When My Mate Planned to Crown His Mistress Luna

The Silverpine ancestral burial grounds smelled like turned earth and rain-soaked pine needles. I stood between two fresh graves, staring at the matching headstones that bore my parents' names, and felt nothing. Not the grief everyone expected. Not the tears that should have been pouring down my face. Just a hollow, wordless certainty that something beyond death was wrong.

Travis's arm was around my shoulders. His scent wrapped around me like it had for ten years—warm cedar and rain, the smell that had meant home since I was sixteen. His thumb traced slow circles on my upper arm, the same gesture he'd used a thousand times to soothe me. My wolf should have leaned into it. She didn't.

"We should go back to the pack house," Travis murmured against my temple. His Alpha tone was gentle, coaxing. "You need to rest, Addie."

I nodded without speaking. Around us, pack members lingered in small clusters, their voices hushed. Tiffany stood near the tree line in a black dress, her face pale and tear-streaked. When our eyes met, she looked away quickly. Too quickly.

The funeral reception blurred past in a haze of condolences I didn't hear and casseroles I wouldn't eat. By the time we returned to the Ironclad pack house, my jaw ached from holding a composed expression. Travis settled me in the guest suite—our suite, technically, though we'd never shared it—and kissed my forehead.

"I'll be in my office if you need me," he said. "Try to sleep."

But sleep was impossible. I lay on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling, while my mind replayed the funeral on an endless loop. My father's casket. My mother's. Both lowered into the ground on the same day. The pack healer had said it was the mate bond—that when my father's wolf severed in that ritual suicide, the shock had stopped my mother's heart instantly.

A perfect, devastating love story. The kind every she-wolf dreamed of.

Except I couldn't stop thinking about Tiffany's phone.

I'd borrowed it after the reception to call the pack healer for sedatives. She'd handed it over without hesitation, the way she always did. We shared everything. Sisters in all but blood. But when I'd pressed my thumb to the screen, it had unlocked instantly.

The passcode was Travis's birthdate. Not mine. His.

I'd stared at the open screen, my wolf stirring with a low, confused whine in the back of my mind. Then I'd made the call, returned the phone, and said nothing.

Now, lying in the dark, that whine wouldn't stop.

I got up. My feet were silent on the hardwood floors as I left the suite and moved through the Ironclad pack house corridors. I told myself I was looking for water. For air. For anything to quiet the noise in my head.

But my wolf knew better. She was tracking a scent.

Tiffany's scent—that distinctive floral perfume she always wore—was concentrated near the end of the hall. Too concentrated. Not the faint trail of someone passing through, but the lingering presence of someone who spent time here. A lot of time.

I stopped outside Travis's private quarters. The door was cracked open, just an inch. Light spilled through the gap. And voices. Low. Intimate.

"She'll be fine," Travis was saying. His voice had that rough edge it only got in private moments. Moments I thought were mine. "She just needs time."

"I hate seeing her like this." Tiffany's voice. Breathless. "She's so broken."

"She's stronger than you think."

A pause. Then a sound I knew too well—the wet slide of a kiss, deep and hungry.

I should have looked away. Should have run. But I couldn't move. My hand found the doorframe, and through the crack, I saw them.

Travis's bed. Tiffany's red dress pooled on the floor beside it. Her bare back arched as Travis's hands slid down her sides. Their scents tangled together—cedar and rain and that floral perfume—mixed with the unmistakable musk of intimacy. Of repetition. Of something that had been happening long before tonight.

The mate bond screamed inside my chest. A howl of confusion and rage that my wolf didn't understand. This was our mate. Our fated mate. The Moon Goddess's gift. And he was—

I backed away. One step. Two. My pulse hammered in my throat, but I forced my breathing to slow, forced my scent to stabilize. If they caught even a hint of my presence, if my scent spiked with emotion, they would know.

I pressed my wrist to my pulse point—an old grounding technique—and held it there until the shaking stopped. Then I walked back to my suite, climbed into bed, and stared at the ceiling until dawn.

By morning, I had a plan.

I waited until Travis left for a pack meeting. Then I went to the kitchen, poured myself coffee I wouldn't drink, and let my hands tremble just enough for the Ironclad she-wolves to notice. When Sera Holt, the pack healer, passed through, I caught her arm.

"I can't breathe," I whispered. "I keep seeing them. The graves. I can't—"

My wolf surged. Not gently. I let her come—claws extending from my fingertips, canines dropping, eyes flashing gold. The partial shift was violent and uncontrolled, the kind that only happened under extreme distress.

Sera's eyes widened. "Get the Alpha! Now!"

Hands grabbed me. Voices shouted. Someone carried me to the healer's wing and laid me on a cot. Sera's face swam above me, her hands gentle as she pressed a syringe to my arm.

"This will help," she murmured. "Just breathe, Addison. You're safe."

The sedative hit fast and hard. My limbs went heavy. My vision blurred. I let my eyes close, let my breathing slow to the deep, even rhythm of sleep.

And then I listened.

Footsteps. Two sets. One heavy—Travis. One lighter—Tiffany.

"Is she asleep?" Travis's voice, low and tense.

"Completely," Sera said. "The sedative is strong. She won't wake for hours."

"Good." A pause. Then Travis again, quieter. "This is getting complicated."

"You said she wouldn't find out." Tiffany's voice was sharp. Frightened. "You promised—"

"She won't." Travis's tone dropped into that dangerous quiet. "As long as you keep your head. We're almost there. The Mate Ceremony is in three weeks. Once it's done, once the bloodline power is legitimized, none of this matters."

"And me?" Tiffany's voice cracked. "What about me?"

"You'll get what you deserve," Travis said. "I promise."

Another pause. Then the sound of a kiss. Brief. Dismissive.

Footsteps retreated. The door clicked shut. And I lay perfectly still on the cot, eyes closed, breathing steady, while my wolf howled silently inside my chest.

Not with grief. With war.