My Mate Humiliated Me Until the Lycan Prince Claimed Me

The banquet started at seven, and by seven-fifteen, Beta Ryker blocked my path to the head table.

"Averie," Ryker said, keeping his voice low. His eyes darted away from mine, uncomfortable. "Alpha’s orders. Your seat is over there tonight."

He pointed toward table fourteen, crammed against the swinging doors of the kitchen where the Omegas ate.

I looked past his shoulder. At the center of the dais, Colt sat tall in his tailored black suit. Curled beside him in the Luna’s high-backed mahogany chair was Poppy Jensen. She wore silk in deep crimson—a color reserved by pack tradition for the reigning Luna. When she caught me staring, she didn’t flinch. She just rested her fingers lightly on Colt’s forearm, tilting her head with a soft, practiced pout.

Even from twenty feet away, the scent of them together turned my stomach. Colt’s crisp cedar scent was completely choked out by Poppy’s cheap, syrupy peach perfume. It was all over him. On his lapels, his neck, his hands.

Beneath my ribs, something shifted. For three years, my dormant wolf had been silent, treated like a shameful birth defect by the entire pack. But right then, a wounded, jagged tremor tore through my chest.

I ignored Ryker’s outstretched arm and walked straight toward the dais.

Whispers rippled through the grand hall. Forks clinked against china as wolves turned to watch. I stopped two paces in front of Colt.

"Colt," I said, keeping my tone even and clear. "We need to talk about Saturday's ceremony. Privately."

Colt didn’t put down his whiskey. His gray eyes swept over my silver dress, cold and dismissive, as if looking at dirt on his shoe.

"There's nothing to discuss, Averie," he said.

"Our mate vows are in three days," I said, refusing to drop my gaze. "You put me at the kitchen table. And she’s sitting in my chair."

Poppy let out a tiny, frightened gasp and shrank back against Colt’s shoulder. "Colt, please... I can move. I don’t want to cause trouble for you."

"Stay right where you are, Poppy," Colt snapped. Then he turned on me, his jaw tightening into iron. "You embarrass me every time you open your mouth."

Before I could answer, the air in the hall turned instantly heavy.

*“Kneel.”*

His Alpha tone hit me like a solid wall of lead. The power crashed over my spine with brute force, violently short-circuiting my muscles. My knees slammed hard against the polished stone floor. A sharp crack of pain shot up into my hips, knocking the breath clean out of my lungs.

The entire banquet hall fell dead silent.

Colt leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, looking down at me on the floor. "A wolfless she-wolf should know her place. You haven't earned the right to stand before me, let alone question who sits at my side."

Poppy pressed her lips together, hiding a small, triumphant smirk behind her napkin.

The cold stone bit into my bare knees. The physical sting lasted two seconds; the numbness that replaced it ran bone-deep. But instead of crying, instead of shrinking into the floor, the creature buried inside my chest didn't whimper.

It snarled.

A low, vicious growl vibrated in the hollow of my throat. It was the first sound my wolf had ever made.

I broke his command. Inch by inch, forcing my muscles through the lingering weight of his Alpha aura, I stood back up. I didn’t brush off my skirt. I didn't say another word. I held Colt's startled gaze for two seconds, turned on my heel, and walked out into the corridor.

Outside the double doors, the draft was freezing. I made it ten steps toward the side exit when the heavy mahogany door to the council anteroom clicked open behind me.

"Colt, you went too far in there," Ryker’s voice cut through the quiet hallway. "The elders are already whispering. She's your fated mate."

I froze in the shadow of an archway, stepping behind the heavy velvet curtain.

"She’s dead weight, Ryker," Colt answered casually. I heard the flick of his lighter. "She has no wolf. She brings zero power to Ironclaw. Saturday at the altar, I’m speaking the formal rejection before the whole council. Then I'm marking Poppy."

Ryker went completely still. "A public rejection? That kind of shock can kill an unawakened wolf."

"Then she dies," Colt said without a beat of hesitation. "I need a Luna who makes me stronger, not a stray I rescued out of pity."

Their footsteps faded down the hall toward the terrace.

My hands were steady when I reached my quarters. I didn't pack clothes. I didn't cry.

I walked straight to my desk, unlocked the bottom drawer, and pulled out my old leather-bound journal. I flipped to the faded sketch I’d drawn five years ago in the Colorado infirmary—the massive, silver-tipped black beast that had thrown itself over my bleeding body in the snow, taking the rogue's killing blow meant for my throat.

I stared at the drawing. The broad skull. The massive chest. The pure silver streaks along the flank.

Colt’s wolf was lean and reddish-brown. It had never matched. Not once.

A cold clarity settled over me, sharp and dangerous.

I closed the journal, picked up my phone, and opened a blank text to a private number I’d memorized months ago.

Cassian Stone.

The reclusive Lycan Prince. Colt’s older brother, who lived in isolation on Silverpine territory, confined to a wheelchair since that exact same Colorado attack five years ago.

My fingers flew across the screen:

*Colt plans to reject me at the altar on Saturday. Take my mating vow before he can speak. I give you the political claim of a true Luna bloodline. You give me sanctuary. Do we have a deal?*

I hit send.

Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. The three dots appeared in the bubble, vanished, and appeared again.

My phone vibrated once.

A single word lit up the screen:

*Agreed.*