After Abandoning My Fated Alpha, I Built My Own Wolf Pack and Ruled

Chapter 1 He Was Comforting Another Woman

I led the Frostblade company through thirty-seven days of fighting in the North before we finally drove the hunters out of Shadowpine territory. I came back with slivers of silver still buried behind my shoulder, the wound worked raw where my uniform had rubbed it, and every step I took sent the burn crawling up the bone.

Before we shipped out, Kyle had fastened the Alpha crest onto my arm himself and told me he'd be waiting for me at the gate.

But the transport trucks rolled in one after another, the crowd that had come to meet us thinned out and left, and I never saw him.

Mara threw her arms around me, careful of the wound behind my shoulder. "You're back. That's what matters. Something must have come up for Kyle. He was asking last night when you'd get in."

That was what I told myself too.

He was the Alpha of Shadowpine. There would always be things more important than meeting me. And we were fated mates. In another two weeks, he'd complete the marking at the full-moon ceremony.

Fourteen years between us. It wasn't going to come undone over one missed welcome.

Once the wounded were settled, I went to the infirmary. The medic on duty told me Kyle was in the private room in the back. I pushed the half-open door, and his scent reached me first.

Then I saw the other woman.

Lily was wrapped in Kyle's coat, folded up small against his chest. He had one hand on the back of her neck, and the room was thick with the Alpha pheromones he was putting out.

A wolf doesn't just scent-soothe someone of the opposite s*x.

That kind of soothing makes the other person drop every last guard. It also makes anyone watching think the two of them are already mated.

Lily must have had another nightmare. A small shudder went through her. Kyle held her tighter and bent to kiss her forehead.

Back when the silver kept me up whole nights, he used to hold me like that too. He'd sit at the edge of the bed and tell me, over and over, that whatever happened, he wasn't going anywhere.

Now he was holding another woman.

He saw me and went still, but he didn't let go of Lily right away. "Sarah. You're back."

"You weren't there to meet me."

"Lily had an episode just now. Almost hurt herself. I couldn't leave."

Lily was the one survivor of a raid Kyle never should have ordered. She'd watched her family die at the hands of wolves, and she'd been terrified of the wolf form ever since. Kyle decided he owed her a life, brought her back to Shadowpine, and took care of her. I never once objected.

But taking care of someone doesn't call for holding her and kissing her, and it sure doesn't call for an Alpha's pheromones.

I looked at the hand he still had on the back of her neck. "A doctor couldn't calm her down?"

"She's afraid of other wolves." Kyle's brows drew together, and there was an edge in it now. "She has nightmares. She can't sleep without my scent."

"You know what this looks like."

Lily scrambled upright out of his arms, reaching to pull the coat off. "I'm sorry. I didn't know Sarah was coming back today. Did I make you miss meeting her?"

Kyle put his hand over hers. "It's not your fault."

Only then did he look at me.

"You're my fated Luna. Nobody can take your place. Lily just needs me more than you do."

I'd asked why he was kissing another woman.

What he answered was that the title of Luna still belonged to me.

As if a title was what I cared about.

He was my fated mate, and he was taking the closeness that should have been ours and handing it to someone else, a piece at a time.

Lily caught his sleeve again and said, in a small voice, that she was scared. Kyle bent to soothe her immediately. He didn't even notice I'd already turned to go.

It was dark by the time I got back to the Frostblade camp.

Orion was going over the casualty list. He saw me come in and slid a cup of coffee to the edge of the table. "Looked all over the infirmary for you. Figured the silver had finally gotten into your head and you'd lost your own commander."

I took a sip. It was bitter enough to go numb at the root of my tongue.

"How much coffee did you put in this?"

"Enough to keep you standing."

Orion caught the look on my face and didn't push it. He just stoked the fire higher. Seven years he'd followed me. He knew that when there was something I wouldn't say, asking twice got him nowhere.

After a while he tossed his own coat over the back of a chair. "It's cold at night. Take it when you go. You let that wound freeze open, Rina will chew you out before she stitches you back up."

At the door he looked back at me one more time.

"Commander. Welcome home."

I held that too-bitter coffee and couldn't have told you where home actually was.