The Broken Mate Bond: His Fatal Choice

Everyone said I was the luckiest Luna to marry the Alpha of the strongest Pack.

Even though our marriage was quiet, he always protected me from the pack elders' scrutiny.

When the rogue wolves attacked our borders, he stayed by my side for three sleepless nights.

Whenever someone challenged my authority, he swiftly silenced them and secured my position.

I thought my silent devotion had finally melted his frozen heart.

Nine weeks ago, I discovered I was pregnant with our first pup.

I prepared a lavish dinner to tell him the good news, dreaming of our perfect family.

Everything changed when Celeste, his childhood sweetheart, returned to the pack.

During our anniversary banquet, she suddenly collapsed at my feet, coughing up dark blood.

Before I could even call for help, he grabbed my throat and threw me to the icy floor.

I was moments away from telling him about the baby when he dragged me into the pack hospital.

Everyone in the pack watched in awe as the Alpha tore the hospital apart for her.

But lying on the cold operation table, I heard the conversation that shattered my soul.

"Alpha, her body is too frail," the doctor's voice trembled through the thin curtain. "A second blood draw will definitely kill the fetus!"

"Do you think I don't know that?" Adrian's voice was devoid of any warmth.

"But your wife has been begging... she's nine weeks pregnant!"

"Draw the blood."

***

"Adrian, I need to tell you something."

I practiced the words under my breath while the Southern Pack's third-anniversary banquet swelled around me. Fifty elders, ranking wolves, and allied delegates filled the council hall beneath chandeliers carved from antler and iron. Glasses chimed. A string quartet played near the eastern windows. Every few minutes someone stopped to congratulate me on three years as Luna.

I smiled when required and kept one hand over the velvet handbag at my hip.

Inside it rested the ultrasound photograph I had carried all day. Beside it sat the encrypted southern defense key Adrian had ordered me to keep after Celeste crossed the border.

Nine weeks.

The technician had circled the tiny shape and written one word beneath it: healthy.

My husband stood across the room near an ice sculpture of the southern wolf crest, nursing a scotch and speaking with two border captains. Adrian looked as he always did in public—controlled, immaculate, impossible to reach. Our marriage had begun as a political alliance after the woman he loved disappeared. For almost three years, the bond between us had been dutiful and cold.

Then, two months ago, on the winter solstice, something changed.

Adrian had come to my rooms after midnight after a border dispute. Whiskey became an argument, then one honest conversation. By dawn, the distance between us had vanished for a night.

He never mentioned it again.

I had spent the last week deciding whether this child could become the first thing in our marriage that belonged to both of us rather than to the council.

Tonight, I intended to find out.

I crossed the hall, but Elder Mercer intercepted me with a hand raised in greeting.

"Luna Elena. Your security revisions passed unanimously."

"Good. The western patrols were understaffed."

"Your husband is fortunate to have a mate who notices what his generals miss."

I almost laughed. Adrian noticed everything except me.

When Mercer moved on, I looked toward the ice sculpture again.

A blonde woman had joined Adrian.

My steps stopped.

Celeste.

She had returned to Southern territory that morning after five years away. The news had traveled through the estate before breakfast. No one had explained where she had been. No one needed to explain who she was.

Celeste had been Adrian's first love, the woman who once took a poisoned blade meant for him during a border raid. The pack still called her his savior. When she disappeared a year later, Adrian searched the southern woods for three days and came back with blood on his hands and her silver pendant in his pocket.

A month after that, the council arranged our marriage.

Now she stood close enough to touch his sleeve.

Adrian bent his head when she spoke. The guarded line of his mouth softened in a way I had never seen directed at me.

My fingers tightened around my handbag.

I could have turned around. I could have hidden the ultrasound photograph in my desk and pretended the pregnancy was merely another duty to be announced at the proper council meeting.

Instead, I walked toward him.

Celeste looked up first.

Her pale blue eyes moved over my black evening gown, the Luna crest at my collar, and finally my bare left hand. Adrian had never given me the family mating ring. The omission had once embarrassed me. Under Celeste's measuring stare, it felt deliberate.

"Elena," Adrian said.

Not mate. Not Luna. Just my name.

"I need a minute with you. In private."

His attention shifted past me toward Celeste. "Can it wait?"

The ultrasound image inside my bag felt absurdly fragile.

"No," I said. "It cannot."

Celeste smiled faintly. "I can give you two privacy. I was only thanking Adrian for allowing me back into the territory."

"You don't need to leave," Adrian told her at once.

The answer landed before I could stop it.

"Of course she doesn't."

Adrian's gaze sharpened. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I am asking my husband for five minutes at our own anniversary banquet."

A server passed between us carrying champagne. Celeste reached for a flute. Her hand trembled hard enough that the rim clicked against her ring.

"Are you all right?" Adrian asked.

"Just tired." She pressed two fingers to her temple. "Traveling took more out of me than I expected."

I watched her take one small sip.

For an instant, I smelled something bitter beneath the champagne. Metallic. Almost medicinal.

Before I could place it, Celeste lowered the glass.

Her face went white.

"Adrian..."

The flute slipped from her fingers and shattered on the marble.

She grabbed her throat.

"Alpha Adrian!" someone shouted.

The crowd opened around us. Celeste staggered once, then twice. Black blood spilled over her lower lip.

She collapsed at the tips of my shoes.

"Celeste!"

Adrian hit the floor beside her. He rolled her onto her side as another convulsion ripped through her body. The banquet erupted into motion—chairs scraping, elders shouting for the healer, guards sealing the doors.

I crouched instinctively, but Adrian shoved my hand away.

"Don't touch her."

"I was checking her airway."

His eyes lifted to mine.

The expression in them stopped me cold.

Suspicion.

A guard bent near the broken champagne glass. "Alpha. There is something here."

He held up a small glass vial between two gloved fingers.

It had been lying beside my right shoe.

My handbag hung open against my hip.

I knew I had latched it ten minutes earlier.

"That isn't mine," I said.

Adrian rose so fast I barely saw him move.

His hand closed around my throat.

The force lifted me off my feet and drove me backward into the buffet table. Crystal flutes shattered behind me. A shard sliced the back of my hand, and warm blood soaked into my sleeve.

"What did you do to her?" Adrian demanded.

I clawed at his wrist. "Nothing. I came here to tell you—"

"Don't lie to me."

The guard passed him the vial.

Adrian brought it close enough to smell. Every trace of shock disappeared from his face.

"Silver Thorn."

The name silenced the hall.

Silver Thorn was not a sedative or a common poison. It attacked a wolf's blood, destroying the body's ability to heal until the organs failed one by one. Possession without council authorization carried a death sentence.

"Adrian," I rasped. "Look at my bag. Someone opened it. Check the cameras."

His grip tightened.

"You were standing over her. The vial was at your feet."

"Because she fell in front of me."

Behind him, Celeste gave a wet, broken cough.

Adrian released me so abruptly that I hit the floor on one knee.

He scooped Celeste into his arms.

"Seal Elena's rooms," he ordered the enforcers. "No one leaves the estate. Take her to the clinic under guard."

I pressed one bloody hand to my bruised throat and stared at the man carrying his first love toward the doors.

The ultrasound photograph remained hidden inside my open bag.

I had come to tell Adrian he was going to be a father.

Instead, before he learned our child existed, he had already decided I was a murderer.