After My Mate Stole Moonstones, I Ended His Reign

The night air carried the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine as I walked alone through the Moon Garden. My footsteps crunched softly on the gravel path, each sound echoing in the midnight silence. Ten years. Ten years since I'd buried my pup beneath these silver moonflowers that bloomed only in darkness.

I traced my fingers over the marble statue of Mael—my beautiful boy, forever frozen in playful innocence. The moonlight caught the polished stone, making it seem almost alive.

"Hello, my little wolf," I whispered, my voice barely audible even to my own ears. "Mother's here."

The silence that answered me felt heavier than usual. For the first time in a decade, Kane wasn't here. We always came together on this night—to remember, to grieve, to hold each other in the darkness that never quite healed.

"He'll come," I told the statue, straightening the small silver pendant I'd placed around its neck. "He's just... delayed."

But as the minutes stretched into an hour, the empty space beside me remained empty. No familiar scent of pine and winter frost. No warm hand on my shoulder. Just me and the moon and my dead pup's memorial.

I rose to my feet, a strange hollowness expanding in my chest. Something was wrong. Kane had never missed this night—not once in ten years.

"That's odd," I murmured, noticing something I'd overlooked in my grief.

Small wooden stakes had been driven into the flowerbeds—construction markers with red paint. They formed a perfect rectangle around the garden's edge, right through the beds where Kane and I had planted moonflowers together, one for each month of Mael's short life.

My fingers closed around one of the stakes, yanking it free from the earth. Fresh soil clung to its base. These hadn't been here yesterday.

"What is this?" I whispered, my Alpha senses suddenly alert.

No one would dare authorize construction in the Moon Garden without my knowledge. No one would dare touch this sacred ground.

I followed the scent trail—not Kane's, but something else. Something that smelled of power tools and paper plans. It led me away from the garden, toward the west wing of the pack house.

The corridor was silent as I moved through it, my footsteps barely audible against the plush carpet. I tracked the scent to a door I rarely used—a guest suite in the farthest corner of the wing.

Voices drifted through the heavy oak door. One of them made my blood freeze.

"The old bitch actually thinks I'll show up tonight," Kane's voice, dripping with mockery. "As if I'd waste another minute pretending to care about that depressing garden."

My hand flew to my mouth, stifling the gasp that threatened to escape. I pressed closer to the door, my enhanced hearing picking up every word.

"It's so morbid, Kane," a female voice replied—young, breathy. Jemma Ellis. The little Omega influencer who'd been circling our pack like a vulture in designer clothes. "All those dead flowers and that creepy statue."

"They'll be