After My Mate Chose His Mistress

I had been waiting three months for the Healer.

Three months since Aunt Winifred pulled every royal connection she had to secure Dr. Maren Thorne—a wolf-blood specialist so rare that most packs didn't even know she existed. Three months of my inner wolf growing weaker, her voice in my head fading from a steady presence to something threadbare and distant. Three months of telling myself that help was coming, that I just needed to hold on a little longer.

The communication came through on a Tuesday afternoon.

I was in the pack house office, sorting through medical invoices, when I saw the encrypted message notification on the Lycan-secured channel Winifred had set up for me. My hands were shaking as I opened it. The message was brief, clinical, and devastating.

*Dr. Thorne's services have been redirected per Alpha Elias's request. Patient: Margaret Coleman. Condition: Stage IV bone cancer. Treatment location: Riverside Pack territory. Apologies for any inconvenience.*

I read it three times.

Then I read it again.

My wolf didn't howl. She didn't rage. She just… went quiet. Like a candle flame flickering once before going out.

Margaret Coleman. Natasha's mother.

Elias had taken my Healer—the one chance I had at surviving this disease—and given her to his mistress's dying mother.

I sat there for a long time, staring at the screen. The mate bond, which had been a constant hum beneath my ribs for five years, felt different now. Not severed. Not broken. Just cold. Like something that had been barely alive had finally stopped breathing.

I should have confronted him. I should have screamed, thrown things, demanded answers. But I didn't move. I just sat there, pressing my thumb against the inside of my wrist, counting my heartbeats until my hands stopped shaking.

Then I heard it.

A phone buzzing in Elias's jacket, which he'd left draped over the back of his desk chair that morning before heading out for patrol. It wasn't his usual phone—the pack-issued one with the Shadowvale crest engraved on the case. This was a cheap burner phone, the kind rogues used. The kind people used when they didn't want to be traced.

I pulled it out of his pocket.

The screen lit up with a new voice message. No name. Just a number I didn't recognize.

I pressed play.

"Hey, baby." Natasha's voice poured out of the speaker, warm and intimate and so casual it made my stomach turn. "Berkley's asking about you again. I told her Daddy's busy with pack stuff, but you know how four-year-olds are. She misses you. *We* miss you."

There was a pause, and then her tone shifted—sharper, meaner, like she knew exactly who might be listening.

"I heard Emily's wolf is getting worse. That's so sad. I mean, what kind of Luna can't even keep her own wolf alive, right? But don't worry—you made the right choice. My mom needed that Healer way more than she did. Emily's young. She'll bounce back. Or… maybe she won't. Either way, you've got us now. You've got *our* daughter. That's what matters."

She laughed. It was light, airy, like she'd just told a joke at a dinner party.

"See you tonight, Alpha. Don't be late."

The message ended.

I stood there, holding the burner phone, and felt absolutely nothing.

No tears. No anger. Just a vast, echoing emptiness where the mate bond used to be.

*Our daughter.*

Four years old.

Four years.

I had been his mate for five.

I set the phone down carefully on his desk, like it was made of glass. Then I walked to my laptop and opened the security system for my parents' ancestral packlands—the territory I'd inherited after they died, the land Elias had always said was "too remote" to visit, "too painful" for me to spend time in.

I pulled up the live camera feeds.

The first three cameras showed empty forest trails and the old stone perimeter walls. The fourth camera was aimed at the interior of the main den—the private family space my parents had used, the place where I'd spent every childhood summer before the rogue attack took them from me.

Elias was there.

So was Natasha.

They were sitting on my mother's favorite couch, the one with the faded blue cushions she'd refused to replace because my father had picked it out. Natasha's head was on Elias's shoulder. He was laughing at something she'd said, his hand resting on her knee, casual and comfortable and entirely at home.

In my parents' house.

In *my* house.

I watched them for five minutes. Neither of them looked guilty. Neither of them looked like they were hiding. They looked like a couple spending a quiet evening together in their own space.

My inner wolf, who had been silent since I read the Healer's message, stirred once—just once—and then went completely, utterly still.

I closed the laptop.

I walked to the bedroom, sat down on the edge of the bed in the dark, and pressed my thumb against the inside of my wrist until I could breathe again.

Then I opened a secure Lycan-tier communication channel and sent a message to Aunt Winifred.

*He redirected the Healer to Natasha's mother. He has a four-year-old daughter with her. I have footage. I need to come home.*

Her response came through in less than two minutes.

*The Lycan King's personal Healer will be waiting for you at Silvercrest. Transfer the Duncan ancestral territory before you leave—don't let him touch it. Pack light. Come now. I will handle the rest.*

I read her message three times, and for the first time in months, I felt something other than despair.

I felt clarity.

I would not confront him. I would not beg. I would not break where he could see it.

I would calculate.

And then I would disappear.