After My Mate Chose His Mistress Over Me

I smelled the herbs before I smelled the lie.

Lavender and moonroot, still damp from the forest floor, bundled in my arms as I pushed open the pack house door at half past midnight. Mom needed the compress ready by morning. She'd been fighting a stubborn cold for days, and even the pack healer wasn't exempt from needing her own medicine. I'd gone out alone because the night air helped me think, and lately, thinking was the only thing I had that was fully mine.

The pack house was quiet. Most wolves were asleep. I climbed the stairs toward the storage room off the main hallway, past the portraits of past Alphas that I'd walked by a thousand times without really looking. Past the framed photo of Sawyer's father, Derek, staring down at everyone with those flat, cold eyes.

Then I heard it.

A sound from Sawyer's bedroom. Low. Unmistakable.

I told myself it was nothing. I was good at that. Two years of practice.

But my wolf went still inside me, and that stillness — that warning quiet — was worse than any howl.

I stopped in front of his door. My hand touched the wood, just to steady myself. The herbs in my arms smelled sweet and clean, and the scent coming from inside was anything but.

I pushed the door open.

For a second, my brain simply refused to process it. The lamp on the nightstand was on. Warm, golden light. The kind of light that makes everything look soft and close. And in that light, Sawyer — my mate, the man I had loved since I was small enough to believe in forever — lay tangled in the sheets with Gracie Rodriguez, whose dark hair was spread across his pillow like she belonged there.

Gracie saw me first. Her eyes went wide.

Sawyer turned.

I don't remember dropping the herbs. But I heard them hit the floor.

'Lena.' His voice came out low and controlled, already shifting into that register — the one that pressed against your spine like a hand. The Alpha tone. 'Close the door. Let me explain.'

Two years. I'd spent two years convincing myself that his coldness was just the weight of Alpha responsibility. That the distance between us was something I could close if I was patient enough, small enough, careful enough. I'd made myself so small.

Something cracked open in my chest.

Not broke. Opened.

My wolf surged up from wherever she'd been hiding — not growling, not frantic, just suddenly, finally awake — and for the first time in my life, she wasn't asking. She was done.

I was aware of footsteps in the hallway behind me. Pack members woken by the noise, drawn to the open door. I heard Gracie say something sharp and quiet, but I wasn't listening to her anymore.

Sawyer stood up. He was still reaching for me with that aura, pressing it outward, the invisible weight of an Alpha's command settling over the room