The Manhattan skyline glittered against the twilight as I stepped out of Bergdorf Goodman, my wolf restless beneath my skin. Three months. Three months since the Council declared Harrison fallen in battle, torn apart by rogues near the eastern border. Three months since I'd felt anything through our mate bond except the hollow ache of severed connection.

I adjusted the portfolio under my arm—contracts that would keep the Silver Moon Pack's human investments afloat for another quarter. Someone had to keep us from drowning. Someone always had.

Then the wind shifted.

Cedar and rain. Sharp. Unmistakable. Alive.

My wolf surged forward so violently I stumbled against a lamppost, my vision blurring as she clawed at my consciousness. No. Impossible. We buried an empty casket. We howled our grief to the Moon Goddess. We—

I followed the scent like a woman possessed, weaving through evening crowds, my heart hammering against my ribs. The trail led me down Fifth Avenue, growing stronger with each step until I could taste it on my tongue, until my wolf was screaming in my head.

There.

Outside the St. Regis Hotel, bathed in golden light from the entrance, stood my dead mate.

Harrison looked better than he had in years. His shoulders were relaxed, his smile genuine as he laughed at something the she-wolf beside him said. She was petite, blonde, her hand tucked possessively into his as they moved toward the revolving doors. Her scent—sickly sweet gardenias—clung to him like a second skin.

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. The world tilted sideways as my wolf howled in anguish, a sound that never left my throat.

He wasn't dead. He was thriving. While I'd held our pack together through their grief, while I'd slept in his shirts trying to catch the last traces of his scent, while I'd stood before the Council and begged them to grant me emergency authority—he'd been here. With her.

They disappeared into the hotel, and I stood frozen on the sidewalk as the city moved around me. A cab honked. Someone bumped my shoulder. None of it registered through the roaring in my ears.

The six-hour drive back to Silver Moon territory passed in a blur. My hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel, my wolf pacing frantically in my mind. She kept reaching for the mate bond, that sacred connection the Moon Goddess herself had forged between us.

It should have been empty. A void where Harrison's presence once lived.

Instead, I felt a wall. Solid. Deliberate. Constructed.

He hadn't died. He'd blocked me out.

I pulled into the Pack House driveway just after midnight, my body moving on autopilot as I climbed the stairs to the Alpha office. Our office. The room I hadn't been able to enter without breaking down since the funeral.

The shrine I'd built mocked me from the corner—his favorite jacket draped over the chair, photos of us at our mating ceremony, the silver wolf pendant he'd given me on our first anniversary. Lies. All of it.

I tried one more time to reach through the bond, pouring every ounce of my Luna power into the connection. For a split second, it flickered open—and I felt him. Felt his amusement. His satisfaction. His complete and utter lack of remorse.

Then he slammed the wall back into place, and the rejection hit me like a physical blow.

Something inside me snapped.

I grabbed the jacket first, ripping it down the middle with strength I didn't know I possessed. The photos followed, glass shattering as I hurled frames against the wall. The pendant—that fucking pendant—I crushed beneath my heel until it was nothing but twisted metal.

My wolf wasn't howling anymore. She was silent. Calculating. Cold.

I stood in the wreckage of my grief, chest heaving, and felt the last threads of the woman I'd been dissolve into ash. Harrison had made his choice. He'd chosen to let me believe he was dead rather than face me. He'd chosen her over his pack, over his responsibilities, over me.

Fine.

If he wanted to be a ghost, I'd make sure he stayed buried.

The office door opened behind me. I didn't turn, didn't acknowledge the intruder. My reflection in the darkened window showed a stranger—eyes glowing silver, shoulders squared, chin lifted.

"Luna Maeve." The voice was deep, commanding, unfamiliar. "We need to talk about your dead mate."

I finally turned. Alpha Duke of the Obsidian Pack stood in the doorway, his massive frame filling the space, his dark eyes fixed on me with an intensity that should have made me uncomfortable. Instead, my wolf stirred with interest for the first time in months.

He stepped inside and locked the door behind him.

"He's not dead," I said flatly.

Duke's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "No. He's not."

He crossed the room in three strides and dropped a thick manila folder on the desk between us. Photos spilled out—Harrison and Bell at restaurants, walking through Central Park, entering that hotel. Dozens of them. Weeks of surveillance.

"You knew." My voice came out deadly quiet.

Duke's Alpha aura pressed against mine, not threatening but demanding attention. When he spoke, his tone carried the weight of absolute authority. "Sit down, Luna. It's time you learned exactly what kind of male you've been mourning."

I lunged across the desk before I could think, my wolf surging forward with a snarl. "You knew he was alive and you said nothing?"

Duke caught my wrists mid-strike, his grip iron but not painful. His Alpha aura slammed into me like a physical wall, forcing my wolf to submit even as she raged. "Stop."

The command in his voice made my knees buckle. I hated it. Hated how my body responded to his authority when Harrison's had always felt hollow.

"Let. Me. Go."

"Not until you listen." Duke's eyes had gone completely black, his wolf rising to meet mine. "You want to rage at me? Fine. But first, look at the rest of that folder."

He released me and I stumbled back, chest heaving. My fingers shook as I grabbed the papers beneath the photos. Bank statements. Transfer records. Offshore accounts.

The numbers blurred together until one caught my eye. Two million. Gone. Then another million. And another.

"He's been bleeding your pack dry for three years," Duke said quietly. "Every treaty you negotiated, every investment you secured—he funneled the profits to her."

My wolf went silent. That deadly, calculating silence that meant she was done playing victim.

"Why tell me now?" I looked up at him. "Why not expose him yourself?"

Duke moved around the desk, close enough that I could smell him—dark chocolate and amber, nothing like Harrison's cedar. "Because you deserve to be the one who destroys him. Not me. Not the Council. You."

"How generous." The words came out bitter.

"I'm not being generous." His jaw clenched. "I'm being strategic. If we expose him now, he'll claim he was held captive. Traumatized. The Council will give him time to 'recover' before stripping his title. Your pack will suffer through months of instability."

I hated that he was right. Hated that he'd thought this through while I'd been drowning in grief.

"What's your plan?"

Duke's smile was sharp. "We declare him Fallen. Officially dead. Strip his bloodline rights before he can contest them. By the time he realizes what's happening, you'll have full control of Silver Moon."

"And what do you get out of this?"

His eyes locked on mine. "An alliance. Your pack merges with mine. You get the resources to survive. I get—" He stopped himself.

"Get what?"

"That's not a conversation for tonight." He stepped back, giving me space to breathe. "The Pack Howl is in three days. Can you play the grieving widow that long?"

I thought of Harrison laughing with her. Touching her. Living his best life while I'd cried myself to sleep every night.

"Yes."

***

The clearing was packed with wolves, their eyes glowing in the darkness as they waited for me to begin the ceremony. I stood on the raised platform, wearing the traditional white mourning robes, my hair unbound.

Duke stood to my right, his presence a solid wall of protection. The pack had accepted his attendance without question—allies always honored the fallen.

I raised my arms and the crowd fell silent.

"We gather under the Moon Goddess to honor Alpha Harrison Thomas." My voice carried across the clearing, steady despite the lie. "Taken from us too soon. A leader. A mate. A son of Silver Moon."

The pack began to howl, a mournful sound that echoed through the trees. I tilted my head back and joined them, letting my wolf's voice rise with theirs.

But inside, I was picturing something else entirely. Harrison's face when he learned what I'd done. The moment he realized he'd lost everything.

When I lowered my head, Duke was watching me with an expression I couldn't read. Dark. Possessive. Approving.

He saw exactly what I was doing. And he liked it.

***

Two nights later, I was elbow-deep in financial records when Duke appeared in the office doorway with coffee.

"You need to sleep," he said, setting a mug beside my laptop.

"I need to figure out how deep this goes." I rubbed my eyes, exhaustion making them burn. "He didn't just steal from the pack accounts. He mortgaged the eastern territory. Took loans against our future earnings."

Duke pulled up a chair beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touched. "Show me."

I pulled up the spreadsheet, walking him through each transaction. Harrison had been careful, spreading the theft across multiple accounts, disguising it as legitimate expenses.

"Here." I pointed to a recurring transfer. "Five thousand a month to a boutique in Manhattan. That's where I saw them."

Duke's scent wrapped around me as he leaned closer to study the screen. Dark chocolate and amber. It shouldn't have been comforting, but my wolf practically purred.

"We can recover most of this," he said. "Once the merger goes through, Obsidian's assets will stabilize Silver Moon's debt."

"Why are you doing this?" The question slipped out before I could stop it. "Really doing this?"

Duke turned to look at me, and the intensity in his eyes made my breath catch. "Because you're brilliant. Because you've been holding this pack together with duct tape and sheer will. Because Harrison was a fool who didn't deserve you."

His hand covered mine on the desk.

"And because when this is over, I'm going to make sure you never doubt your worth again."

My wolf stirred, reaching toward him in a way she never had with Harrison. Not desperate. Not needy. Just... curious.

I should have pulled away. Should have questioned his motives.

Instead, I turned my hand over and laced my fingers through his.

"Tell me your plan for the Council meeting."

The border between Silver Moon and Obsidian territory was marked by a line of ancient oaks, their branches twisted together like clasped hands. I stood in the shadow of the largest one, watching Elder Hugh approach from the Obsidian side.

He moved slowly, his gray wolf form massive even in his advanced age. When he shifted back to human, pulling on the robe he'd carried in his jaws, his eyes were sharp as ever.

"Luna Maeve." He inclined his head. "This is irregular."

"So is an Alpha abandoning his pack." I handed him the folder Duke and I had compiled. "Everything's there. Three years of theft. Offshore accounts. The boutique receipts."

Hugh flipped through the pages, his expression unreadable. When he looked up, his mouth was a thin line. "Financial crimes are serious. But they're not enough to strip bloodright."

My wolf snarled in my head. I kept my voice level. "He faked his death. Left his pack leaderless. That's abandonment."

"Prove it." Hugh closed the folder. "Bring me proof he's alive and chose to leave, and I'll support your petition. But I need more than bank statements and photographs that could be explained away."

I met his gaze. "You'll have it. At the Council Gathering."

Hugh studied me for a long moment. "You've changed, Luna. There's steel in you now."

"There always was." The words came out harder than I intended. "I just stopped hiding it."

***

Back at the Pack House, Duke was waiting in the office. He looked up when I entered, reading my expression instantly.

"Hugh wants proof."

"Then we give it to him." Duke stood, moving around the desk. "But first, we need to make Harrison nervous. Nervous people make mistakes."

I knew what he was suggesting. My fingers unconsciously touched my neck where Harrison's mark used to be. "The bond."

"Stop fighting it. Let him feel you moving on." Duke's voice dropped lower. "Let him feel you with me."

My wolf perked up at that, interested in a way that should have scared me. "And if he comes back?"

"That's exactly what we want." Duke's smile was predatory. "Let him walk into the trap himself."

I closed my eyes and reached for the mate bond. For months, I'd kept my side locked down tight, refusing to let Harrison feel anything from me. Now I loosened my grip.

The wall between us thinned. I pushed through a pulse of emotion—not grief. Not anger. Just... acceptance. Peace. The feeling of moving forward.

And underneath it, carefully crafted: interest in someone new.

Through the bond, I felt Harrison's shock. Then panic. His presence slammed against the connection, demanding, possessive.

I smiled and cut him off completely.

"Done."

Duke's eyes had gone dark. "He felt it?"

"Oh, he felt it." My wolf was practically dancing. "Give it two days. He'll be on his way back."

***

The joint pack run was Duke's idea, but I knew what it really was. A test. A statement.

Both packs gathered at the clearing as the sun set, wolves shifting and stretching, their excitement electric in the air. Silver Moon wolves mingled with Obsidian, the alliance already taking root.

I shifted last, my white wolf emerging in a ripple of power that made several younger wolves whimper and lower their heads. Good.

Duke's massive black wolf stood at the front of the formation, his Alpha aura radiating dominance. For a moment, I thought he'd lead as tradition dictated.

Then he stepped aside.

Every wolf in the clearing went still. Duke lowered his head to me—not submission, but invitation. Acknowledgment.

My wolf surged forward before I could overthink it. I took the lead position, feeling the weight of every eye on my white fur. This was it. The moment I stopped being Harrison's Luna and became something else entirely.

I threw my head back and howled.

The packs answered as one, their voices rising to the darkening sky. Then I ran.

The forest blurred around me, my paws eating up ground as the combined packs followed. Not behind Duke. Behind me. I could feel their energy, their loyalty shifting like a living thing.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't supporting someone else's leadership. I was leading. And it felt like coming home.

Duke ran at my right flank, his larger form matching my pace perfectly. Protecting. Supporting. But not overshadowing.

When we finally stopped at the ridge overlooking both territories, I looked back at the sea of wolves behind me. Silver Moon and Obsidian, united. Strong.

Mine.

My wolf's eyes glowed silver in the moonlight, and I felt something crack open inside me. Power I'd been suppressing for years, afraid it would threaten Harrison's fragile ego. Authority I'd hidden behind a supportive smile.

No more.

Duke shifted beside me, his human form magnificent in the moonlight. When he spoke, his voice carried to every wolf present.

"Your Alpha."

Not Luna. Not the Alpha's mate.

Alpha.

The packs howled their agreement, and I felt the title settle over me like a crown I'd been born to wear.