After My Alpha Slept with His Omega Mistress

The silver moonlight bathed Dean's quarters in an ethereal glow, casting long shadows across the polished wooden floors. I stood frozen in the doorway, the ceremonial gift box clutched so tightly against my chest that my knuckles had turned white. Inside lay the handcrafted silver pendant—a wolf with moonstone eyes—that I'd spent weeks perfecting for my Alpha, my fated mate, on the eve of our ceremony.

But the air shifted, carrying a scent that made my wolf, Sable, stir uneasily within me. Vanilla and jasmine—Renata Woods. An Omega. Here. Now.

My fingers trembled as I pushed the door open wider, praying I was wrong, that my senses had betrayed me.

They hadn't.

There, on the bed that should have been ours tomorrow night, lay Dean and Renata. His strong hands tangled in her dark hair, her body arched against his in shameless abandon. The sheets—our sheets—twisted around their legs as they moved in perfect, practiced rhythm.

"Alpha," she moaned, her voice carrying a desperate hunger. "You're all I need. You're everything."

Dean's laugh was low, satisfied. "You're insatiable, little Omega. But I like that. I like that very much."

Sable howled within me, a sound of such raw anguish that I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep it from escaping my throat. My wolf wanted blood—wanted to rip out the throat of the man who had just shattered everything I'd believed about fate and mate bonds.

I pressed my thumb hard against my wrist, against the pulse that thundered with my rage and heartbreak. The pain grounded me, kept me from shifting right there in the doorway.

"I could stay," Renata whispered, her fingers tracing patterns on Dean's chest. "All night. No one would know."

"No," Dean said, his voice firm. "Tomorrow I mark my Luna. The pack needs the Morales alliance, and appearances matter. But you... you'll still be mine. After. Always."

Appearances. That's all I was to him. An alliance. A convenient political move.

I stepped back into the shadows, my chest tight with a grief so profound it felt like drowning. The pendant box burned against my skin, and I almost threw it against the wall. Instead, I tucked it into my cloak pocket, a reminder of how thoroughly I'd been played.

"Sable," I whispered to my wolf, "we wait. We endure. For Father."

Sable's growl was answer enough. We would survive this. And someday, somehow, we would make Dean Harrison regret the day he ever thought he could use me.

I slipped away from the door, my footsteps silent. Behind me, Renata's laughter floated through the air, oblivious to the fact that she'd just become a pawn in a game she didn't even know we were playing.

Tomorrow, I would bare my neck to a monster. Tomorrow, I would become his Luna.

And tomorrow, the trap would begin.