The Broken Luna's Revenge: Alpha's Regret

I was the anomaly. The Glover heiress who never shifted. To my fated mate, Alpha Bryant, I was lower than an Omega—I was his servant.

When his mistress, Kalia, pushed me into the freezing lake, I screamed for him. I felt the mate bond pull, begging him to save me.

But Bryant looked right at my flailing body, turned his back, and swam to save the woman who had pushed me.

He didn't stop there. To "teach me submission," he locked me in a silver-coated cell that burned my skin like acid, all because Kalia lied about a stomach ache.

He watched her burn my dead mother's journals. He let her slap me until I bled. He told me I was a genetic dead end, a defect that needed to be erased.

I lay in the dark, my bones broken and my heart shattered, wondering why the Moon Goddess hated me.

But she didn't hate me. She was preparing me.

Bryant thought he had broken me. He didn't know that the man who pulled me from the water wasn't a rogue, but the Lycan King.

And he certainly didn't expect me to walk into his gala, hand in hand with the King, and unleash the power of the White Wolf to burn his entire dynasty to the ground.

Chapter 1

Charlotte POV:

Blood tasted like copper and shame. It filled my mouth, pooling under my tongue as I lay on the cold hardwood floor of my bedroom. The room, once a sanctuary in the Glover estate, had become my prison within the Barnes Pack territory.

Get up, Charlotte.

My inner voice was weak. Not a wolf, just me. At twenty-one years old, I was the anomaly. The defect. The Glover heiress who never shifted. In our world, if you cannot shift into your wolf form by eighteen, you are lower than an Omega. You are nothing.

A sharp kick to my ribs stole my breath.

"Stay down, trash," Kalia sneered.

I looked up through swollen eyes. Kalia Baron stood over me, her heels digging into the expensive carpet. She wasn't highborn. She was a nobody who had clawed her way into the pack, but right now, she looked like a queen. Behind her stood two low-ranking enforcers, grinning like idiots.

"You touched his laundry," Kalia spat, crouching down to grab a handful of my hair. "I told you, you wolfless freak. You don't get to touch the Alpha's things. His scent isn't for you."

"I didn't touch it," I rasped, my throat raw. "I was doing my job. Like I was told."

Kalia yanked my head back. A sharp crack echoed through the room. My wrist twisted at an unnatural angle. Pain, white and blinding, shot up my arm. I screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the heavy velvet drapes.

She stepped on my hand. I heard the bone snap before I felt it.

Because I hadn't shifted, I didn't heal like them. A broken bone for a werewolf takes minutes to knit. For me, it would take weeks. Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to beg.

"Get her out of here," Kalia ordered the men. "The lake needs feeding."

They grabbed me by my arms, ignoring my broken wrist. I was dragged down the grand staircase, past the portraits of Bryant's ancestors. The servants looked away. In the Barnes Pack, the future Alpha's mistress held more power than the future Alpha's fated mate.

That was the cruelest joke of the Moon Goddess. Bryant Barnes was my mate.

I knew it the moment I turned eighteen. The scent hit me-rainwater and dark earth. My skin prickled with electricity when he walked into a room. My soul pulled toward him like a magnet. But when I looked at him with hope, he looked at me with disgust.

"A mate who can't shift is a liability," he had said. And he had rejected me in everything but words. He kept me around as a servant, a reminder of his 'mercy,' while he paraded Kalia around as his chosen Luna.

We were outside now. The air was crisp, typical for a New York autumn, but I was shivering from shock. They dragged me toward the pack lake. The water was dark, reflecting the uncaring moon.

"Please," I whispered, panic rising. I couldn't swim well. My body was too heavy, too human.

Kalia laughed. She shoved me.

I stumbled back, my feet slipping on the wet grass. I fell into the water with a splash. The cold was a shock to my system. I thrashed, my broken hand useless, trying to keep my head above the surface.

"Help!" I screamed, swallowing water.

Suddenly, the heavy scent of rain and earth flooded the air. Bryant.

He emerged from the trees, his Alpha aura rolling off him in waves. For a second, relief flooded me. The mate bond, even unacknowledged, demanded he protect me. It was biology. It was law.

"Bryant!" I choked out.

He stopped at the water's edge. His eyes, usually a warm hazel, were cold. He looked at me struggling. Then he looked at Kalia.

Kalia let out a dramatic sob and threw herself onto the grass. "Oh, Bryant! She tried to drown me! I pushed her in self-defense!"

It was a lie so blatant it was laughable. I was drowning. She was dry.

But Bryant didn't look at logic. He looked at the woman he wanted, not the mate he was stuck with.

Save her, my heart screamed.

Bryant dove into the water.

My heart soared. He was coming. He was fighting the instinct to reject me. He was coming to me.

But then, he swam past me.

He swam right past my flailing body to the edge of the bank where Kalia was pretending to faint near the shallow reeds. He scooped her up in his strong arms, cradling her like she was made of glass.

"I've got you," I heard him growl softly.

He turned his back on the lake. He turned his back on me.

I stopped thrashing.

The cold water filled my lungs, but it was nothing compared to the ice spreading through my chest. The bond-that thin, golden thread I had visualized connecting our hearts-snapped. It didn't make a sound, but the vibration shattered my soul.

My wolf, usually a silent, dormant presence deep within me, let out a single, mournful howl in the back of my mind. And then, silence.

I sank.

Darkness took me. I welcomed it.

...

I woke up coughing water onto muddy boots.

Rough hands pounded my back. "Breathe, kid. Come on, breathe."

My eyes fluttered open. A man with a scarred face and wild eyes hovered over me. A Rogue. A wolf without a pack. In our society, they were considered criminals, scum.

But this scum had just saved my life.

"Why?" I rasped, shivering violently.

"Orders," he grunted, pulling a blanket around me. He tapped an earpiece. "Target secured. She's breathing. Barely."

I was loaded into a black van. Not a pack vehicle. This was military-grade.

I drifted in and out of consciousness until the sterile smell of a hospital woke me. Not the Barnes Pack infirmary. A private clinic in the city.

My wrist was casted. My lungs burned. But my mind was clearer than it had ever been.

The door opened. The Rogue stood there, holding a secure phone.

"For you," he said, handing it to me.

I took it with my good hand. "Hello?"

"Charlotte."

The voice on the other end was deep, resonating like a cello in an empty hall. It wasn't an Alpha's command, but it held more authority than Bryant ever possessed.

"Jaden?" I whispered.

Jaden Holt. The scholarship student I had secretly funded through college years ago. The boy with the intense eyes who had vanished.

"I felt it," he said simply. His voice was tight with suppressed rage. "I felt you die, Charlotte."

"How?"

"Because the Moon Goddess plays the long game. You aren't wolfless, Char. And you sure as hell aren't Bryant's."

Tears finally fell. Not for Bryant. But for the years I had wasted waiting for a man who would let me drown.

"Are you ready?" Jaden asked.

I looked at the cast on my arm. I thought of Kalia's smirk. I thought of Bryant's back as he swam away.

"Yes," I said, my voice trembling with a new, dark fire.

"What's the play?" he asked.

I gripped the phone. "Burn this pack, Jaden. Burn it all down."