When My Alpha Left Me Bleeding for His Mistress

The mud sucked at my paws, each step an agony as I dragged myself away from the battlefield. My white fur was matted with blood and rain, my body screaming with every movement. The Silver Claw wolves had scattered after Jace abandoned the fight, but the damage was done. I was alone, wounded, and bleeding heavily into the cold rain.

I pressed my muzzle to my stomach, inhaling deeply. Beneath the metallic scent of my own blood was something else—something precious. My pup. The tiny life I hadn't even known existed until a few weeks ago, now in danger because of my mate's choice.

'Just a little further,' I whispered to myself, though no one was there to hear. The packhouse lights glowed in the distance, a beacon I was determined to reach.

The journey back was a blur of pain and determination. My leg gave out twice, forcing me to crawl on three paws through the mud and debris. Each time I fell, I thought of my pup—of the life growing inside me that deserved better than to die in the rain because its father had chosen another.

By the time I reached the packhouse grounds, I was barely conscious. The rain had washed away most of the blood, but I knew I was still losing too much. I slipped in through the back entrance, avoiding the main halls where Jace might be with Hayden. I couldn't bear to see them together, not now, not like this.

The healer's den was quiet, most of the staff having been called to tend to the warriors who had returned from the border. I made my way to the back room where the medical supplies were kept, my paws leaving bloody prints on the clean floor.

'Just... need to stop the bleeding,' I muttered, shifting back to human form with a gasp of pain. The transformation sent fresh waves of agony through my body, but I forced myself to focus. I had to save my pup.

I found clean bandages and needle and thread. My hands shook as I stitched the deeper wounds on my thigh and side, biting my lip to keep from crying out. I had always been good at hiding pain, at enduring silently. It was the one skill my father had taught me well.

Through the cracked door of the main ward, I could hear voices. Jace's deep timbre carried a note of panic I had never heard directed at me.

'Hayden, let me see it,' he was saying, his voice thick with emotion. 'Is it deep? Are you in pain?'

I peered through the gap in the door. Jace knelt beside a chair where Hayden sat, her arm extended. A thin scratch ran along her forearm, barely breaking the skin. Jace examined it with the intensity of a father checking his child's first scrape, his fingers hovering over the mark as though it were a mortal wound.

'It's fine, Alpha,' Hayden said softly. 'Really, it's nothing. I'm more worried about the others. About Luciana—did she make it back?'

Jace's jaw tightened. 'She's a wolf. She can take care of herself.' His dismissive tone cut through me like another wound. 'Let's get this cleaned and bandaged. You could have been killed.' His voice broke on the last word.

I pressed my bloody hands against my stomach, watching as he tenderly cleaned the barely-existent wound on her arm. The same man who had left me bleeding on the battlefield was now treating a scratch with a reverence I had never known.

In that moment, something inside me—something that had been bending and stretching for seventeen years—finally broke. The hope that had sustained me, the belief that if I was just good enough, just patient enough, just perfect enough, he would eventually see me—it all shattered like glass.

He would never look at me the way he looked at Anastasia's ghost. He would never love me the way he loved her memory. And now, he would never love our pup either.

I closed my eyes, a single tear sliding down my cheek. 'I'll protect you myself,' I whispered to my unborn child. 'Just you and me now.'

Standing there in the shadows, my body broken and my heart shattered, I made a vow. I would survive this. I would protect my pup. And I would never again allow myself to depend on the mercy of an Alpha who had none to give me.