My Alpha Replaced Me with His Pregnant Mistress

The fluorescent lights in Dr. Sarah Chen's examination room made everything look sicker than it was. Or maybe that was just me.

I sat on the paper-covered table, the thin sheet crinkling every time I breathed, and I watched Sarah's hands shake as she set down the lab results. She'd been my pack physician for six years. I had never once seen her hands shake.

"Violet." Her voice was careful. Too careful. "The fainting episodes—the muscle weakness you've been experiencing—" She paused. Pressed her lips together. "We ran the full panel twice."

"Just say it."

She looked up at me then, and I already knew. Somewhere deep inside, beneath my ribs where Luna—my wolf—lived, I already knew. Luna had gone quiet weeks ago. Not sleeping. Just... quiet. Like she was conserving what little she had left.

"Lupine Atrophy Syndrome," Sarah said. "Terminal stage. Your wolf is—" Her voice broke on the word. "She's decaying, Violet. The paralysis will begin within months."

The room didn't spin the way I expected it to. It just went very, very still.

LAS. I knew what it was—every wolf did, the way humans knew about certain cancers. Rare. Merciless. No cure.

I pressed my palm flat against my sternum, as if I could feel Luna through the bone. There was nothing. Just a faint, distant ache, like an echo in an empty hall.

*I'm here,* she whispered. So faint I almost missed it. *I'm still here.*

"How long?" I asked.

Sarah couldn't answer that. She tried, but the numbers blurred, and eventually I stopped listening. I just needed to get out of that cold, white room. I needed Nash.

---

The walk to his private office on the second floor of the pack house felt longer than usual. I kept my arms wrapped around myself, the autumn air biting through my sweater. Every step felt deliberate, like I was carrying something fragile that might shatter if I moved too fast.

Nash would know what to do. He always did. He was my Alpha, my mate—three years of Sunday mornings and quiet dinners and his hand at the small of my back at pack gatherings. He would pull me in, press his lips to my forehead, and tell me we would fight this together.

I just needed him to say that.

His office was empty when I pushed the door open. The desk lamp was on, papers spread across the surface, his half-finished coffee still warm. He'd only stepped out.

I exhaled. Let myself breathe for the first time since Sarah's hands started shaking.

Nash's jacket was draped over the back of his chair. Dark navy, the one I'd bought him last winter. I crossed the room and reached for it without thinking—just wanting something familiar, something that smelled like him, like cedar and rain and home.

I pressed it to my face.

And the world ended.

The scent hit me like a fist to the throat. Beneath the cedar and rain, threaded through every fiber—