled her off immediately, his tone turning cold.

"I promised Elara I'd go to the Moon Altar with her. She just lost the pup. She's at her most fragile right now. I have to be by her side."

Seraphina refused to give up. She loosened the top clasp of her dress and pressed her lips against his throat, breathing warm against the pulse point where an Alpha's bond mark would sit.

"My Alpha, you've always said you wanted to try it in the open air. There's no one here. Why don't we..."

Before she could finish, Fenris's expression shifted entirely. He yanked his cloak around her and pressed her down beneath him against the cold stone wall, urgent and ravenous, a growl rumbling from deep in his chest.

"You shameless little thing. You always know exactly how to bait me."

Watching the way he moved, I could barely recognize him. This was nothing like the tender, restrained Alpha I knew in our mating den. There was a wildness in him, something feral and unguarded, that he had never once shown me.

I crouched behind the wall, punishing myself with every muffled sound the two of them made. My wolf whimpered deep inside my chest, curling into herself as if she could make herself small enough to disappear. My legs went numb. All feeling drained from them entirely. Only then did the passage fall quiet.

Moments later, Fenris emerged with his cloak draped carefully over Seraphina's shoulders, carrying her in his arms. His scent, cedarwood and iron, was tangled now with hers, a sickly-sweet honeysuckle that clung to him like a stain. The smell hit me like a blow to the sternum, and I pressed my hand over my mouth to keep from retching.

I followed at a distance. He had changed his clothes and masked his scent with crushed juniper, the way rogues did when they wanted to pass unnoticed. Hand in hand with Seraphina, he walked into the Moon Goddess Shrine at the edge of the territory like an ordinary mated pair, asking the shrine keeper to bless their unborn pup.

And the moonstone charm he placed in the shrine keeper's hands was the very one I had watched him carve night after night, hunched over his worktable until dawn, his fingers stained with silver dust.

Back then, seeing the tenderness on his face as he worked, I had been overjoyed. I believed he loved our pup as fiercely as I did. But today, I finally saw what was engraved on the back of that charm.

A single rune. Seraphina's mark.

I stumbled back to the Ashvane Stronghold in a daze, my mind consumed by that moonstone charm.

From the moment he learned I was carrying, Fenris had never seemed truly happy. While I was giddy weaving tiny moonthread blankets and carving little wooden wolves for the nursery, he only ever watched with a distant, muted expression. His wolf never once pressed against mine in shared joy the way bonded Alphas were supposed to when their mate carried a pup. I had told myself he was simply reserved. That he showed love differently.

But that charm, the one he had stayed up all night crafting, had convinced me he loved our pup. It was the proof I clung to like a drowning wolf clings to driftwood.

I could have gone on lying to myself. I was good at it. Five years of practice had made me an expert. But what I had just witnessed shattered the dream beyond repair, and no amount of willful blindness could piece it back together.

He had never wanted our pup. Every ounce of his devotion belonged to Seraphina. He had even murdered our own flesh and blood, our tiny, half-formed pup who had never drawn breath, so that someday Seraphina's offspring could rightfully inherit his Alpha title and the Ashvane bloodline.

My wolf howled inside me. Not the kind of howl that carried across moonlit hills, but the silent, broken kind that rattled through the bones and found no release. I felt her clawing at the walls of my chest, desperate and grief-mad, and for a terrible moment I thought she might fracture entirely.

I stared at the treasures filling our den. Rare moonthread silks, jeweled boxes inlaid with moonstone, priceless relics from allied packs, all painstakingly collected and lavished upon me as though fine things could substitute for a faithful heart. Every last one of them felt like a knife between my ribs, and the bitterness had nowhere to go.

I was about to hurl every piece against the wall and shatter them all, to let the sound of breaking things drown out the sound of my own breaking, when the door opened. A pack attendant stepped inside and placed a moonstone pendant in my hand.