After My Mate Sold Me to His Enemy

The copper tang of dried blood coated my tongue, a familiar taste after ten years of serving as the Silverclaw Pack’s Enforcer. My tactical gear was shredded, my skin stained with the grime of a three-day hunt, but I didn't care. I had eliminated the spies from the Ironwood Pack. I had kept him safe.

Thatcher.

My wolf, usually a silent predator within my mind, paced restlessly as I approached the Sacred Grove. The moon hung heavy and full, casting silver light through the ancient trees. I needed to report to my Alpha. I needed to tell him the borders were secure.

But as I stepped into the clearing, the report died in my throat.

Thatcher was there. But he wasn't alone.

Penny Jones, my foster sister, was pressed against him, her delicate hands resting on his chest. The scent hit me a second later—not the metallic stench of my own blood, but the cloying sweetness of artificial vanilla and... something else. Something that smelled like *him*.

"Thatcher?" I rasped, my voice rough from disuse.

He turned. And in that second, my world fractured.

*"MATE!"* my wolf screamed, throwing herself against the walls of my consciousness. The pull was instantaneous, a magnetic force threatening to drag me to my knees. The Moon Goddess had finally blessed me. The man I had served, the man I had loved in silence, was my fated mate.

I took a step forward, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm. "Thatcher, it's you. The bond..."

He didn't step toward me. He didn't pull me into the embrace every wolf dreams of. Instead, his lip curled in a sneer that chilled my blood colder than the night air.

"Cover yourself, Lottie," he spat, shielding Penny as if *I* were the monster. "You reek of death."

***

An hour later, I was on my knees in the center of the Alpha House's grand hall. The entire pack elite surrounded us, their whispers like buzzing flies.

Thatcher sat on his throne, Penny perched on the armrest like a delicate ornament. I was still covered in the filth of my mission, kneeling on the hardwood floor while he looked down at me with nothing but contempt.

"Lottie Weaver," Thatcher’s voice boomed, laced with the Alpha Tone that forced my wolf to whimper in submission. "You believe that because the Goddess played a cruel joke, you are fit to be my Luna?"

"I am your mate," I said, my voice shaking but defiant. "I have bled for this pack. I have killed for you."

"Exactly," he countered coldly. "You are a butcher. A blunt instrument. A Luna is a mother, a diplomat, a symbol of purity. Look at you. You are a violent, low-born stray with no lineage."

My hand trembled as I reached into my tactical vest. I pulled out the only thing that mattered to me—my mother’s Moonstone amulet. The glowing blue stone was the only proof that I came from somewhere, that I wasn't just a nameless orphan.