My Mate Left Me to Die for His Mistress

The rain hit the windshield so hard I could barely see the road ahead. Julien's hand was warm over mine on the console between us. For a moment — just one fragile, stupid moment — I let myself believe tonight might be different.

"The healer confirmed it this morning," I said quietly, my thumb brushing over his knuckles. "Ten weeks."

Julien's jaw tightened. He didn't look at me. His eyes stayed fixed on the storm beyond the glass, his wolf restless beneath his skin in that way I'd learned to recognize over seven years of watching him pull away from me in a thousand small increments.

"We'll talk about it when we get back to the border house," he said finally.

Not congratulations. Not excitement. Just we'll talk about it — like our unborn child was a contract negotiation that could wait until after dinner.

I pressed my thumb against the inside of my opposite wrist and said nothing. My wolf stirred uneasily in my chest, a whisper of white jasmine and rain that had grown fainter with every year Julien refused to mark me, refused to claim me publicly as his Luna, refused to do anything but keep me suspended in this half-acknowledged limbo while he—

The mind-link slammed into him so hard his entire body went rigid.

I felt the edge of it through our bond — Emily's voice, high and panicked, bleeding terror into every word. I couldn't hear what she was saying. Julien had never opened his mind-link wide enough for me to hear her directly. But I didn't need to. I'd lived this scene a hundred times before.

"Julien?" I asked, even though I already knew.

He pulled his hand away from mine.

"Rogues," he said shortly, already reaching for the door handle. "Near Emily's cabin. She's alone."

The car was still moving. We were on a remote stretch of pack road halfway between Ironveil and Silverpine, rain hammering down so hard the forest on either side was just a black blur. There was no one else out here. No patrol. No backup. Just us.

And he was already opening the door.

"Wait—" I started, my hand reaching for his arm.

Julien shook me off without looking back. "Get out."

I stared at him. The rain was deafening against the roof. "What?"

"Walk back to the border house," he said flatly, one foot already on the wet pavement. "It's only two miles. I need the car."

My wolf went very, very still.

"Julien, I'm pregnant," I said, and hated how small my voice sounded. "You can't leave me out here alone in a storm with rogues—"

"Emily is in danger," he cut me off, his Alpha tone slamming into me like a physical blow. "Get. Out."

I should have fought harder. I should have refused. But seven years of training — seven years of learning that arguing with Julien when Emily needed him only made everything worse — had carved obedience into my bones.

I opened the door. Rain soaked through my jacket in seconds. The cold bit down to my skin.

Julien didn't wait. He slid into the driver's seat, slammed the door, and the car jerked forward. I watched his taillights disappear into the storm, red eyes fading into black, and my wolf finally went completely silent.

I started walking.

The road was slick with mud and rainwater. My shoes were wrong for this — too thin, too delicate, chosen for a quiet dinner at the border house, not a two-mile hike through a storm. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and kept my head down against the wind.

I made it maybe half a mile before I heard the growl.

It came from the trees to my left — low, deliberate, not bothering to hide. My wolf surged awake in my chest, adrenaline flooding my veins as I spun toward the sound.

Three of them stepped out of the forest. Rogues. Bigger than they should be, well-fed, coordinated. Not starving loners. Not random.

One of them smiled.

"Adaline Warren," he said, voice rough as gravel. "Alpha Julien's little mate."

I shifted before he finished the sentence. My wolf tore free in a blur of white fur and rain-slick movement, smaller than his, weaker than I should be because Julien had never marked me, never strengthened our bond, never—

The rogue on the right hit me from the side. Claws raked across my ribs. I twisted, snapped at his throat, missed. The second one slammed into my hindquarters and I went down hard, mud and rain filling my mouth.

I fought. I fought with everything I had. But there were three of them and one of me, and my wolf was so tired, and when the third rogue's claws tore across my belly I felt something inside me break that had nothing to do with bone.

The pain was white-hot and absolute.

I heard patrol sirens in the distance, too far away, too late. The rogues melted back into the trees like smoke. I shifted back to human form without meaning to, my body curling around the wreckage of what I'd been carrying, rain washing the blood away almost as fast as it came.

Someone was screaming. It took me a long time to realize it was me.

When the patrol found me, I couldn't stand. They lifted me into the truck, wrapped me in blankets that turned red too fast, and drove toward Silverpine instead of Ironveil because it was closer and I was dying.

Cressida Vane met us at the pack house door, her healer's hands already glowing faint silver. But her face was wrong. Too pale. Too stricken.

"Your father," she said, and I knew before she finished. "Adaline, I'm sorry—"

I shoved past her. Down the hall. Into the room where my father — Alpha Allan Warren, the man who had raised me alone, who had taught me that kindness was strength, who had pulled a broken boy off a forest road and brought him home without asking questions — lay on a bed with his chest barely moving.

I crossed the room. I took his hand.

His chest stopped rising before I could say goodbye.

I stood there holding his still-warm Alpha ring, my body broken, my child gone, my father silent, and my wolf went quieter than it had ever been.

Cressida's hands were on my shoulders, guiding me toward another bed, murmuring things I couldn't hear. She worked through the night, documenting every wound with a healer's methodical precision, her face unreadable.

When she finally spoke, her voice was very soft.

"These claw patterns," she said, holding up a bloodied cloth. "This wasn't random, Adaline. This was coordinated."

I closed my eyes and said nothing.

Somewhere in Ironveil, Julien was probably still comforting Emily, holding her hand, telling her she was safe.

He had no idea what he'd just done.