After My Mate Rejected Me, the Lycan King Claimed Me

The negotiation table was a battlefield I knew well. As the Luna of the Shadow Moon Pack, I had spent the last ten years perfecting the art of war with words. Across the mahogany table, Alpha Marcus of the Silver Claw Pack was sweating, his pen hovering over the trade agreement that would secure our borders for another decade.

"It seems equitable, Luna Sabrina," Marcus grunted, finally signing. "Your husband is a lucky man to have a mate with such a sharp mind."

"Luck has nothing to do with it, Alpha," I replied smoothly, organizing the documents. My hand instinctively brushed my flat stomach. I hadn't told Lorenzo yet. I wanted to surprise him tonight after the treaty was signed. A pup. Finally.

The heavy oak doors swung open, interrupting my thoughts. Kehlani Grant, Alpha Marcus’s daughter, sauntered in. She was beautiful in a superficial way, all blonde curls and polished ambition, but her presence usually annoyed me. Today, however, it froze me in place.

"Daddy, look," she chirped, waving a diamond bracelet that caught the light. "My mystery Alpha sent it."

As she breezed past me to sit on the edge of her father's desk, the air shifted. Her usual scent—a cloying, artificial vanilla—was there, but underneath it lay something else. Something rich, earthy, and terrifyingly familiar.

Cedarwood and rain.

My wolf, Sasha, bristled instantly. *That is our mate's scent.*

I stopped breathing for a second. Lorenzo? No. Lorenzo was at our pack house, miles away, managing the warriors. But the scent was fresh, clinging to Kehlani’s skin like a second layer of perfume.

"Kehlani," I said, my voice steady despite the ice spreading in my chest. "That is a lovely gift. Who is this mystery suitor?"

She smirked, her eyes glinting with a malice I hadn’t noticed before. "Oh, someone very powerful, Luna Sabrina. He’s building me a palace, actually. Says I deserve a throne, not just a pack house."

She hopped off the desk, and a folded piece of paper slipped from her designer purse, fluttering to the floor near my foot. She didn't notice. She was too busy preening for her father.

When she left, I dropped my pen. Bending to retrieve it, I palmed the paper. It was a contractor’s invoice. *Luxe Construction.* The coordinates pointed to a plot of land in the neutral territory between our packs.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I finished the meeting on autopilot, my diplomatic mask firmly in place, but inside, I was screaming.

I didn't go home. I drove to the coordinates.

The structure rising from the forest floor was not a house; it was a fortress of glass and stone, modern and obscenely expensive. I parked my modest sedan and walked toward the open front doors. The contractors were on lunch break, leaving the site silent.

I walked through the grand foyer, my heels clicking on marble that I recognized. It was the same imported Italian stone I had wanted for the pack hospital renovation—the renovation