Rejected by My Mate, So I Became the Enemy Alpha’s Luna

I balanced on the last step outside his room, the paper box sweating in my hands. The hallway of the alpha house was quiet, all the noise of the pack pushed far away under the humming anticipation of the coming night. Tomorrow the full moon would rise, and I’d stand beside Liam Hawke in front of our entire pack and let the Moon burn our bond fully awake. Tonight was just supposed to be ours. “Stop shaking,” I muttered at myself. The stupid little cake inside the box slid, smearing frosting on the cardboard. “He already knows you’re a disaster in the kitchen.” My wolf paced just beneath my skin, excited and restless. She had been humming all week—at the scent of Liam’s skin, at the way his eyes lingered when we passed each other in the training yard, at his promise this afternoon: Come by later. I want you to myself before the Council gets their claws in us. So I’d baked. Badly. I’d written a letter I’d probably never have the courage to read out loud. I’d put on the soft blue sweater he once said brought out “the storm” in my eyes. Now I stood frozen outside his door, because the closer I was, the more… wrong it all felt. His scent was there, thick and familiar—cedar, smoke, the underlying bite of alpha power. But underneath it, curling like smoke under a door, was something else. Something sweeter. Softer. Not wolf. Human. I swallowed, fingers tightening on the box until the cardboard creaked. Hannah’s perfume. The thought came with a trickle of annoyance, not yet fear. Jasmine and cheap vanilla body spray. My best friend was always trailing it through the house. Maybe she’d dropped by to tease him about tomorrow, to ask a thousand questions, to make an awkward joke and defuse his nerves. It wouldn’t be the first time she glued herself to my side and to everything that touched me. The annoyance sharpened. My wolf pricked her ears, uneasy. I lifted my hand and knocked lightly. “Liam? It’s Aria.” No answer. Sounds, though. A muffled thump. A low, breathless laugh. The creak of bedsprings. Heat shot to my face, an embarrassed flush. Goddess, if he was changing, this was going to be mortifying. I shifted the box into one hand and curled my fingers around the handle. “Hey, I’m coming in,” I called, trying to sound teasing, normal. “If you’re naked, too bad for you.” I pushed the door open. The smell hit me first. Not just Liam’s scent, but his wolf, sharp with arousal. And under it, wound through it, human soap and jasmine and sweat and— Hannah. For a heartbeat my brain refused to make sense of the scene in front of me. Light from the bedside lamp threw everything into too-sharp relief. Sheets kicked down. Pale limbs tangled. Dark hair, his and hers, a blur against white pillows. My mate’s bare back flexed over a slender, familiar body. His hand braced on the mattress near her head. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. Hannah’s face turned toward me first. Her brown eyes went wide, mouth opening on a sound that didn’t come out. Liam followed her gaze, froze, every line of him locking. The box slid from my hands and hit the floor with a wet, dull thump. Frosting smeared out across the hardwood like something bleeding. For a suspended, impossible second, nobody breathed. “Aria,” Liam said, hoarse. My wolf tore at my insides, a soundless, keening howl. The mate bond that had always felt like a warm, steady thread between us went white-hot, then icy, then… wrong. Jagged. I stared at the mark on his neck, half-formed from our early bond, then at the place where his mouth had just been—pressed to Hannah’s throat, exactly where my mark should have been. “Aria, I—” Hannah’s voice cracked. She yanked the sheet up, dragging it over bare skin, cheeks blazing. “Oh my God, I didn’t know you were— I thought you were—” My ears rang. Maybe she was still talking. Maybe Liam was. Words floated toward me, slow and distorted. “This isn’t—” “Aria, listen—” “It just… happened—” Just happened. On the night before our bond ceremony. In his bed. With my human best friend, who had no idea what it meant to smell like this—with my mate’s scent already sunk into her skin. “Get out,” I heard myself say. My voice didn’t sound like mine. It was scraped raw and too quiet, but it cut through their babble. Both of them flinched. “Aria,” Liam started again, pushing up on his hands, the sheet sliding low on his hips. “Please, just—” “Don’t.” The word snapped out, brittle and sharp. My hands were shaking, but I couldn’t feel them. I couldn’t feel my feet. Everything from the collarbones down was static and ice. “Don’t you dare say my name.” His eyes flashed, wolf-bright, tortured. “I need to explain. It’s not—” “It’s not what?” I took one step forward before my knee almost buckled, my wolf slamming against my ribs. The room swam. “Not you inside my best friend? Not your scent all over her? Not on tonight, of all nights?” Hannah made a small, wrecked sound. “Aria, I swear, I didn’t— I thought—” I turned my head slowly. Her eyes were full of tears, mascara streaking down her cheeks. She clutched the sheet to her chest like it could make any of this less naked. “You thought what?” My mouth moved before I could stop it. “That fated bonds are just a cute story? That I wouldn’t mind sharing?” Hannah’s lips trembled. “I didn’t know it was like that! He told me the Moon made a mistake.” The words punched the air out of my lungs. Behind my breastbone, something tore. Liam flinched again, this time like I’d hit him. “Aria, please—” I stepped back. The hallway behind me yawned like a dark mouth. My wolf was a hurricane now, howling mine, ours, broken, over and over, but my human lungs couldn’t seem to pull in enough air. I tasted salt. Maybe I was crying. I couldn’t feel that either. “Tomorrow,” I whispered, “you were supposed to stand in front of our pack and accept me as your Luna.” His face crumpled. “I—” “I guess the Moon really did make a mistake,” I said, and my voice finally broke on the last word. Then I turned and ran.