My Alpha Saved His Mistress Instead of Me

The silk felt like water against my skin.

My mother had sewn it by hand. Every stitch, every pearl along the collar, every fold of the long ivory train — Diane Lawson's quiet, work-worn fingers had put it all there. Luna-grade silk. The kind an Omega-born woman was never supposed to wear.

"You'll be beautiful, Anna," she had whispered that morning, pinning the last hem. Her eyes were wet. "You'll be his Luna. My girl."

My girl. I was thirty years old, and she still said it like I was eight.

I stood in the bridal chamber on the second floor of the Crimson Hollow pack house, and I let myself look in the mirror. Really look. The silver moon-charm pendant rested at the hollow of my throat — the one Alex Martin had slipped around my neck fifteen years ago, under a full moon, when we were both teenagers and the whole world smelled like pine and possibility.

My fingers found it without thinking. They always did.

Below, the pack hall hummed. I could hear the low murmur of gathered allies, the clink of crystal, the slow swell of the ceremonial music as it tuned itself for the procession. The air smelled of pine resin and beeswax candles. Forty minutes. Forty minutes, and I would walk down that staircase as Annabelle Lawson, and walk back up it as Annabelle Martin, Luna of Crimson Hollow.

For the first time in fifteen years, I let myself believe it without flinching.

I smiled at the mirror. It was a small smile, soft, almost shy. The kind of smile a woman gives herself when no one is watching.

The mind-link tore open like a blade slipped between ribs.

*Sweet thing.*

Carolina's voice. Bright. Laughing. The way she laughed at brunch when she was about to say something cruel about someone we both knew.

*Did you really not know?*

I did not move. My hand was still at the pendant.

*Five years, Anna. He courted you to make me jealous. Your scent never moved him. Mine did.*

A pause. A breath. The smile of it, audible.

*Why do you think he's never marked you?*

The link snapped shut.

The candle on the vanity guttered. Somewhere far below, a violin began to tune. The silk against my skin was suddenly unbearable — too smooth, too cold, too white.

Behind me, on the woven rug by the bed, Luna lifted her small dark head. Our rescue pup. The one I had named without asking anyone. She stared past me at the closed chamber door and a low, certain growl rolled out of her chest.

I did not turn around. I could not turn around. If I turned around, I would have to look at her, and if I looked at her, I would have to understand what she had always known.

Five years.

I stood there until the violin found its note.

---

I do not remember deciding to leave.

I remember my hand on the