The Luna council meeting had ended two hours early—something about a scheduling conflict with the neighboring pack's representatives. I should have been relieved. These meetings always drained me, filled with endless discussions about pack alliances and territorial disputes that seemed to go in circles. Instead, as I walked through the familiar corridors of the packhouse, an odd restlessness gnawed at me.

My heels clicked against the polished marble floors, the sound echoing in the unusually quiet hallways. Most pack members would be at their afternoon duties, but the silence felt different today—heavier, more oppressive. I quickened my pace toward Zachary's office, thinking I might surprise him with an early return. Maybe we could finally have that conversation about expanding the pack's community programs, something I'd been trying to discuss for weeks.

The scent hit me first.

I froze three steps from Zachary's office door, my hand halfway to the brass handle. That floral perfume—expensive, cloying, artificial—mixed with something else. Something that made my wolf, Luna, whimper deep inside my chest. The scent was wrong, invasive, where it shouldn't be.

My fingers trembled as I turned the handle, pushing the door open just wide enough to peer inside.

The world tilted.

Zachary stood behind his massive oak desk, but he wasn't alone. Andrea Lane, the Beta's daughter, was pressed against him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her lips moving against his in a kiss that spoke of familiarity, of possession. But it wasn't the kiss that shattered something fundamental inside me.

It was the mark.

There, on the curve of Andrea's neck where it met her shoulder, was the unmistakable impression of canine teeth. Zachary's mark. Dark, healed, permanent. The mate mark that every Luna was supposed to bear, the sacred bond that I had been told would come 'when the time was right,' when our connection 'deepened naturally.'

The mark I had never received.

A strangled sound escaped my throat—half gasp, half sob. They broke apart instantly, Zachary's golden eyes meeting mine across the room. For a moment, no one moved. The afternoon sunlight streaming through the tall windows seemed to mock the scene, illuminating every detail I wished I could unsee.

"Sophie." Zachary's voice was steady, almost businesslike. No surprise, no guilt, no scrambling for explanations. Just my name, spoken like an inconvenience.

Andrea turned slowly, and the smile that spread across her face was triumphant, predatory. She didn't step away from Zachary. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, making sure the mark was clearly visible, like a badge of honor.

"Hello, Sophie," she purred, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "You're back early."

I stepped fully into the office, my legs somehow still functioning despite the trembling that had started in my hands and was spreading through my entire body. "What is this?" My voice came out smaller than I intended, barely above a whisper.

Zachary straightened his tie with deliberate calm. "Close the door, Sophie. We need to talk."

I obeyed automatically, my Luna training taking over even as my world crumbled. The soft click of the door closing felt like a death knell.

"Three years," I said, finding my voice. "Three years, Zachary. I've been your mate for three years, and you—" I gestured helplessly at Andrea, who was now perched on the edge of his desk like she belonged there.

"Our ceremony was necessary for pack stability," Zachary said, his tone matter-of-fact. "The pack needed to see their Alpha mated to maintain order and confidence. You understood your role."

"My role?" The words tasted bitter. "I thought I was your mate. Your actual mate."

Andrea laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Oh, sweet Sophie. Did you really think he'd choose someone unmarked? Someone who couldn't even properly bond with her Alpha?" She touched the mark on her neck possessively. "I've been his chosen mate for over a year now. His real mate."

The room spun. I gripped the back of a leather chair to steady myself. "A year?"

"Fourteen months, to be precise," Andrea continued, clearly enjoying my devastation. "While you were playing dress-up as Luna, planning your little charity events and design projects, Zachary was with me. Marking me. Claiming me."

I looked at Zachary, searching his face for some sign that this was a nightmare, that the man I'd shared a bed with, planned a future with, felt something—anything—for me. His expression was cold, distant, like he was discussing pack finances.

"Why?" The question broke from me like a physical wound.

For the first time, something flickered in Zachary's eyes. "You were perfect for the public role, Sophie. Gentle, well-bred, beloved by the pack. But Andrea..." He glanced at her with something that might have been affection. "Andrea understands what it means to be truly mated to an Alpha."

My phone buzzed against my hip, the sound jarring in the suffocating silence. I ignored it, but it buzzed again. And again.

With shaking hands, I pulled it out. Twelve missed calls from Mia, the pack healer. My blood turned to ice.

"I have to—" I started, but the phone rang again. This time, I answered.

"Sophie?" Mia's voice was thick with tears. "Oh, goddess, Sophie, I've been trying to reach you for hours. It's your grandmother. Eleanor... she's gone."

The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering to the floor.

The funeral was a blur of black fabric and hollow condolences. Pack members filed past me, offering words that felt like cotton in my ears. "She was a wonderful woman." "She's in a better place now." "The Moon Goddess needed another angel."

Lies. All of it.

Grandmother Eleanor had died alone, clutching her phone, and no one could explain why her final calls never reached me. The official report claimed heart failure, but something cold and sharp twisted in my chest every time I thought about those missed calls.

Two days after we laid her to rest, I finally gathered the courage to go through her belongings. Her small cottage at the edge of pack territory felt impossibly empty without her lavender scent and gentle humming. I moved through the rooms like a ghost, touching familiar objects that now seemed foreign.

In her bedroom, I found her phone on the nightstand, its screen cracked from where it had fallen. My hands shook as I scrolled through her final messages. There, in the call log, were seventeen attempts to reach me—all during the Luna council meeting. Seventeen desperate tries to connect with me while I sat in that sterile conference room, discussing territorial boundaries.

But that wasn't what made my blood run cold.

It was the text message drafts, never sent: "Sophie, something's wrong. Can't breathe. Need help. Please come home."

My wolf, Luna, whimpered inside my chest. Grandmother had tried to mind-link me too—I could feel the phantom echoes of her panic, her fear, pressing against the edges of my consciousness like a bruise. But the connection had been... blocked. Severed.

Only someone with significant pack authority could interfere with mind-links. Someone with access to the pack's communication networks.

I sank onto Grandmother's quilted bedspread, clutching her phone to my chest. The pieces were forming a picture I didn't want to see, but couldn't ignore.

The next morning, I waited until most of the pack was at their duties before making my way to the Beta's residence. Marcus Lane's house sat prominently near the packhouse, a testament to his family's rising status. I'd been here countless times for pack functions, but never with this cold determination burning in my veins.

Andrea's room was on the second floor—I remembered from a party she'd hosted last year. The door was unlocked, and I slipped inside, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Her vanity was covered with expensive cosmetics and jewelry I'd never seen her wear publicly. Designer handbags hung from hooks on her closet door. But it was the desk in the corner that drew my attention.

Scattered across its surface were sketches. My sketches.

With trembling fingers, I lifted the top sheet—a design for an evening gown I'd created months ago, inspired by moonlight on water. The paper bore my signature style, my careful attention to drape and detail, but Andrea's name was scrawled in the corner.

I rifled through the stack, finding design after design that I'd poured my heart into. The cocktail dress I'd sketched after watching sunset over the pack lands. The flowing skirt inspired by autumn leaves. The jacket with intricate beadwork that had taken me weeks to perfect.

All of them claimed by Andrea Lane.

"Looking for something?"

I spun around, clutching the sketches to my chest. Andrea stood in the doorway, no longer bothering with her sweet facade. Her smile was sharp as a blade.

"These are mine," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. "Are they? I don't see your name on them."

"Because you erased it." I held up one of the sketches, pointing to the faint eraser marks where my signature had been. "How long have you been stealing from me?"

Andrea laughed, moving to her vanity and touching up her lipstick with casual indifference. "Stealing is such an ugly word. I prefer 'repurposing.' You were never going to do anything with those designs anyway, playing house as Zachary's fake Luna."

"Fake Luna?" The words hit like a physical blow.

She turned to face me, her reflection multiplied in the vanity's three-way mirror. "Did you really think he'd keep you around forever? You're unmarked, Sophie. A pretty decoration. I'm his real mate—his chosen mate. These designs are just... insurance. Something to help secure my position when the pack learns the truth."

Rage built in my chest, hot and fierce. "You had no right—"

"I had every right!" Andrea's mask finally slipped completely. "Do you know what it's like, living in your shadow? Perfect Sophie with her perfect manners and her perfect reputation. Well, guess what? Your precious grandmother learned what happens to people who get in my way."

The sketches fluttered to the floor as my hands went numb. "What did you say?"

Andrea's smile turned predatory. "Oh, you didn't know? Sweet old Eleanor tried to warn you about me. Kept calling during your little council meeting, trying to tell you what she'd overheard about Zachary and me. But communication networks can be so unreliable, can't they? Especially when someone with the right access decides certain calls shouldn't go through."

The room tilted. "You blocked her calls."

"I protected what's mine." Andrea stepped closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "And now that she's gone, and you know the truth about your pathetic excuse for a mate bond, let me make something very clear. Without Zachary's protection—which you never really had—accidents happen. Just like what happened to dear Eleanor."

She leaned in close enough that I could smell her artificial perfume, see the cold calculation in her eyes.

"Cross me again, Sophie Murphy, and you'll join her."

The rumor started small, whispered in the pack laundry room where gossip spread faster than wildfire.

"I heard Luna Sophie might be expecting," I murmured to Sarah, one of the younger pack members who worked in the kitchens. My voice carried just the right note of nervous excitement, the kind that made people lean in closer.

Sarah's eyes widened. "Really? That's wonderful news!"

"Well," I lowered my voice conspiratorially, "it's still early, but..." I placed a protective hand over my flat stomach, letting my words trail off meaningfully.

It was a desperate lie, born from the ashes of my shattered world. After Andrea's threats and the revelation about Grandmother's death, something cold and calculating had awakened inside me. If Zachary wanted to play games, if he thought he could keep me trapped as his fake Luna while his real mate plotted my destruction, then I would give him something to truly rage about.

The pregnancy rumor was my weapon—the one thing that would cut through his Alpha arrogance and possessive nature like a blade. Even if our mate bond was a sham, his wolf would never tolerate the thought of me carrying another male's pup.

By evening, the whispers had reached the pack dining hall. I sat at the Luna's table, picking at my dinner while conversations buzzed around me. Pack members kept glancing in my direction with curious, hopeful smiles. A few of the older women approached to offer congratulations and parenting advice.

"You're glowing, dear," Mrs. Henderson said, patting my shoulder. "Zachary must be over the moon."

I managed a wan smile. "We're... processing the news."

The lie tasted bitter on my tongue, but I forced myself to play the part. I excused myself early from dinner, claiming morning sickness, and retreated to the Luna quarters I shared with Zachary. He wouldn't be back until late—probably with Andrea—so I had time to prepare for the storm I'd unleashed.

I didn't have to wait long.

The door slammed open at eleven-thirty, rattling the picture frames on the walls. Zachary stood in the doorway, his golden eyes blazing with fury, his massive frame filling the entrance. Behind him, I could see Andrea hovering in the hallway, her face a mask of vindictive satisfaction.

"Pregnant?" The word exploded from him like a gunshot. "You're telling the pack you're pregnant?"

I sat up in bed, pulling my silk robe tighter around me. "News travels fast."

He crossed the room in three swift strides, his Alpha aura pressing against me like a physical weight. "Don't play games with me, Sophie. Whose pup is it?"

The question hung in the air between us, loaded with all the poison of our destroyed relationship. I met his gaze steadily, drawing on every ounce of strength I had left.

"Not yours," I said quietly.

The sound that came from his throat was barely human—a growl that seemed to shake the very foundations of the packhouse. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and for a moment, I thought he might actually strike me.

"You lying little—" He caught himself, but his control was hanging by a thread. "You haven't been with anyone else. I would know. I would smell it on you."

"Would you?" I tilted my head, letting a cruel smile play at my lips. "You've been so busy with your real mate, maybe you haven't been paying attention."

Andrea stepped into the room then, her presence like a poisonous cloud. "She's lying, Zachary. She's just trying to hurt you."

"Am I?" I stood up slowly, my bare feet silent on the cold hardwood floor. "Maybe I finally decided to find someone who actually wants me. Someone who doesn't need to keep me as a secret shame while parading his real mate around in private."

Zachary's face went white with rage. "Tomorrow morning," he snarled, "you're going to the pack doctor. In front of witnesses. We're going to settle this once and for all."

"Fine," I said, lifting my chin defiantly. "But when that test comes back positive, don't come crying to me about pack honor and bloodlines."

It was a bluff—a desperate, dangerous bluff—but I held his stare until he turned and stormed out, Andrea trailing behind him like a shadow.

Alone in the darkness, I sank back onto the bed, my hands shaking. Tomorrow would bring the reckoning, and I had no idea how I would survive it. But for tonight, for just a few precious hours, I had given Zachary Bradley a taste of the helpless fury that had been eating me alive.

The lie would destroy me, but at least it would hurt him first.