My Ex-Mate Rejected Me, Now His Enemy Wants Me

Trouble In Paradise

GREENWOOD’S POV

"Repeat that," I said, my voice dangerously low. I didn't look up. I couldn't. If I met his eyes, I might rip the throat out of the very man I had trusted for a decade.

My Beta, Elias cleared his throat, the sound rasping in the quiet room. "The quarterly reports from the northern trade routes, Alpha. Our distribution of Aether-Bloom tonic has plummeted by another forty percent. The Silver-Crest Pack has canceled their annual contract. The Stone-Ridge and Iron-Claw Packs have followed suit. They are refusing our shipments, claiming the potency is no longer worth the premium price."

I slammed my fist onto the desk, the wood groaning under the force of the blow. "The price hasn't changed! We are using the same soil, the same harvest cycles, the same extraction vats!"

Aether-Bloom. It was the lifeblood of the Moonlit Pack’s economy—a medicinal tonic derived from rare lunar flora that accelerated healing in wolves and suppressed the silver-rot that plagued the elder generation. For decades, we held the monopoly. We were the providers. We were the ones who held the keys to the health of the entire territory.

"The process is the same, Alpha," Elias said, his voice hesitant. "But the results are not. The buyers say the tonic is cloudy. It lacks the... the refinement it used to have. They say it tastes of earth and stagnant water rather than the pure lunar essence they’ve come to expect."

"And so? The solution is very simple, just fix the damn extraction!" I roared, finally looking up.

Elias flinched. "We’ve tried. We’ve had the best chemists and herbalists in the Pack look at the vats. But they can’t replicate the balance. They say the timing is off—the precise moment of the moon’s peak when the petals must be crushed. It’s a delicate art, Alpha. One that... well, one that the previous Luna used to oversee personally."

The name hit the room like a physical weight.

It had been five years… five f*****g years since I had uttered anything about that woman, and five years since I had allowed anyone else to speak of her in my presence. Mentioning the banished was a crime in Moonlit, yet here it was, the ghost of the woman I had discarded, haunting my ledgers.

"That woman was just an ordinary Omega," I hissed, my teeth bared. "Are you telling me that a hundred trained workers cannot do what one weak girl did in her spare time?"

“But she didn't just oversee it, Alpha," Elias whispered, his eyes casting down to the floor. "She had a touch for it. She knew the flowers. People loved her blend. They associated the Moonlit Pack's prosperity with the quality of her work. Since she left... the soul seems to have gone out of the product."

I stood up, pacing the length of the study. "There are other markets. We will find other buyers who aren't so fastidious about the 'soul' of a medicinal tonic."

"There’s more, sir," Elias said, and I stopped mid-stride. The tone of his voice made the hair on my neck stand up. "The reason the other Packs are canceling is not just the drop in our quality. It’s because a new supplier has entered the market. One with a product that is purer, stronger, and half the price of ours."

"Who?" I demanded.

Elias swallowed hard. "The Blood-Wing Pack."

The world went still. I felt the air leave my lungs as if I had been punched. This was another problem that refused to leave my life. He was always there, waiting to destroy me.

For years we’ve been sworn enemies for a reason I know not of yet.

In front of my Pack, I acted like I wasn’t afraid of that mad man but the things I had heard of him were enough to make me increase my warriors.

"That savage doesn't know anything about lunar botany. So how is this possible? His land is a graveyard of basalt and shadow. Nothing grows there, let alone Aether-Bloom."

"They aren't using our flowers, sir," Elias explained. "Every Pack from here to the coast is patronizing them. Malakai is no longer just a threat at the border, Alpha. He is a threat to our very survival. He is bankrupting us."

The fury that erupted in me was absolute. It was a blinding, white-hot tide that erased reason. I grabbed the heavy crystal decanter from the side table and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the stone fireplace, expensive amber liquid spraying the hearth like blood.

"Find someone!" I screamed, turning on Elias. "I don't care if you have to kidnap the best herbalists in the southern territories! Find me a way to fix the tonic! I will not be humiliated by a man who eats his meat raw and lives in a cave! Go! Now!"

Elias didn't wait for a second command. He scrambled out of the room, doors clicking shut behind him.

I stood in the center of the wreckage, my chest heaving, my claws extended and digging into the palms of my hands. The room felt too small.

I reached out and swept the remaining items off my desk—the inkwell, the maps, the useless ledgers—sending them crashing to the floor in a chaotic heap. I wanted to burn it all. I wanted to ride to the Blood-Wing border and tear the heart out of Malakai myself.

The door clicked open again.

"I told you to leave me!" I bellowed, not turning around.

"Is that any way to speak to your Luna, Greenwood?"

The voice was like silk sliding over skin—huskier than it used to be, practiced in its cadence. I felt the tension in my shoulders shift, though the anger didn't leave me. I turned slowly to see Monica standing by the door.

She was wearing a silk robe of deep crimson, the fabric clinging to every curve of her body. She didn't look bothered by the broken glass or the scattered papers. She walked into the room with a feline grace, a slow, knowing smile playing on her lips.

"You're making a mess, darling," she purred, stopping a few feet away.