After My Mate Chose Her, I Took His Pack

The Manhattan skyline glittered against the twilight as I stepped out of Bergdorf Goodman, my wolf restless beneath my skin. Three months. Three months since the Council declared Harrison fallen in battle, torn apart by rogues near the eastern border. Three months since I'd felt anything through our mate bond except the hollow ache of severed connection.

I adjusted the portfolio under my arm—contracts that would keep the Silver Moon Pack's human investments afloat for another quarter. Someone had to keep us from drowning. Someone always had.

Then the wind shifted.

Cedar and rain. Sharp. Unmistakable. Alive.

My wolf surged forward so violently I stumbled against a lamppost, my vision blurring as she clawed at my consciousness. No. Impossible. We buried an empty casket. We howled our grief to the Moon Goddess. We—

I followed the scent like a woman possessed, weaving through evening crowds, my heart hammering against my ribs. The trail led me down Fifth Avenue, growing stronger with each step until I could taste it on my tongue, until my wolf was screaming in my head.

There.

Outside the St. Regis Hotel, bathed in golden light from the entrance, stood my dead mate.

Harrison looked better than he had in years. His shoulders were relaxed, his smile genuine as he laughed at something the she-wolf beside him said. She was petite, blonde, her hand tucked possessively into his as they moved toward the revolving doors. Her scent—sickly sweet gardenias—clung to him like a second skin.

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. The world tilted sideways as my wolf howled in anguish, a sound that never left my throat.

He wasn't dead. He was thriving. While I'd held our pack together through their grief, while I'd slept in his shirts trying to catch the last traces of his scent, while I'd stood before the Council and begged them to grant me emergency authority—he'd been here. With her.

They disappeared into the hotel, and I stood frozen on the sidewalk as the city moved around me. A cab honked. Someone bumped my shoulder. None of it registered through the roaring in my ears.

The six-hour drive back to Silver Moon territory passed in a blur. My hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel, my wolf pacing frantically in my mind. She kept reaching for the mate bond, that sacred connection the Moon Goddess herself had forged between us.

It should have been empty. A void where Harrison's presence once lived.

Instead, I felt a wall. Solid. Deliberate. Constructed.

He hadn't died. He'd blocked me out.

I pulled into the Pack House driveway just after midnight, my body moving on autopilot as I climbed the stairs to the Alpha office. Our office. The room I hadn't been able to enter without breaking down since the funeral.

The shrine I'd built mocked me from the corner—his favorite jacket draped over the chair, photos of us at our mating ceremony, the silver wolf pendant he'd given me on our first anniversary. Lies. All of it.

I tried one more time to reach through the bond, pouring every ounce of my Luna power into the connection. For a split second, it flickered open—and I felt him. Felt his amusement. His satisfaction. His complete and utter lack of remorse.

Then he slammed the wall back into place, and the rejection hit me like a physical blow.

Something inside me snapped.

I grabbed the jacket first, ripping it down the middle with strength I didn't know I possessed. The photos followed, glass shattering as I hurled frames against the wall. The pendant—that fucking pendant—I crushed beneath my heel until it was nothing but twisted metal.

My wolf wasn't howling anymore. She was silent. Calculating. Cold.

I stood in the wreckage of my grief, chest heaving, and felt the last threads of the woman I'd been dissolve into ash. Harrison had made his choice. He'd chosen to let me believe he was dead rather than face me. He'd chosen her over his pack, over his responsibilities, over me.

Fine.

If he wanted to be a ghost, I'd make sure he stayed buried.

The office door opened behind me. I didn't turn, didn't acknowledge the intruder. My reflection in the darkened window showed a stranger—eyes glowing silver, shoulders squared, chin lifted.

"Luna Maeve." The voice was deep, commanding, unfamiliar. "We need to talk about your dead mate."

I finally turned. Alpha Duke of the Obsidian Pack stood in the doorway, his massive frame filling the space, his dark eyes fixed on me with an intensity that should have made me uncomfortable. Instead, my wolf stirred with interest for the first time in months.

He stepped inside and locked the door behind him.

"He's not dead," I said flatly.

Duke's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "No. He's not."

He crossed the room in three strides and dropped a thick manila folder on the desk between us. Photos spilled out—Harrison and Bell at restaurants, walking through Central Park, entering that hotel. Dozens of them. Weeks of surveillance.

"You knew." My voice came out deadly quiet.

Duke's Alpha aura pressed against mine, not threatening but demanding attention. When he spoke, his tone carried the weight of absolute authority. "Sit down, Luna. It's time you learned exactly what kind of male you've been mourning."