My Mate Gave Our Bond To His Mistress

The numbers on the supply ledger blurred for a second, and I blinked hard to bring them back.

It was Christmas Eve. The study smelled like pine from the wreath the pack omegas had hung over the door, and like the cedar logs burning low in the fireplace behind me. I had been working since six in the morning. Winter allocations. Grain for the eastern border families. Heating oil for the warrior barracks. A small extra stipend for the Healer's apprentice, who had a new baby.

My name is Victoria Lawrence. For three years I had been Luna of the Stewart Pack — or so the pack believed, and so I believed too. I signed the ledger "V. Stewart" at the bottom of every page, even though some private, careful part of me had never stopped writing the L of Lawrence first before correcting it.

Barnaby was asleep under the desk, his golden head warm against my boot. He sighed in his dream, the way he always did when the house was quiet.

Then my phone lit up. And lit up again. And again.

Three pack channels at once. Four. Six. The mind-link buzzed under my skin like a swarm of bees waking.

I opened the first clip.

The Crescent Hollow Pack Banquet hall. Chandeliers. A long table draped in white. Jameson — my Jameson — standing behind a she-wolf in a white gown, his hands at the back of her neck. He was fastening something. The camera zoomed.

A collar. Diamonds, set in a band of pale gold. And at the center of the band, pressed into the metal like a brand, the territorial seal of the Lawrence bloodline. My grandfather's seal. The seal I had signed over to Jameson two years ago so he could leverage the eastern timber rights for pack security.

The she-wolf turned her face up to him and laughed. I knew that face. Every she-wolf with a phone knew that face. Aliya Rodriguez. Tuberose and amber. Forty thousand followers. The smile she made for the cameras was the one she had practiced.

Jameson kissed her throat above the diamonds.

The clip looped. I watched it loop. Once. Twice. A third time. My hand was very steady on the phone, which was strange, because somewhere far underneath my ribs something had gone perfectly still in the way a forest goes still before a storm.

*Vic.*

The word was so faint I almost missed it. A flicker. A breath of a voice I had not heard in months.

Solene.

I pressed my palm flat against my sternum. "I'm here," I whispered. "I hear you."

She did not answer again. But the flicker had been there. I had not imagined it.

I closed the phone. I closed the ledger. I stood up.

Barnaby lifted his head and looked at me with that specific, careful look he reserved for moments when he had decided something was wrong. I touched the soft place between his ears.

"Come on, baby," I said. "Let's go wait."

---

The pack house was full of small, guilty silences.

I walked through the south corridor and two warriors stepped sideways to let me pass without raising their eyes. In the kitchen, the head cook turned her back to the door and became suddenly very interested in a pot that did not need stirring. In the portrait hall, three years of framed photographs watched me — Luna Victoria at the harvest festival, Luna Victoria signing the Crescent Hollow trade pact, Luna Victoria with her hand on Jameson's arm at the spring gala, smiling like a woman who knew where she stood.

I passed Mrs. Stewart's sickroom. The door was ajar. She was lying with her eyes closed and her breathing carefully even, the way she breathed when she did not want to be spoken to. Her bandages were fresh. I had changed them this morning at six.

I did not stop.

In the great hall, the fire was burning low. I sat down in the chair beside it — not the Luna chair, I noticed, but the one beside it, the one I had always taken without thinking — and Barnaby pressed his shoulder against my shin.

My hand drifted up to my neck.

The mark sat at the curve where my shoulder met my throat. I had touched it every morning for three years. I knew exactly where the edges should be — the small crescent shape, the slightly raised skin, the place where Jameson's teeth had broken me open and made me his.

My fingers found the center. Then I tried to find the edge.

I could not.

It was as if I had been tracing the shoreline of an island that had been quietly washing away while I slept. The skin under my fingertips felt smooth, and warm, and entirely my own, which should have been the truth of any she-wolf's body and was, somehow, the most terrifying thing I had felt in years.

I lowered my hand.

I waited.

---

The front doors opened at midnight.

I smelled her before I saw him. Tuberose. Amber. A heat at the throat of the scent that did not belong to my pack house, and had been carried in on the lapels of my mate's coat.

Jameson walked into the great hall still pulling off his gloves. He saw me by the fire and stopped — not because he was startled, I realized. Because he was choosing what face to wear.

He chose none.

"You're up late," he said.

I did not stand. "Tell me the truth, Jameson."

He looked at me for a long moment. And then — and this was the part I would remember for the rest of my life, the part Solene would later make me speak aloud in front of the Lycan King — he smiled.

Not the practiced smile. The real one. Small, almost relieved.

"Which truth, sweetheart?"

"The renewal ceremony. Three years ago. What did I actually say?"

He sat down across from me. He took his time. He pulled off the second glove and laid it on the arm of the chair like a man settling in for a pleasant conversation.

"You rejected me," he said.

The fire popped.

"Hollis wrote it for you. You read it beautifully. Every word a formal rejection under pack law. The bond was severed the moment you finished speaking." He tilted his head, studying my face like a man checking his own work. "The mark started fading that night. I'm honestly impressed you didn't notice for so long. Touch it now. Go on."

My hand was already there. Flat. Pressing.

Nothing.

"You've been an Omega in this house for three years, Vic." He said it almost gently. "You ran it beautifully. I want you to know I appreciated it."

The fire popped again. Barnaby growled — a low, soft sound I had never heard him make in his life.

And then, in the still center of me, a voice I had almost forgotten how to hear spoke one clear word.

*Walk.*

I did not look at Jameson. I did not answer him. I stood up. I touched Barnaby's head once, lightly, and we walked out of the great hall together.

I had work to do before dawn.