I pulled my phone out of my pocket and froze. A photo had been sent to me through the pack’s secure Airdrop network — a wedding photo.
It wasn't just any wedding, but Alpha Lucas and Heidy’s. There they stood, side by side under the blue moon, dressed in ceremonial wolf-hide robes embroidered with silver threads that shimmered like starlight — the sacred garb of fated wolfmates in our pack.
The air around them seemed to pulse with ancient lupine energy, the kind only alpha bonds could summon during moon-blessed unions.
Attached to the photo was a wedding invitation stamped with the blood-red wax seal of the Sharp Fang Pack’s High Council. The invitees were named: my son, my daughter-in-law, and the elder alpha Aric Barlowe.
But not me. Of course not me.
The wedding date was next Wednesday.
It wasn’t just any day. It was the same night Lucas and I had once marked for a joint border run and council negotiations — On the same date, the moon had claimed our firstborn pup, Stephanie, twenty years ago. The night she was lost to the curse that haunts our bloodline like a howling ghost.
Lucas was going to mate with Heidy beneath the blue moon — on the anniversary of our daughter’s death.
My hands trembled uncontrollably as I stared at the image glowing coldly on my screen.
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door creaked open and my son strode in, his footsteps sure and predatory, the gait of a young wolf ready to dominate. He clapped my shoulder with a wolf’s confidence.
“Mom, my mate’s friend is getting bonded next Wednesday. We’re all invited — even Grandpa. You should pick out some dresses in the next two days. It’s a high-rank pack bonding. You don’t want to shame the bloodline.”
I swallowed hard and nodded silently, dread pooling in my gut. My son’s words were a blade twisting deeper, right through my tether to the pack.
As he left, Alpha Lucas and I were left in a suffocating silence. I hesitated, then raised my eyes to his — searching for any flicker of the wolf I once loved.
“Next Wednesday… are you going on that border trip?” I asked quietly.
Lucas blinked, momentarily unmasked. Then he nodded.
Making the last shred of hope in me shatter like a bone under a fang.
That night, I tossed and turned, trapped beneath the weight of unshed tears and a gnawing ache in my chest. Lucas had always been too intolerant of my restlessness, shoved me aside, and retreated to his side of the bed, leaving me alone with my pain.
At dawn, my body betrayed me — my internal clock pulling me awake at exactly 4:30 a.m., as it had every moon rise since the day Stephanie’s heartbeat vanished from the pack bond. I used to sleep late, before the mating, before this cage.
Silently, I slipped out of the house, carrying a basket of fresh-picked roots and greens, the morning mist curling around me like a spectral pack.
Passing through the eastern clearing, I saw Elder Alpha Aric speaking with two elder wolves of the council. His voice carried over the cool air, proud and sharp like a claw unsheathed.
“My goddaughter is getting bonded next Wednesday,” he boasted, holding up a photo on his phone. It showed a sleek ceremonial wolf-hide dress, trimmed with glinting moonstones. “I didn’t sleep all night choosing it.”
One elder scoffed. “By the moon, since when do you have a goddaughter? What about your daughter-in-law, Claire? Haven’t seen her in moons.”
Elder Alpha Aric waved the comment away, venom dripping from his words. “Claire? Don’t speak her name. She was just the daughter of an Alpha of a crumbling pack— and barely that. My goddaughter is the Alpha’s secretary. Capable, loyal, and wise. She’ll be the one to care for me when I’m grey and toothless.”
I lowered my gaze and tried to slip away unnoticed.
Until...
“Elder Alpha, is that Claire?” one of the elders called out.
Aric looked at me, his eyes cold as a winter forest.
“Come here,” he snapped, beckoning like a predator eyeing weakened prey.
My face burned with shame as he barked orders, “I’m attending the bonding ceremony. This dress — eleven thousand silvers — you’ll transfer the funds. And don’t disgrace the bloodline. You’re fat and slow. I barely acknowledge you as the Luna of my pack.”
His hand snatched my phone, using Alpha Lucas’s secondary pack alpha card to pay for the dress before shoving me toward the market stalls.
“Move faster! Morning meals don’t cook themselves. Do you want to starve your Alpha? Useless, unfilial she-wolf.”
I staggered beneath the weight of his words, my shadow stretching thin across the dawn-lit stones, bloated and broken.
Back home, I prepared the morning meal with trembling hands. When my son and daughter-in-law finally descended, they barely touched their food, scowling with distaste.
“This slop isn’t fit for wolves!” My daughter-in-law spat, flinging her chopsticks aside like claws.
Alpha Lucas’s footsteps echoed down the stairs. He didn’t even glance at me as he swiped his pack alpha card. Slamming his phone down on the table, he growled, “You dumb, useless mutt spent eleven thousand silvers again? Always feed yourself and waste resources. Claire, do you even care about our status in the pack?”
I opened my mouth, my lips trembling, desperate to defend myself.
But just as I tried to speak, he cut me off. “I don’t want to hear your howling. I’m off to the High Council’s meeting,” he snapped, grabbing his coat and stalking out with a snarl.
I stood frozen, then slowly retreated upstairs, a prisoner in my own home.
Over the next days, I kept the whole house spotless and toiled like a she-wolf under punishment. Lucas barely acknowledged the change — using it as fuel to work harder, snapping less at me only when his tempers had already been spent at the office or during patrols.
