My Mate Rejected Me to Make Her His Luna

The fluorescent lights of The Rusty Fang still burned behind my eyelids as I stumbled up the three warped wooden steps to our trailer. Fourteen hours. Fourteen hours of forcing smiles at rogue wolves who could barely afford coffee, let alone tips. My feet screamed in protest with every step, the cheap diner shoes having given up any pretense of support around hour nine.

I fumbled with the keys, my fingers stiff and clumsy. The lock finally gave way with its usual grinding protest, and I pushed inside, immediately hit by the stale air that always seemed to cling to the walls no matter how many windows I opened.

Cairo wasn't home.

I should have felt relief. Instead, a hollow ache settled in my chest as I dropped my purse on the sagging couch and kicked off those torture devices masquerading as shoes. The silence pressed against my ears, broken only by the hum of our ancient refrigerator and the distant sound of someone's television through the thin walls.

I was halfway to the bathroom, already fantasizing about the lukewarm shower our broken water heater would provide, when something white on the kitchen counter caught my eye.

A receipt.

I don't know why I picked it up. Maybe because it was folded in half, like someone had meant to hide it but forgot. Maybe because the paper quality was too nice for anything we normally bought. My fingers unfolded it slowly, and the words swam before my exhausted eyes.

Luxe & Legacy Fine Jewelry.

My heart stuttered.

One 14k Gold Rope Anklet with Heart Charm. $847.99.

The numbers blurred. I blinked hard, trying to make them change, trying to make them make sense. Eight hundred and forty-seven dollars. That was the money I'd been saving for three months. The money I'd earned by taking double shifts, by skipping meals, by selling my grandmother's quilting patterns to other seamstresses. The money for winter heating oil because last February we'd nearly frozen when the temperature dropped to single digits.

My hands started shaking.

The trailer door banged open behind me.

I spun around, the receipt crumpling in my fist. Cairo stood in the doorway, backlit by the dying sun, and for a moment he looked like the Alpha heir I'd agreed to mate three years ago—tall, broad-shouldered, commanding. Then he stepped inside and the illusion shattered. His shirt was wrinkled, his hair disheveled, and the scent hit me like a physical blow.

Expensive cologne. The kind that came in heavy glass bottles from department stores we couldn't afford. And underneath it, woven through it like poison through veins, the unmistakable floral scent of another she-wolf.

Jasmine and vanilla.

"You're home early," he said, his voice carrying that casual dismissiveness that had become his default tone with me.

"Early?" The word came out sharper than I intended. "Cairo, it's almost nine. I left for work at six this morning."

His eyes flicked to the receipt in my hand. Something shifted in his expression—not