My Alpha Chose a Younger Luna Over Me

The ink on the trade treaty with the Northern Timber Pack was barely dry. It had taken me six months of grueling negotiations, sleepless nights, and endless strategic maneuvering to secure these borders, but looking at the signature on the final page, I knew it was worth it. This treaty would secure the Silver Crescent Pack’s prosperity for another decade.

I smoothed the skirt of my emerald evening gown, the silk cool against my fingertips, and walked down the hallway toward the Alpha’s office. The Unity Gala was already in full swing downstairs; the floorboards vibrated slightly with the bass of the music and the stomping of feet. I wanted to give Hayden the good news before we made our entrance. I wanted to see his eyes light up, to hear him acknowledge that we had done this together.

I was a fool.

As I reached the heavy mahogany door, my hand raised to knock, a sound stopped me cold. It was laughter. Not the warm, hearty laugh Hayden used to share with me over morning coffee, but a cruel, mocking sound that made the hair on my arms stand up.

“Come on, Alpha,” Marcus, our Beta, chuckled. His voice was muffled but clear enough to my heightened hearing. “You have to admit, the timing is tricky. Madeline is… well, she’s a fixture.”

I froze. My hand hovered inches from the wood.

“A fixture is just furniture, Marcus,” Hayden’s voice replied, dripping with an arrogance I had spent five years trying to temper. “And furniture can be replaced when it gets worn out.”

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. I leaned closer, my breath hitching.

“She’s thirty-five, Marcus,” Hayden continued, the dismissive tone slicing through me sharper than any claw. “She’s drying up. I can smell it on her. Her scent… it’s fading. It’s stale. How am I supposed to produce strong Alpha heirs with a wolf whose womb is practically dusty?”

A sharp, cloying scent wafted through the crack under the door. It hit my nose like a physical blow—synthetic vanilla and overly sweet florals. It wasn’t a natural wolf scent. It was store-bought perfume masking the musk of a newly shifted she-wolf. *Avani.*

The betrayal didn't break my heart; it incinerated it. I realized then that the scent had been clinging to Hayden’s shirts for weeks. I had told myself it was from the pack members he hugged, or the office staff. I had willfully blinded myself.

“So, what’s the plan?” Marcus asked, the sound of glass clinking against glass following his words.

“I’ll move her to the Omega quarters after the Gala,” Hayden said casually, as if discussing where to move a potted plant. “Avani is fresh. She’s young. She looks at me like I’m a god, not a project. Madeline thinks she made me. She thinks she owns me. It’s time the pack learns who the real Alpha is.”

I didn't scream. I didn't kick down the door. I