Mate No More

The sound of betrayal echoed through our bedroom door—my husband's pleasure shared with another woman on my birthday night.

I should have walked away. Should have pretended I didn't hear Alexander's groans, didn't see Vivian wrapped around him like she owned him. But when he looked me in the eye and smiled, something inside me shattered.

"Vivian is my true mate," he said, not even bothering to step away from her. "You're just a contract, Sophia. A business arrangement."

Two years of marriage. Two years of playing the perfect Luna. Two years of believing the lies.

When I lost our baby three days later—alone in a hospital while he attended a gala with his new lover—I realized the truth: I was nothing but a beautiful ornament in Alexander Thorne's collection.

So I disappeared.

New name. New life. New strength I never knew I possessed.

But when Alexander found me in that little diner, when he tried to drag me back to his world of contracts and cages, something extraordinary happened. Silver light erupted from my skin. Ancient power flowed through my veins. His Alpha dominance crumbled before something older, something divine.

"What are you?" he gasped.

The elderly woman in the doorway smiled with ancient knowing. "She's what you never deserved. A true Luna."

Every werewolf within fifty miles felt it—the awakening of power that would reshape everything. Every alliance, every contract, every carefully maintained hierarchy just became irrelevant.

Because I'm not just Sophia Reyes anymore.

I'm something Alexander Thorne could never control, never own, never break.

And I'm just getting started.

...

The sound of my husband's pleasure echoed through our bedroom door—deep groans that used to be meant for me, now shared with another woman.

I stood frozen in the marble hallway of the Thorne mansion, my silk birthday gown suddenly feeling like a shroud. The champagne flute in my hand trembled, crystal catching the moonlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Go in, Lyra whispered urgently in my mind. We need to see.

My wolf's instincts had been screaming warnings for weeks, but I'd silenced them. Alexander Thorne was my Alpha, my husband. He wouldn't—

"Yes, Alexander! Mark me!"

The feminine cry shattered my last delusion. That voice didn't belong to me.

My hand moved to the doorknob as if controlled by someone else. The heavy oak door swung open silently, revealing our king-sized bed bathed in silver moonlight. Alexander's muscular frame pressed against the wall, his dark hair disheveled, his broad shoulders bare and gleaming with sweat.

Wrapped around him like a second skin was Vivian Holloway—pack socialite, family friend, and apparently, my replacement.

Her red dress bunched around her waist. Her legs locked around his hips. Her manicured nails raked down his back, leaving marks I'd never been allowed to make.

The champagne glass slipped from my numb fingers, shattering against the marble floor like my marriage.

Alexander's steel-gray eyes found mine in the mirror across the room. For a heartbeat, I expected shame, apology, even