Everyone knows that I'm not his Luna, except for me

This was the ninety-ninth time I’d slept with Alexander—at least, that’s what my phone’s little habit tracker was telling me. He was Alexander of the Ember Hide Pack, an Alpha. I was Barbara, daughter of the Alpha of Thorn Fang Pack. We grew up running through the same mountains, being scolded on the same training grounds, and, later on, naturally… sleeping in the same bed. Morning light was leaking through the heavy curtains. My waist felt like it had been taken apart and reassembled. My neck and collarbone felt burned; I was pretty sure every patch of heat was a hickey he’d left on me last night. My head was still dizzy, but the man beside me was already awake. His arm was draped over my waist as he instinctively hauled me back. “Don’t move.” He dragged me against him. My nose bumped into his chest, and I inhaled that scent I knew so well. Thick, clean pine—an Alpha’s scent, the smell I’d willingly drowned in for years. Then he said, very casually, “Come back to the territory with me tomorrow.” In an instant, I was wide awake. My heart lurched hard in my chest. I lifted my head to look at him. “Back to Ember Hide? You mean… to visit your parents?” I could hear my own voice tremble as I asked. In our world, when an Alpha was willing to bring someone home and show up in front of their parents and the whole pack, it meant something. At the very least, it meant they were acknowledging the relationship. Acknowledging that this person was the Alpha’s future mate. I looked at him, and in the span of a single second my mind had already started racing ahead. Should I wear something more formal? Would his parents think I was too forward? Would they look at me differently because I was the Omega who grew up “fighting with their son”? Before I could think any further, Alexander cut me off. He seemed amused, one brow lifting as he gave me a sideways look. “Barbara, what exactly are you imagining?” I froze. “I… I was thinking…” “Tomorrow’s a multi-pack meeting,” he said lazily. “A few packs are sitting down to talk the alliance. They’re bringing a Luna candidate. I need someone who knows me and knows how to handle the scene. You’re a good fit.” “A Luna candidate?” My brain felt like being exploded. “You mean… your future Luna?” Alexander didn’t answer, but I could see the answer clearly in his eyes. He got off the bed and walked toward the balcony, bare-chested. “The alliance needs a decent Luna. That’s normal, isn’t it?” I watched his back and suddenly felt like I’d been pushed out of a little world I thought belonged to the two of us. “What about me, then?” I asked. He paused, then turned and finally set eyes on me, as if he were really taking a serious look at me. “You?” He hooked one corner of his mouth. “Barbara, you don’t know what you are?” He started counting on his fingers. “You’re my training partner. My drinking buddy. The person I call when it’s the middle of the night and I’ve got no one to talk to…” His gaze dropped, settling on my mouth. “And yeah—we’re pretty match in bed.” “So, in your eyes, that’s all we are?” Alexander frowned, genuinely puzzled by my reaction. “What else would we be? You don’t truly think we’re in a relationship, do you?” His tone wasn’t harsh, but it was painfully sincere—the kind of unfiltered honesty that hurt worse than any lie. My throat tightened. My breath caught painfully in my chest. Any words I might have tried to argue with sounded ridiculous. We’d grown up together. We’d shifted for the first time together. We’d survived that first full-moon night when the wolf inside tried to tear us apart. When we were eighteen, under the influence of alcohol and hormones, he pinned me to the couch, and kissed me until I was gasping for air. He woke up the next day acting like nothing had happened. But I quietly regarded that night as the dividing line of my life. After that, every time he lost control, every time he came back from a fight still smelling of blood and rage and showed up at my door—he would knock, and I never once turned him away. I thought those moments meant something. But in his mouth, all of that boiled down to one cold conclusion: we were just two people who slept together. I didn’t want to break down in front of him. “I’m going to shower,” I managed to say. The instant the bathroom door shut behind me, my body lost all its strength. I slid down against the door until I was sitting on the floor. Hot water pounded down on me. I stared at the marks on my skin—bite marks and hickeys, old and new overlapping. No one of them was a mark. No one truly claimed me. I don’t know how long I stayed in there. When I finally pressed down the last traces of redness around my eyes and walked back out, the room was quiet. Alexander was standing by the window, phone in hand, his voice low and smooth as he talked: “Keep tomorrow’s venue simple. Don’t make it too grand. She hates flashy scenes… Yeah, that’s right, Jessica from Moon Shade Pack.” My footsteps stopped. He went on, “Have a few pink dresses prepared for her. She’s always liked pink.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that name. Back when Alexander was still a hotheaded teenager who picked fights for fun, he’d sometimes mention a girl from the next territory over—an Omega from Moon Shade Pack, smart and gentle. He’d said she was like moonlight. I’d laughed at how cheesy he was, and he’d shoved me into a snowbank in embarrassment. Later, Jessica went abroad, and her name vanished from our daily lives. I thought that what would truly remain in his life were the things we had experienced together. But one sentence from him laid it all bare—he remembered her favorite color, the kind of scenes she hated. Every detail. Meanwhile, he’d never once asked what I liked. The call ended. Alexander grabbed his jacket. To him, this room, this bed, everything that had happened last night—none of it was worth a second thought. “Check out when you leave,” he said, tossing the room card onto the table. “I already paid.” He reached the door, then seemed to remember something and glanced back at me. “Oh, and Barbara?” I lifted my head. “Don’t look at me like that.” His words fell like the edge of a blade. “We grew up together. I’ve always seen you as a friend, a teammate. You know me better than anyone—so you know exactly what kind of person I am.” Then he went ahead and made the decision for me. “You’re smart. You won’t ever think what we have as a lifetime love story.” With that, he opened the door and walked out. The way he closed it was clean and decisive. His footsteps faded in the hallway. My ears rang in the sudden silence. Even the air in the hotel room felt like it had been sucked out. I went back to sit on the edge of the bed, bracing my hands on my thighs as a chill slowly sank into me. I don’t know how much time passed before I realized I was laughing. The room blurred before my eyes.