My Mate Gave My Paintings to His Mistress

The dates blur together at first, my fever-addled brain struggling to make sense of the numbers swimming before my eyes. But then one receipt comes into focus with devastating clarity.

Silvermoon Luxury Hotel. Room 308. Date: exactly three years, two months, and seventeen days ago.

The day Caleb was born.

My hands start shaking so violently the paper crumples between my fingers. I smooth it out with trembling hands, desperate to be wrong, desperate for this to be some terrible mistake.

3:47 PM. Room service for two. Champagne. Chocolate-covered strawberries. Luxury suite with ocean view.

I was screaming for him at 3:47 PM. The pack healers were shouting that I was losing too much blood, that the pup was in distress, that they needed the Alpha immediately. I remember begging through the mind-link, my wolf howling for her mate while our son struggled to enter this world.

Henry told me he was delayed by rogue attacks at the border. He arrived at 9:23 PM, his clothes rumpled, his hair disheveled, smelling like hotel soap and perfume I was too weak to identify. He'd held my hand for exactly four minutes before leaving to "handle the rogue situation."

He was drinking champagne with Everly while I was dying.

The other receipts fall into place like dominos of betrayal. Every pack meeting he claimed ran late. Every border patrol that kept him overnight. Every emergency that pulled him away from our bed. Hotel receipts. Restaurant bills for two. Jewelry purchases I never received.

Three years of lies, documented in neat rows of timestamps and credit card charges.

My wolf, suppressed and weak as she is, suddenly surges forward with a fury that burns hotter than the fever ravaging my body. The silver in her eyes—dormant for so long under Henry's crushing aura—blazes to life.

And something fundamental inside me doesn't just crack.

It detonates.

The fever breaks so abruptly it's like plunging into ice water. Clarity rushes in, sharp and brutal and absolutely unforgiving. Every excuse I made for him, every time I blamed myself, every moment I swallowed my pain to keep the peace—it all crystallizes into one undeniable truth.

He never loved me. He never even tried.

My wolf's rage is a living thing now, pushing back against Henry's suppression with strength I didn't know we still possessed. She's done being crushed. Done being silenced. Done being the good little Luna who accepts crumbs and calls them love.

I need to get out of this attic. Out of this pack. Out of this toxic bond that's been slowly killing us both.

My eyes fall on a box of discarded items in the corner—old phones, broken tablets, things deemed too worthless to properly dispose of. With shaking hands, I dig through the pile until I find an ancient burner phone, the kind with actual buttons and a cracked screen.

Please work. Please, Moon Goddess, just this once.

The screen flickers to life, battery at 12%. I have minutes at best.

Alden James. My former mentor. The Lycan Lord who saw my talent when I was nobody, who believed in my art when my own father dismissed it. I haven't spoken to him in years—Henry made sure of that, slowly cutting me off from everyone who might remind me I was worth more than pack servitude.

My fingers fumble over the keys, muscle memory guiding me through his contact information. The phone rings once. Twice. Three times.

"Alden James speaking."

His voice—calm, cultured, genuinely kind—breaks something in me. I try to speak, but only a sob comes out.

"Hello? Who is this?"

"It's... it's Stella." My voice is barely a whisper, raw from fever and screaming and years of swallowing words I should have spoken. "Stella Wood. I... I need help."

The silence on the other end stretches for exactly three seconds. Then: "Stella. Moon Goddess. Where are you? What's happened?"

The words pour out in a broken rush—the stolen paintings, the fabricated photos, the attic prison, the receipts proving Henry's betrayal while I nearly died giving birth. Alden listens without interrupting, and I can hear the fury building in his controlled breathing.

"I'm getting you out," he says, his Lycan authority making it a vow rather than a promise. "Caleb's coming-of-age ceremony is in four days, correct?"

"Yes." How does he know that?

"The entire pack will be distracted. I'll have a Lycan escort waiting at your northern border, near the old pine grove. Can you get there?"

"I... yes. Yes, I can."

"Stella." His voice softens. "You should have called years ago. But we'll fix this. I promise you, we'll fix this."

The phone dies, battery finally giving out. But it doesn't matter.

Because my wolf is fully awake now, her silver eyes blazing with purpose.

And we're done being victims.