90 Days to Run - Tricking the Alpha

5. Waste It On Me

The bond pulled from the direction of the packhouse. I tried to ignore it.

I crossed Cedar Moon land without slowing down. The warriors stood near the drive and pretended not to watch me pass. Word had already spread. Of course it had. This pack could ignore a healer being slapped, but it could not resist a scandal.

I kept walking.

The front doors opened under my hand before I had to knock. The omegas still recognized my scent. That almost made me laugh.

I moved through the foyer and into the east hall. I would get my books and leave before anyone decided I was breathing too loudly near their precious future Luna.

Then I heard Onyx in the sitting room.

I stopped beside the half-open door before I could make myself keep walking. Onyx leaned back on the sofa with one arm stretched across the cushion. His phone rested on the low table in front of him, propped against a stack of old medical journals I had left there weeks ago. Mona filled the screen.

Onyx smiled at her.

Not the hard smile he used when he had me cornered. Not the cold, cruel look from the bedroom. A real one. Almost boyish in a way I had never earned from him in seven years. “Did you eat?”

Mona whimpered. “A little. Joanna sent soup, but it was not like yours.”

Onyx leaned closer to the phone. “I will have someone bring whatever you want.”

There it was. The man who could be gentle. He simply chose not to waste it on me.

Mona sighed. “Is Ember still angry?”

Onyx shifted on the sofa. “She will settle.”

“I hate causing trouble.” She sounded like a wounded animal.

Onyx huffed. “You did not cause this.”

I couldn't hold back the scoff. Who else had caused this?

He noticed me then.

“Get out.” He did not even sit up. His attention never left the screen.

I stepped into the room. “I came for my books.”

Onyx pointed to the hall. “Then take them and stop hovering. Make it quick.”

I looked at the journals beneath his phone. Mine. Marked with my notes, my diagrams, my handwriting. He had used them to prop Mona closer.

I crossed to the table and pulled the journals out from under the phone. It tipped sideways. Mona’s image slid across the screen before Onyx caught it.

“Careful. I am not in the mood to deal with you.”

I stacked the journals against my bag. “I always was.”

Mona did not even try to hide her disapproval. “Onyx, maybe she should not be near you while she is like this.”

He looked at me with disdain clearly meant for Mona to see. “Take the rest and leave.”

I did.

The old study still smelled like Mara. I gathered the Spiritwalker texts one by one. Binding trauma across a wolf’s mind. Anchoring a healer during memory descent. Emergency extraction from damaged spiritual realms.

I had risked my life with these books before Onyx ever knew my name.

Before Cedar Moon had polished me into a useful secret, I had moved from border camp to rogue den with nothing but my bag of herbs and these books. Wolves came to me when madness started chewing through them from the inside. Warriors who had survived torture. Children who watched packs burn. Rogues so close to losing themselves that their own families chained them to trees and prayed for sunrise.

I entered their minds through the Spiritwalker link. I repaired what I could and dragged myself back before their darkness became mine.

Most people called that gift a myth. Mara Voss called it a miracle.

Seven years ago, I nearly died inside a warrior’s fractured mind. His trauma had collapsed around me, turning memory into a maze. By the time I found the path out, my body had stopped responding on the clinic floor.

Mara pulled me back. Not with magic. With old Alpha will and hands that refused to let me go.

When I woke, she sat beside me and offered sanctuary.

“Marry my second grandson, Onyx. Let Cedar Moon protect you. Let this be your home.”

I had known it was a contract. I had said yes anyway. At the time, home had sounded worth the price.

I placed the last book in my bag and shut the cabinet. I made it halfway to the stairs before Joanna stepped from the corner like she had been waiting all morning. “Do you think you can turn this place into a joke?”

I did not stop. “I am leaving with my property.”

Joanna crossed the hall before I could step around her. Her palm cracked across my already-swollen cheek with enough force to send me into the wall.

Pain shot through my temple. My bag slid off my shoulder and hit the floor. Books scattered across the hardwood.

Joanna shoved her phone in front of me. “Look what you have done.”

The screen showed an anonymous post and blurred photos from the bar. ALPHA ONYX SEEN WITH BROTHER’S PREGNANT FIANCÉE. CEDAR MOON SCANDAL GROWS.

My marriage had existed in whispers for seven years. Now it had become useful gossip.

Joanna leaned over me. “You repay Mara’s kindness by humiliating this family?”

I picked up a fallen book. “Mona’s pregnancy did that before I opened my mouth.”

Onyx stepped into the hall. For one stupid second, some damaged part of me waited. Not for love. For him to say his mother had no right. For him to notice I had been hit twice in two days by women he protected.

He looked at Joanna. Then at me. Then he sighed. “Bring ice.”

An omega hurried away. They returned with a towel-wrapped pack seconds later. Onyx took it and held it out to me. I did not take it at first.

His eyes flashed. “Do not make another scene.”

I took the ice.

He turned back toward the sitting room. “I have a call.”

He left me in the hallway with his mother, my books, and the exact measure of what I meant to him.

My phone rang before Joanna could speak again. Mara’s name lit the screen.

I answered with the ice pressed to my cheek.

Mara breathed slowly on the other end. “Child, come see me.”

Joanna walked away without looking back. I watched her disappear down the hall while Onyx’s gentle voice carried from the sitting room.

I pressed the ice harder against my cheek to feel the sting. “I am on my way.”