Refuse To Be One of His Thirty Luna Candidates

I was Alpha Damon’s Head Beta. For six years, I had been his partner in bed and his second-in-command.

When he announced our mating ceremony, the entire pack celebrated. My dream was finally within reach.

But then, outside his private trophy room, I heard him bragging about his “Luna trials.”

And just like that, I learned the truth.

I wasn’t his one and only. I was one of thirty candidates.

He’d spent a month with each of us, grading our bodies, our submission, our performance.

My score? Lower than an Omega’s. Lower than Lydia’s.

“Fucking Lydia was incredible,” he boasted. “I could barely pull myself away. Then I look at Elysia—so stiff, so in control—and I’m just… bored.”

Ice flooded my veins. My body went numb.

Six years of devotion. Countless nights tangled in his sheets. It all meant less than a cheap thrill and a wolf who knew how to kneel.

My heartbreak hardened into ice. I sent a message to an Alpha who had wanted me long ago.

“Adrian, you once said your offer to mate was a standing one. Does it still stand? Damon and I are over now.”

Before my mating ceremony, I found out my Alpha Damon had thirty Luna candidates. He spent a month with each one, scoring them. Only the highest scorer would become his Luna.

And me? His Head Beta, his lover of six years, the woman who gave him everything?

I lost to a soft, submissive Omega.

The door to my office slammed open.

“Elysia!” A sharp voice cut through the silence.

I looked up. The Omega, Lydia, strutted in on her high heels.

Her cloying perfume was mixed with another scent I knew all too well.

Damon’s. The smell of sex.

“You didn’t knock,” I said coldly.

She ignored me, walking straight to my desk and slamming a small box down.

“The Alpha asked me to bring this to you.” Her voice was poisonously sweet, dripping with smug satisfaction. “He said you’ve been working so hard lately.”

I stared at the box, not moving.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Lydia leaned forward, letting her scent—a mix of her and Damon—wash over me. “It’s a very pretty necklace. Of course, not as expensive as the diamond one he gave me last night.”

My fingers drummed on the desk.

“Last night?” I kept my voice neutral, but the word was a razor blade on my tongue.

“That’s right.” Her smile widened. “We spent another wonderful night together. Elysia, he said he wanted to fuck me to death.”

Her words were a blade, carving vile images into my mind. I wanted to scream, to claw the pictures from my head.

But I couldn’t.

Damon and I met at the shifter academy.

His Alpha presence was still raw then, untamed. During a training session, I suddenly felt it—the bond between us.

Fated Mates.

As I watched him, as I grew closer to him, we fell in love.

I followed him back to his