After My Mate Chose Her, the Lycan King Chose Me

Rain lashed against the windshield of my SUV, turning the winding road leading to the Silver Moon Pack lands into a blur of gray and green. My wolf, Hera, paced restlessly in the back of my mind, her anxiety bleeding into my own. The council meeting had been draining—hours of debating territory lines and resource allocation while the elders gave me those pitying looks. The looks that said, *'Great Luna, shame about the womb.'*

I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles white. Ten years. I had given ten years of blood, sweat, and literal flesh to this pack. I touched the jagged, raised skin beneath my silk blouse, the silver scar that had ruined me to save my mate, Alpha Conor Anderson. It throbbed whenever a storm rolled in, a constant reminder of the price I paid.

Suddenly, a flash of movement darted from the tree line.

"Shit!"

I slammed on the brakes. The tires screeched against the wet asphalt, the heavy vehicle skidding sideways. There was a sickening *thud* against the front bumper before the car jerked to a halt.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I threw the door open and sprinted into the rain. A figure lay crumpled on the wet road—a girl, young, maybe nineteen. She was soaked, shivering, her dark hair plastered to her face.

"Are you alright?" I dropped to my knees beside her, reaching out to check for a pulse. "I didn't see you—"

The girl looked up. Her eyes were wide with terror, but as I got closer, Hera didn't whine in sympathy. She recoiled. A low, guttural growl vibrated in my chest, unbidden.

*Enemy,* Hera hissed. *Wrong. Wrong.*

I froze. It wasn't just the girl's presence. It was the scent clinging to her damp skin. Beneath the smell of rain and wet pavement, there was a cloying sweetness—milk and vanilla. It was innocent, almost sickeningly so. But woven through it, unmistakable and potent, was a scent I knew better than my own.

Forest pine and musk.

*Conor.*

My hand hovered over the girl's shoulder. Why did this rogue smell like my husband? Why was his scent so fresh on her, as if he had been holding her moments ago?

Before I could ask, a flash blinded me. I looked up to see a group of teenagers from the pack standing on the ridge, phones raised.

"Oh my goddess, did the Luna just hit that girl?" one of them shouted.

The girl on the ground let out a theatrical sob, curling into a ball. "Please," she whimpered, loud enough for the phones to pick up. "I didn't mean to trespass! Please don't hurt me!"

I stood up, my authority snapping back into place. "I am not going to hurt you. Get up."

But the damage was done. By the time I got back to the Pack House, my phone was blowing up. The internal pack network was flooded with photos of me towering over the "cowering" girl. The captions were brutal.

*Barren Luna Attacks Defenseless Pup.*

*Jealousy? Luna Ross takes out frustration on young rogue.*

I ignored the whispers of the Omegas as I stormed through the grand hallway. I needed Conor. He would fix this. He would command them to stop.

I reached for our mate bond, intending to mind-link him, but found a wall of static. He was blocking me. Again.

I tracked his scent instead. It didn't lead to his office. It led to the Pack Clinic.

My heels clicked sharply against the linoleum floor of the medical wing. The air smelled of antiseptic and that damning vanilla. I rounded the corner to the private recovery room and stopped dead.

The door was slightly ajar. Through the crack, I saw them.

The girl—Zoya, the nurses had called her—was sitting on the exam table, wrapped in a blanket. And there was Conor. My mate. The Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack.

He wasn't interrogating the intruder. He was standing between her legs, his hand resting possessively on her shoulder. He was looking down at her not with suspicion, but with a softness I hadn't seen directed at me in years.

Hera howled in agony, scratching at the walls of my mind. *Mine! He is touching her! He smells like her!*

I shoved the door open. It banged against the wall.

"Conor."

He spun around, his hand dropping from the girl's shoulder, but he didn't look guilty. He looked annoyed. "Harper. Lower your voice. You're disturbing the patient."

"The patient?" I stepped into the room, the temperature dropping as my aura flared. "She's a rogue, Conor. A rogue who smells like *you*. And why is the pack saying I attacked a child?"

"Because you were careless," he snapped, stepping in front of Zoya to shield her from my view. "You clipped a nineteen-year-old girl with your car, Harper. She's terrified."

"I didn't—she ran in front of me!" My voice rose, trembling with a mixture of rage and hurt. "And that doesn't explain why you're here, blocking me out, holding her like she's—"

"Enough!"

The command slammed into me like a physical blow. He used his Alpha Tone.

My knees buckled. My wolf, already weakened by her scars, was forced into submission by the sheer weight of his dominance. I fought to stay standing, grabbing the doorframe for support, but my head was forced down, my chin tucking against my chest against my will.

"I am the Alpha," Conor growled, his voice vibrating with power. "I decide who we protect. Our numbers are dwindling, Harper. We cannot afford to turn away young, healthy wolves just because you are feeling insecure and hysterical."

*Insecure. Hysterical.* The words were like acid.

"I am merely doing my duty," he continued, his tone icy. "Since you cannot provide this pack with a future, I must ensure we protect those who can."

The cruelty of it took my breath away. He was using my sacrifice—the injury I took for *him*—as a weapon to silence me.

Under the crushing pressure of his command, I couldn't speak. I couldn't fight back. I could only stand there, forced into a bow of submission by the man who had sworn to cherish me.

From behind Conor's back, I saw movement. Zoya leaned forward slightly. Her fear was gone. She looked at me—at the humiliated, barren Luna forced to bow to a stray—and she smiled.

It wasn't a triumphant smirk. It was a mirror. She smiled exactly the way I used to, back before the scars, before the pain. It was the smile of a girl who knew she had already won.