The bond cracked at exactly 8:47 PM on our tenth mating anniversary.
I felt it the moment Travis placed his hand on her shoulder—a sickening pulse through the mate link, thick with arousal that wasn't meant for me. I stood three feet away holding a champagne flute, smiling at the assembled Ironvale Pack, and felt my husband's desire slam into another woman's body.
"Everyone, please welcome Dani," Travis announced, his Alpha voice booming across the banquet hall. "She'll be joining us as a household Omega to ease Luna Kallie's burdens."
The girl stepped forward. Young. Pretty. Her curtsy was practiced, submissive. But when she rose, I caught it—Travis's scent layered thick on her skin. Not the casual brush of an Alpha greeting a new pack member. This was deep. Musky. Saturated into her pores from repeated, intimate contact.
My fingers drifted to the mark on my neck. The one that had been fading for months. I pressed down hard until the skin went white under my nails.
"Thank you, Alpha," Dani breathed, her voice sweet and breathy. She didn't look at me.
Through the bond, I felt Travis's satisfaction. His pride. The way his wolf preened at having both of us in the same room.
I raised my glass. My hand didn't shake. "Welcome to Ironvale, Dani."
The pack cheered. Someone refilled my champagne. Travis's parents, Richard and Margaret, nodded approvingly from the head table—finally, a real wolf to help their embarrassing wolfless daughter-in-law.
I drank. I smiled. I felt the mate bond stretch and fray like rotting rope.
That night, I lay awake in the bed Travis hadn't shared in weeks, replaying every detail. The way his fingers had curled possessively on Dani's bare shoulder. The breathy way she'd said his title. The treasury ledger discrepancies I'd noticed last month—figures I'd dismissed as rounding errors, because I trusted my mate.
Because I was stupid.
My wolf stirred behind my ribs. Not awakening—she never awakened, no matter how many times I'd tried to shift, no matter how many humiliating failures I'd endured in front of the pack. Just a dull, trapped thrashing. A rage with nowhere to go.
I pressed two fingers against my mark and began cataloging.
Travis had been distant for six months. He'd started taking overnight trips to "neighboring pack alliances." He'd moved his personal files to a locked safe in his office. And three weeks ago, he'd hired Dani.
I didn't cry. Crying was what the old Kallie would have done. The Kallie who believed her wolf was just late. The Kallie who apologized for being weak.
Instead, I built the first architecture of a plan in the dark.
Two days later, Travis left for an Alpha summit. I waited until his car disappeared down the drive, then walked to his office.
The pack house was quiet. Most wolves were out on patrol or training. I moved through the halls like I always did—the invisible Luna, managing logistics, checking supply lists, doing the work no one noticed.
I locked Travis's office door behind me.
His safe was behind a painting of his father. I knew the combination—our mating date, because Travis wasn't creative. Inside were alliance contracts, territory maps, and a locked metal box I'd never seen before.
I picked the lock with a hairpin. My hands were steady.
Inside the box: six vials of clear liquid. A handwritten dosing schedule. Meal times. My name. Ten years of entries in Travis's own handwriting.
Wolfsbane.
The realization detonated silently.
Every failed shift. Every time I'd collapsed during a full moon run, gasping and humiliated while the pack whispered. Every tear I'd cried over my "deficiency." Every time Travis had held me and promised my wolf would come eventually, just be patient.
He'd been poisoning me.
The vial in my hand trembled. I almost dropped it. My vision blurred at the edges, and for one terrible moment I thought I would scream—loud enough to bring the whole pack running, loud enough to shatter every window in this house.
I pressed my fingers against my mark until the skin went numb.
Then I pocketed one vial, replaced the rest exactly as I'd found them, locked the box, closed the safe, and walked out.
In the hallway, I caught my reflection in a mirror. Same tired face. Same dark circles. Same woman who'd spent a decade being told she wasn't enough.
I smiled at her.
The next morning, I sat across the breakfast table from Travis and Dani. The cook had prepared my usual—oatmeal with honey, herbal tea. I knew now that the tea was laced.
I ate it anyway.
Stopping abruptly would alert him. I needed time. I needed evidence that would hold up before a Council, not just a vial and my word against an Alpha's.
So I chewed. I smiled. I asked Dani how she was settling in.
"Oh, wonderful, Luna," she chirped, reaching for the butter. Her wrist brushed Travis's hand. Neither of them pulled away.
Beneath the table, I opened the treasury ledger I'd tucked beside my chair. I ran my finger down the columns while Dani laughed at something Travis said. Diverted funds. Unexplained transfers. A private account opened four months ago.
I turned the page and started a new list.
That evening, I was walking past Travis's office when I heard his voice through the door—low, urgent, meant to be private.
"I'll forge her Luna seal on the territory transfer," he was saying. "Sign over the eastern packlands as your private estate. No one will question it."
Dani's voice, breathy and eager: "And then?"
"Then I reject her at the next pack assembly. Publicly. You'll be Luna by the full moon."
"But what if she fights it? What if her wolf—"
Travis laughed. It was a sound I'd heard a thousand times, warm and familiar. Now it curdled in my ears.
"She's wolfless, Dani. The Council won't even care."
I crouched barefoot in the dark hallway, hand pressed over my fading mark, and listened to my mate of ten years plan to erase me.
I didn't move. The fury inside me was so compressed it had become perfectly, terrifyingly still.
I stayed until his voice dropped to silence. Then I walked back to the Luna's study, sat down at the desk, and opened the treasury ledger to a fresh page.
I wrote one name at the top: Rhett Ashford, Lycan Prince.
If Travis wanted to play with Council law, I'd give him Council law.
I pulled out a sheet of formal pack stationery, dipped my pen, and began drafting a letter requesting an official audit.
