The grand dining hall of the Royal Lycan Pack had not changed in five centuries. The chandeliers still dripped with crystals that caught the candlelight, and the long mahogany table still smelled of lemon polish and roasted venison. But as I stood in the archway, gripping the velvet curtains until my knuckles turned white, I realized the world I had built for five hundred years was dissolving right in front of me.
Tonight was supposed to be a celebration of our pack’s prosperity. Instead, it was my execution.
Kassidy Ellis sat at the head of the table. In *my* chair.
The she-wolf from the Crimson Moon Pack threw her head back, laughing at something my mate whispered to her. Her neck was bared, inviting, and Clayton—my husband, my King, the man whose soul had been stitched to mine by the Moon Goddess herself—didn't look away. He stared at her with a hunger that used to belong to me.
A sharp, electric chime rang in my skull, invisible to everyone else.
*[System Warning: Mate Bond Integrity critical. 15% remaining. Countdown to severance: 72 hours.]*
The glowing blue text hovered over the banquet table, a spectral guillotine waiting to drop. The System, that cruel, mystical entity binding me to this supernatural realm, was counting down the seconds until I was stripped of my memories and cast back into the human world as if I had never existed.
I stepped into the light. "Clayton."
The chatter in the hall died instantly. Forks clattered onto plates. Every pair of eyes shifted to me—some filled with pity, others with the cruel curiosity of predators watching a wounded deer.
"That is my seat," I said, my voice trembling not with fear, but with a rage so ancient it felt like sediment in my veins. "You cannot seat a guest in the Luna's chair."
Clayton didn't even flinch. He took a slow sip of his wine, his eyes fixed on the red liquid swirling in the glass. He wouldn't even look at me.
It was Eli who moved. My son. The boy I had bounced on my knee, the Prince I had taught to be kind, to lead with his heart.
He slammed his fist onto the table, causing the silverware to jump. His eyes flashed a dangerous, molten gold. A low, vibrating growl ripped from his chest—a sound of dominance. A warning.
"Enough, Mother," Eli snarled, the Alpha timber in his voice hitting me like a physical blow to the chest. "Do not ruin this night with your jealousy. Father has made his choice. Sit elsewhere."
The air left my lungs. My own son. He was using the Alpha tone on me. He was bowing to the woman who was stealing his father, and crushing his mother into the dirt to do it.
I didn't eat that night. I couldn't.
By the next morning, the humiliation had festered into a desperate, clawing need to fix things. I couldn't just wait for the countdown to hit zero. When the pack announced a run to the Sacred Caverns, I joined them. The run was primal, a bonding ritual. If I could just run beside Clayton, if our wolves could sync their rhythms like they had for centuries, maybe he would remember.
Pip, my small, scrappy wolf pup companion, trotted faithfully at my heels. He was a runt, discarded by the breeders, but he had more heart than any warrior in the pack. He was the only one who hadn't looked at me with disdain since Kassidy arrived.
We were halfway to the caverns, the wind whipping through my hair, when the shadows of the forest came alive. The scent hit me first—rotting meat and sulfur. Rogues.
They surged from the brush, teeth bared and eyes wild with madness. "Ambush!" I screamed, shifting into a defensive stance.
A massive rogue, scarred and missing an ear, lunged straight for me. I stumbled back, my human reflexes slower than the beasts surrounding us. I looked to my left, instinctively reaching out through the bond for Clayton. He was ten feet away. He saw the rogue leaping for me. Our eyes met.
But then he saw a smaller, reddish wolf snapping at Kassidy's heels.
He didn't hesitate. He turned his back on me.
"Clayton!" I shrieked as the rogue's claws tore through the sleeve of my tunic, slicing skin.
I scrambled back, falling hard against a tree root. The rogue prepared to finish me, jaws snapping shut inches from my face. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the end.
Then, a blur of grey fur. Pip.
My brave, foolish pup launched himself at the rogue, sinking his tiny teeth into the beast's nose. It bought me a second—just one second. But the chaos was too thick.
Kassidy, in her wolf form—a sleek, rusty red—barreled into the fray. She wasn't aiming for the rogue. With a vicious, calculated snap of her jaws, she caught Pip mid-air. She didn't just toss him aside. She shook him, hard, until I heard the sickening *crack* of his spine.
She dropped his small, broken body into the mud and let out a huff that sounded terrifyingly like a laugh.
"Pip!"
The scream tore from my throat, raw and bloody. I crawled through the dirt, ignoring the battle raging around us, and scooped his warm, limp body into my arms. Blood soaked my chest. His little heart had already stopped.
"No, no, no. Pip, please."
The rogues were retreating, chased off by the Gamma's warriors. Clayton shifted back to human form, walking toward us, naked and glistening with sweat. He looked like a god of war, but to me, he looked like a stranger.
"She killed him!" I sobbed, pointing a shaking, bloody finger at Kassidy, who was now shifting back, looking smug and untouched. "She murdered him! He was defending me!"
Clayton barely glanced at the dead pup in my arms. He rushed to Kassidy, gently lifting her arm to inspect a faint, barely-there red scratch.
"Are you hurt, my love?" he asked, his voice tender—a tone he hadn't used on me in months.
"Clayton, look at what she did!" I screamed, my grief turning into a hysterical wail. "That wasn't an accident! She snapped his neck! I demand justice!"
He turned to me then. His eyes were cold, stripped of five hundred years of love. The air around him shimmered with oppressive power.
"It was collateral damage, Morgan," he said dismissively. "Stop making a scene over a dog."
"A dog? He was my family! Unlike you!"
His jaw tightened. The atmosphere grew heavy, gravity increasing tenfold. "**Silence!**"
The Alpha command slammed into me, crushing my will like a sledgehammer. My knees hit the earth with a brutal thud. My mouth clamped shut against my volition. The magic forced my head down, forcing me to bow. I fought it, screaming internally, but my body was a puppet on his strings.
I could only kneel there, clutching my dead puppy, tears streaming silently down my face, while my mate wrapped his cloak around the woman who had destroyed my world.
*[System Update: Mate Bond Integrity at 10%. Time remaining: 48 hours.]*
