My Mate’s Mistress Tried To Kill Me On My Wedding Day

Sweat trickled down my spine, cooling against the fabric of my shirt. My knuckles were white as I gripped the parallel bars I’d had secretly installed in the corner of my dressing room, hidden behind a heavy velvet curtain.

"Come on, Madelyn," I whispered through gritted teeth. "For him. For us."

My legs, dormant and unresponsive for three agonizing years, trembled violently. The nerves fired—a chaotic, burning static that felt like lightning trapped under my skin. But I didn't collapse. For the first time since the ambush that shattered my spine, I was standing.

Today was our seventh mating anniversary. Seven years since the Moon Goddess bound my soul to Kaden Hunter, the Alpha of the Ironveil Pack. For the last three, I had been the broken Luna, the wife in the wheelchair who smiled bravely while the pack whispered about my frailty. But tonight, I was going to walk to him. I was going to show him that his vow—to be my strength until I found my own—had not been in vain.

I collapsed back into my wheelchair, gasping for air, a triumphant smile stretching across my face. Sable, my wolf, stirred in the back of my mind. She had been nearly silent since the injury, buried under layers of trauma and medication, but today, she let out a low, uneasy whine.

*Hush, Sable,* I thought. *It’s a happy day.*

I wheeled myself over to the Alpha’s console on the desk to check when Kaden would be back from his border patrol. The screen was glowing, a notification blinking in the corner. It was a mind-link log, usually encrypted for Alpha eyes only, but someone had been careless. Or perhaps, arrogant.

The message flashed across the screen, intercepted by the localized server in our shared quarters.

*"I've left your favorite scent on the pillows in the study. Don't make me wait too long tonight, Alpha."*

The smile died on my lips. The sender ID was blocked, but the tone was intimate, possessive. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. *A prank? A mistake?*

Sable growled, a sound of pure warning.

I didn't want to believe it. Kaden was my mate. He had held my hand through every surgery, every failed therapy session. He had sworn to the pack that I was his heart.

I turned my wheelchair and exited the bedroom, moving silently down the hallway toward Kaden's private study. The heavy oak door was ajar. As I pushed it open, the scent hit me instantly—not the leather and pine of my mate, but something cloying and floral.

*Wild orchids and vanilla.*

I knew that scent. It belonged to Leslie Reyes, the Beta’s sister. A high-ranking she-wolf who always looked at me with a mixture of pity and disdain.

My hands shook as I rolled toward the large mahogany desk. I knew Kaden kept a hidden compartment behind the bottom drawer; he used to hide anniversary gifts there. I triggered the latch. The drawer slid open, but there was no jewelry box for me.

Instead, I found a cache of secrets. Lace lingerie that wasn't my size. A gold bracelet engraved with the date of a "border skirmish" that had kept Kaden away for three days last winter. And a small, folded note in Leslie's handwriting: *"Three years, my love. Soon, we won't have to hide."*

Three years.

The air left my lungs. The paralysis I had fought so hard to overcome physically now seized my heart. He hadn't just strayed; he had built a life with her while I lay in a hospital bed, learning how to breathe again.

I needed to hear him. I needed him to tell me this was a lie.

Voices drifted up from the Great Hall below. The Alpha gathering. Kaden was hosting leaders from the neighboring territories before our private dinner. I wheeled myself to the mezzanine balcony, hiding in the shadows of the heavy tapestries.

I looked down. Kaden stood in the center of the room, holding a tumbler of whiskey, looking devastatingly handsome in his dark suit. He radiated power, the kind of aura that made wolves bow their heads. Leslie’s brother, Derek, stood nearby, looking smug.

"A toast to Alpha Hunter," a visiting Alpha from the north boomed, raising his glass. "And to his Luna. It is your anniversary, is it not? How is the poor girl?"

My grip on the wheelchair rims tightened.

Kaden took a sip of his drink, his expression hardening. He didn't look like a man in love. He looked like a man burdened.

"Madelyn is... comfortable," Kaden said, his voice smooth, carrying that Alpha command that demanded silence.

"It must be difficult," another Alpha pressed, his tone lowered. "A pack needs a strong mother. A Luna who can run."

I waited for Kaden’s defense. I waited for him to say what he told me every night—that my spirit was stronger than any wolf's legs. That I saved his life.

Kaden set his glass down on the table with a sharp *clink*. He let out a cold, humorless chuckle.

"Let's be honest, gentlemen," Kaden said, his voice carrying clearly up to the balcony. "She can't run. She can't fight. She can't even satisfy an Alpha's needs properly. She's been dead weight since the ambush."

The world stopped. The silence in my ears was deafening.

"Dead weight," he repeated, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "I only keep the title on her because the pack pities her. It’s bad politics to discard a cripple, even if she is useless."

Tears, hot and scorching, finally spilled over my lashes. The pain in my spine was nothing compared to the jagged knife twisting in my chest. The mate bond, that sacred golden thread the poets wrote about, felt like a noose tightening around my throat.

He didn't see me as his savior. He saw me as his burden.

I didn't scream. I didn't throw myself over the railing. A strange, icy calm settled over me—the calm of a woman who has nothing left to lose.

I backed away from the railing, the rubber wheels of my chair silent on the plush carpet. I turned toward the guest quarters, my mind sharpening into a single, razor-edged point.

I reached out with my mind, bypassing the pack link, aiming for the one connection I hadn't used in years because Kaden insisted we didn't need "outside interference."

*Zachary,* I pushed the thought out, raw and bleeding.

My brother’s presence slammed into my mind instantly, alert and worried. *Maddy? What is it? Happy Anniversary, I was just—*

*Get me out,* I interrupted, my mental voice cracking. *Tonight. Right now.*