After My Mate Took My Stepsister as His Luna

The morning air was crisp and smelled of damp earth. I stood in the private garden of Elder Maren, watching her carefully clip a row of white roses. She was a senior elder of the Silverfang Pack. More importantly, she had been my mother's closest friend. If I was going to tear my father's regime apart, I needed her on my side.

She didn't look at me as I approached. "You took a risk coming here, Ariya," she said quietly. "Your father has eyes everywhere."

"I know," I replied. I kept my voice calm. "But I didn't come back to hide."

I reached into my bag and pulled out a plain manila folder. I held it out to her. Elder Maren paused her clipping. She looked at the folder, then at my face, before finally taking it. She opened the cover and began to read.

I watched her expression change. At first, it was just cautious curiosity. Then, her brow furrowed. I had spent three years tracking these numbers. It was a list of financial discrepancies in the pack's fund allocations from the past two years. I had carefully cross-referenced them against falsified alliance payment records.

Her hands started to shake slightly. She looked up at me, her eyes wide with a quiet, controlled fury. "He reported these funds as border defense payments. But the routing numbers..."

"They go to private accounts," I finished for her. "He is bleeding the pack dry, Maren. And he's using Lana to secure the proxy votes to cover his tracks."

Elder Maren closed the folder. She held it tightly against her chest. She looked around the garden, suddenly hyper-aware of the shadows. "This is treason, Ariya. If he catches you with this, he will kill you."

"I know," I said softly. "Will you help me?"

She took a deep breath. The fury in her eyes settled into a cold, hard resolve. "I will listen," she said. "Show me the rest when it is safe."

Step one was done. But the day was far from over.

Later that afternoon, a pack enforcer knocked on my cabin door. Alpha Richard wanted to see me.

I walked into the main pack house with my head held high. The heavy oak doors of the Alpha's office clicked shut behind me. My father sat behind his massive desk. He looked perfectly composed, like a king surveying his quiet kingdom. He didn't look like a thief or a monster. That was what made him so dangerous.

"Ariya," he said. His voice was a low, pleasant rumble. But his Alpha tone was laced into the word.

It hit me instantly. A heavy, invisible weight pressed down on my shoulders. My inner wolf whimpered and dropped to her belly, instinctively wanting to bare her neck in submission. I fought her. I kept my chin level and walked forward.

"Father," I said evenly.

"Your return has been noted by the pack," he said, leaning back in his leather chair. "People are talking. They wonder why the prodigal daughter has come back after abandoning her mate and her home."

He was testing me. I kept my face blank.

"I came back because this is my home," I replied. "I want to honor my mother's memory."

Richard smiled thinly. "Your mother's memory is best honored by showing loyalty to the pack's current leadership. To me. And to Lana." He paused, letting the Alpha tone hum louder in the quiet room. "I trust you have not come back to cause disruption, Ariya."

It wasn't a question. It was a command.

I looked right into his cold eyes. "Of course not, Father. I agree completely."

He studied me for a long, silent moment. I didn't blink. Finally, he gave a curt nod. "Good. You may go."

I turned and walked out. The moment the oak doors closed behind me, my lungs gasped for air. I leaned back against the cool hallway wall. My hands were shaking violently. I pressed my right thumb hard into the inside of my left wrist. I pressed until the pain grounded me, until the urge to shift and tear his throat out passed.

I just had to keep playing the game.

Three days passed. Three long, quiet days at my rented cabin on the edge of the territory. I spent my time organizing more files and avoiding the main pack lands. But I couldn't avoid him.

I was in the kitchen making tea when I heard the crunch of heavy tires on gravel. I looked out the window. A black SUV had just parked at the tree line.

My heart stopped.

Before I even reached the front door, the scent hit me through the drafty windows. Dark cedar and woodsmoke. My wolf slammed against my ribs, howling his name. *Mate. Mate. Mate.*

I opened the door. Lucas stood at the bottom of my sagging porch steps. He wasn't wearing a suit today. He wore a dark henley that stretched tight across his chest, and his hair was windblown. He looked wild, powerful, and completely unhinged.

He didn't say hello. He marched up the steps and stopped inches from me. His dark eyes burned into mine.

"Was it real?" he demanded. His voice was rough, scraping against the quiet forest air.

He meant the car. He meant my drunken, desperate plea.

I opened my mouth to speak. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell him that every day without him was agony. But then, the wind shifted.

Beneath the overwhelming scent of his cedar, I caught something else. Wet dog and stale sweat. A Silverfang patrol wolf. They were out there, hiding in the pines. My father's informants were watching the cabin.

Panic flared in my chest. If I told Lucas the truth, if I admitted the bond was still alive, my father would find out within the hour. He would know Lucas was my weakness. He would use pack law to drag Lucas into my mess, jeopardizing the Black Moon Pack and ruining everything Lucas had built from nothing. I couldn't let my toxic bloodline destroy him again. I had to protect him.

I forced my face to go completely blank. I looked into his desperate, burning eyes.

"No," I said. My voice was flat. Emotionless.

Lucas flinched like I had slapped him.

"It wasn't real," I continued smoothly. I ignored the way my own soul tore open with every word. "It was just the wolfsbane in the wine. It messed with my head. That, and a little nostalgia for college. The bond is dead, Lucas. You know that."

The silence that followed was violent. I could literally feel his wolf howling in agony. It echoed in the hollow space inside my chest, a phantom pain from the scar on my soul.

The desperate hope in his eyes shattered into a million pieces. Then, the ice took over. His jaw locked so tight I thought his teeth would crack. He looked at me with pure, glacial hatred.

He didn't say another word. He turned around, walked down the steps, and got into his SUV. He didn't look back as he threw it into reverse and sped away, kicking up a cloud of dust and gravel.

I stood on the porch until the taillights disappeared.

Then, I stepped inside and locked the deadbolt. My legs gave out. I slid down the rough wood of the door until I hit the floor. I pulled my knees to my chest, grabbed my left wrist, and pressed my thumb into the skin.

I pressed, and pressed, and pressed, until the flesh bruised purple, praying the physical pain would drown out the sound of my wolf crying his name.