After My Mate Chose His Mistress Over Our Child

It wasn’t the pain in my side that woke me. It was the silence. The terrifying, hollow, echoing silence where my soul used to be.

I blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights of the Pack Infirmary, the smell of antiseptic burning my nose. Instinctively, I reached inward, trying to brush against the comforting fur of my inner wolf, Luna. I needed her warmth. I needed her to tell me we had survived the surgery.

But there was nothing. Just a cold, empty void.

"Luna?" I rasped, my throat dry as sandpaper. Panic clawed at my chest. "Luna!"

"Shh, save your strength, Isabelle." The voice was smooth, like silk wrapped around a dagger. Alessia Vargas stood over my bed, dressed in the pristine white robes of a Head Healer—robes she had no right to wear. She adjusted my IV drip with a sympathetic smile that didn't reach her cold, dark eyes.

"Where is she?" I tried to sit up, but a searing agony ripped through my right flank. I gasped, falling back against the pillows. "What did you do to me?"

"We saved you," Alessia cooed, patting my hand. Her touch made my skin crawl. "Your wolf had succumbed to Feral Degeneration. She was poisoning your blood, turning you mad. We had to perform the Wolfless Experiment immediately."

"Liar," I wheezed. My gaze darted to the doorway. Rhys stood there. My mate. My Alpha. He was leaning against the frame, his arms crossed over his chest, refusing to meet my eyes.

"Rhys," I pleaded, tears blurring my vision. "Tell her she's lying. Luna was healthy. She was strong."

Rhys finally looked at me, his jaw clenched tight. There was no love in his gaze, only a hard, stony resolve. "You were becoming unstable, Isabelle. Alessia caught it just in time. She replaced the diseased Alpha organ with a synthetic suppressor. It’s for your own good. You’re human now. Safe."

Safe? They had hollowed me out. They had carved the divinity of the Moon Goddess right out of my body.

***

Three weeks later, the silence in my head was still deafening, but the humiliation was louder.

I wasn't recovering in the Luna Suite. I was on my knees in the Master Bedroom—my old bedroom—wearing the scratchy, grey uniform of an Omega servant. My title was gone. My bond was severed. I was no longer Isabelle, the Luna. I was just Isabelle, the help.

"You missed a spot," Alessia said lazily. She was lounging on the king-sized bed, wearing one of Rhys’s shirts. She swirled a glass of red wine in her hand, watching me scrub the floorboards.

I gritted my teeth, dipping the rag into the bucket of soapy water. "I am cleaning as fast as I can."

"Not fast enough." With a cruel smirk, she tilted her glass. The dark crimson liquid splashed onto the beige carpet, inches from my fingers. "Oops. Clumsy me."

My grip on the rag tightened until my knuckles turned white. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shift and tear her throat out, but I couldn't. I was just a fragile human woman now.

"Where is Thea?" I asked, my voice trembling. "I haven’t seen my daughter in twenty days, Alessia. Please."

Alessia laughed, a light, tinkling sound. "Thea is an Alpha pup. She needs strength around her, not a defective, wolfless mother who cleans floors. She's in the nursery. Rhys agrees it's best you keep your distance until you learn your place."

Before I could beg, the heavy oak doors slammed open. Rhys stormed in, his Alpha aura rolling off him in suffocating waves of anger. He didn't even look at me on the floor.

"The diplomat from the Stone River Pack is downstairs," Rhys growled, running a hand through his hair. "He's demanding reparations for the border skirmish last month. He insulted you, Alessia. He called you a stray."

Alessia gasped, playing the victim perfectly. "Oh, Rhys..."

"I nearly killed him," Rhys admitted, his eyes flashing a dangerous feral yellow. "My wolf... he's on edge. But if I don't pay the blood debt now, they'll declare war. We don't have the liquidity, not after the lab equipment costs."

I stood up, wiping my wet hands on my apron. I knew Rhys’s wolf was unstable—Grandfather Albert had warned me. If Rhys killed a diplomat, the Lycan Council would execute him.

"I can pay it," I said softly.

Rhys whipped his head around, looking at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. "You? You have nothing."

"Grandfather Albert left me a private account. The Luna's Reserve," I stated, walking past him to the safe hidden behind the painting—a safe only I knew the combination to. My fingers trembled as I spun the dial. "It was for Thea's future, but... if it saves the pack..."

I pulled out a heavy checkbook and signed the slip for two million dollars. I tore it out and held it toward him.

Rhys snatched the check from my hand. He looked at the amount, then at me. For a second, I expected gratitude. I expected him to see me.

Instead, he sneered. "Hoarding money while the pack suffers? Typical."

He turned his back on me, wrapping an arm around Alessia's waist. "This is the least a defective mate could do to earn her keep. Get back to scrubbing the floor, Isabelle. The carpet is stained."