Alpha Pays for Deception

The pack house felt different tonight, though I couldn't place why until Charles walked through the front door at nearly midnight. The familiar sound of his boots on the hardwood should have brought comfort after his long patrol, but instead, something twisted in my stomach.

He moved with that same confident Alpha stride, his dark hair tousled from the wind, but there was something else. Something that made my wolf stir uneasily within me.

"You're late," I said softly from where I sat curled on the leather sofa, a half-finished cup of chamomile tea growing cold in my hands.

Charles barely glanced my way as he shrugged off his jacket. "Patrol ran long. You know how it is."

But I didn't know how it was. Not anymore. Because as he moved closer, that wrongness I'd sensed crystallized into something concrete, something that made my Luna instincts scream in alarm.

Wolfsbane.

The bitter, metallic scent clung to his clothes like a second skin, wafted from his breath when he spoke. It was faint but unmistakable to someone who'd spent five years as his mate, five years learning every nuance of his scent.

My teacup rattled against the saucer as I set it down with trembling hands. "Charles."

Something in my tone made him pause halfway up the stairs. When he turned back, his green eyes held that familiar impatience he wore whenever I interrupted his routines.

"What is it, Layla? I'm tired."

"You smell like wolfsbane."

The words hung between us like a blade. For just a moment, something flickered across his face—surprise? Fear? But it vanished so quickly I might have imagined it.

"That's impossible," he said, his voice carrying that Alpha authority that usually made pack members lower their eyes. "You know wolfsbane makes me violently ill. Even trace amounts would have me doubled over for hours."

I stood slowly, my silk nightgown whispering against my legs. "Then explain the scent, Charles. Explain why you reek of it."

His jaw tightened. "Maybe your nose is off. Pregnancy can affect scent sensitivity, can't it?"

The casual cruelty of using our pup—our three-year-old son sleeping peacefully upstairs—as a deflection made something cold settle in my chest. "I'm not pregnant, Charles. And my nose is perfectly fine."

Before he could respond, the familiar tingle of the pack mind-link brushed against my consciousness. But this wasn't the general pack channel—this was private, intimate, meant for Charles alone.

*Charles?* Elle Webb's voice whispered through the mental connection, honey-sweet and far too familiar. *You left your ceremonial ring at my quarters during our consultation tonight. Should I bring it by, or would you prefer to collect it tomorrow?*

The mind-link wasn't meant for me, but as Charles's mate, as his Luna, the bond between us made his private channels accessible to me. Elle either didn't know this or didn't care.

I watched Charles's face as Elle's words reached him, saw the way his eyes widened slightly before that familiar mask of Alpha composure slid back