When My Alpha Chose His Mistress Over Saving Me

They came for me at noon.

Two betas I had known for four years. One of them had brought me tea when I was on bed rest after the fourth loss. He would not look at me now. "The Alpha has called assembly," he said. "Great hall. Now."

I followed them down the stairs. My legs worked. My hands hung at my sides. I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wrist and counted the pulse. One. Two. Three.

The great hall was full. Every senior wolf. Every ranked member. Rows of faces I knew. Omegas standing at the back. She-wolves I had sat with during their own grief. Betas whose children I had held. All of them looking at me or carefully not looking at me, which was somehow worse.

Walker stood at the center, behind the Alpha's table. Sylvia was to his left, half a step back, her face arranged into something soft and sad. Derek Holt stood at the far wall with a folder under his arm. His face told me nothing.

I stopped where they told me to stop. In the middle of the hall. Alone.

Walker did not wait. He lifted the papers — my cookbook papers, the ones Mara had found — and began to read. His voice carried. The Alpha tone. The one that made every wolf in the room go still without choosing to.

"Patrol route designations for the eastern perimeter. Border checkpoint schedules. Rogue contact protocols." He read each line. Each date. Each name. "Found in the personal effects of Eva Pierce. Prepared for external distribution."

I opened my mouth. He kept reading.

"By the authority vested in me as Alpha of Black Moon Pack, and in accordance with pack law regarding treason and betrayal of trust —"

I tried again. "Walker —"

"You are stripped of the title of Luna, effective immediately."

The room went silent. Not the kind of silence where people are waiting. The kind where they have already decided.

He set the papers down. He looked at me for the first time since I had entered the hall. "You are designated Omega. You will surrender all ceremonial privileges and access to ranked pack functions. You are confined to quarters pending investigation into further charges."

Four minutes. The whole thing took four minutes. I know because I counted my pulse the entire time. Two hundred and forty beats.

Somebody near the front — I did not see who — whispered something to the wolf beside them. A soft, pitying sound that was worse than anger.

I looked at the faces. At the she-wolves who used to ask me to bless their pups. At the healer who had worked beside me for three years. At Gamma Reese, who would not meet my eyes.

At the back of the hall, Derek was still standing with the folder. His gaze was on the papers on the Alpha's table. Not on Walker. Not on me. On the evidence. His jaw worked once, like he was biting down on something he did not want to say. Then he turned and walked out.

I pressed my thumb against my wrist so hard I thought the bone might crack.

Walker dismissed the assembly. People filed out. Some of them looked at me as they passed. Some of them looked at the floor. Sylvia touched Walker's arm and said something too low for me to hear. He nodded. She smiled, small and private, and followed the others out.

I stood there until the hall was empty. Then I went back to the room that smelled like dust.

That night, I could not sleep. I sat on the cot with Buster's collar in my hands. The leather was cracked and soft from years of wear. I had kept it after they took him to the kennels. I did not know why. Maybe because it was the only thing left in this house that had ever been glad to see me.

I wrapped it around my wrist twice and tied it.

Then I stood up and walked out of the room. Down the hall. Down the stairs. No one stopped me. The house was dark and still. I walked through the kitchen, out the side door, across the courtyard. My feet knew the way. I had walked this property for seven years.

The eastern tree line was two hundred meters from the pack house. I made it that far before the air changed.

It hit me like a fist. Not physical. Worse. The weight of an Alpha in full presence, rolling through the bond I had never wanted and could not sever. My knees buckled. I caught myself against a tree and forced myself upright.

Walker stepped out of the shadows. His eyes were already shifted. Slate grey. Glowing faint in the dark. His wolf was right there, just under his skin, and the power coming off him made my teeth ache.

"You're not leaving," he said.

I did not answer. I took one step forward.

He moved faster than I did. He was in front of me before I finished the step. Close enough that I could smell the earth and smoke scent of his wolf. Close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.

"Eva." His voice dropped lower. Not the Alpha tone. Something worse. Something that pulled at the base of my spine where the false bond sat like a scar. "You don't get to run from this."

I looked at him. I looked at him the way I had looked at him seven years ago, when I thought the Moon Goddess had answered every silent prayer I'd ever whispered. When I thought he was mine.

"I'm not running," I said quietly. "I'm leaving."

His hand closed around my wrist. Not hard. He did not have to be hard. The bond did the rest.

"No," he said. "You're not."

And I knew, standing there in the dark with his hand on my wrist and his wolf in his eyes, that he meant it.