I Took the Fall for the Alpha’s Mistress

Seven days of overtime through Thanksgiving. I was ready to kill someone. First day back at Silver Moon territory after the holiday, Luna Sophia came storming into the council hall in heeled boots, screaming at the top of her lungs. "I'm going to find that homewrecker!" "I'm going to find the shameless tramp who kept my mate away from the territory for seven days!" Every wolf in the middle of pack business froze. Some of them even pulled out their phones to record. In my previous life, a young she-wolf named Evelyn had stood in the crowd and pointed at me, timid as a church mouse. "During Thanksgiving break... it seems like Viola was the only one who stayed with Alpha Kane to handle border affairs..." I'd barely lifted my head, eyes swollen and bloodshot from lack of sleep, when a slap cracked across my face. Sophia grabbed my hair and screamed in front of the entire pack that I was a shameless fox who'd used pack business as an excuse to seduce the Alpha, that I'd hogged Kane to myself all through Thanksgiving. Kane didn't say a word in my defense. He even said, right there in front of everyone, cold as ice, that I was the one who'd been clinging to him. Then he personally stripped my badge and threw me out of the core territory. I lost my position and the pack I'd spent years protecting. The humiliation spread to every neighboring territory within days. Everyone was talking. Saying Viola from Silver Moon had no shame. That she'd gone after a mated Alpha. That she got what she deserved. Then Sophia, still furious, came after me in her car while I was leaving the territory. Ran me right into the snowbank by the frozen lake. When I opened my eyes again, I was right back at the moment Sophia burst into the council hall. She hadn't even opened her mouth yet. I slammed my hands on the table and shot to my feet. "Sis, you're looking for the cheater?" "God damn it, so am I! I wanna know which she-wolf has a death wish big enough to steal the Alpha!" Chapter 1 Sophia clearly wasn't expecting me to steal her lines. She blinked, then her face went dark fast. "I knew it! Kane's got someone in the pack!" She was tall, strong, and famously fierce. If she actually swung, one slap could send a grown wolf stumbling. "Told me he had pack business over Thanksgiving, turns out he was out there messing around behind my back!" "Which one of you is it? Step up! I swear I will rearrange your face today!" Every wolf in the hall gave up all pretense of working. Phones lit up one after another. Some stood in the back watching the show. Some were already sending messages to other territories. Every eye in the room was on Sophia. And Evelyn was standing right in the middle of the crowd. Silver warrior uniform, hands clasped in front of her, biting her lip, looking like she had something to say but couldn't quite get it out. After a moment, she spoke. Softly. "During Thanksgiving..." "It seems like Viola was the only one who stayed with Alpha Kane to handle border affairs." The words hit the floor. The entire atmosphere shifted. "Yeah, now that she mentions it, it was Viola." "She's been running the northern alliance stuff all week." "Alpha Kane kept saying he was on territory handling business." "So it was her all along..." The whispers were like needles, thin and sharp, piercing into my ears one by one. In my last life, those same whispers had nailed me to the wall as a shameless woman. This time, I just found it funny. Sophia narrowed her eyes and looked me up and down. She slowly raised her hand. It hovered in the air, already loaded. "Viola? It was you." "Running around all eager to help me find the homewrecker. Guilty conscience much? Takes one to catch one, huh?" I pointed at my own nose. "Me? Guilty?" "Sis, open your eyes and look at me!" I jabbed a finger at the dark circles under my eyes, so deep they'd practically turned black, then grabbed a fistful of my wrecked, tangled hair. "Look at the state of me!" "Seven days of Thanksgiving! I worked every single one! I didn't even have time to sleep!" I yanked the cloth off the nearest desk. Underneath was a pile of over a dozen empty herbal energy tea cans. I slammed them on the table. "These are all mine! Seven days of all-nighters!" "Every day I was either guarding the border or negotiating alliances for the pack!" "The Iceplain wolves up north suddenly demanded a thirty percent increase on the herb exchange. I drove out in the middle of the night and talked them down myself!" "The western trade convoy got ambushed by a rogue pack. I led warriors on a chase that lasted till dawn to get their cargo back!" "The border patrol had a crisis on the day of the Moon Festival. I handled that solo too!" My voice kept rising. Seven days of rage finally detonated. "And what happened?" "Your Alpha said he'd handle pack business with me. So where the hell did he go?" "Whoever he was out there seeing, I have no clue!" "But I swear to God, I want to know even more than you do!" The entire hall went silent for two full seconds. A young wolf who'd been secretly filming couldn't hold it in. He muttered under his breath. "Holy crap..." Sophia was clearly thrown off. The hand she'd raised froze in midair. For the first time, she didn't bring it down. But I was only getting madder. "Sis, whatever leads you've got, bring them to me!" "I will personally help you drag that shameless homewrecker out into the open!" "Forget her!" "Once I find her, I'm hauling her in front of the Elder Council myself and putting her through the Judgment of the Moon!" Sophia stared at me. Her face cycled through several shades of white and green. She clearly hadn't expected me not only to hold my ground, but to turn the fire back on her. She gritted her teeth. Then she let out a cold laugh. "Fine." "Since you're so eager to know, let me show you the proof." She ripped open the leather satchel at her side. Pulled out a crumpled receipt. Sophia's voice cut through the hall like a blade. "Seven days of Thanksgiving." "Kane booked seven consecutive nights at the Moonshade Inn. The private Moonlight Suite." The last few words dropped, and the room exploded. The private Moonlight Suite. In the wolf world, that's basically a couples-only hideaway. Sophia's gaze swept across every young she-wolf in the room like a knife. "Which one of you is it? Step up right now!" "Don't make me go through you one by one!" Dead silence. That's when Evelyn suddenly slapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes, panicked, darted to me. Behind them, a flicker of guilt, gone in an instant. Then, like something had just occurred to her, she spoke carefully. "Viola..." "During Thanksgiving, weren't you posting on your wolf spirit feed about being stuck handling pack business near the territory?" "I remember... I think... it was this same Moonshade Inn?" Chapter 2 The whole hall erupted. "Wait, for real?" "Same hotel?" "No wonder she was the only one on duty all seven days." "Never would've guessed. Selena actually went and..." More and more phones pointed at me. Isabella came toward me step by step, heeled boots striking the stone floor, each one heavier than the last. "Same hotel?" "What a coincidence." I looked at the veins popping on the back of her hand. In my last life, that slap had left my ears ringing for days. I could almost feel the burn again. But this time, I didn't back down. "If you can't explain yourself today, don't even think about walking out of here!" I looked down at the receipt in her hand. The next second, I laughed. Not because anything was funny. Because I was so angry it came out as a laugh. "A luxury private suite?" "Three thousand a night?" I snatched the receipt and jabbed my finger at the price, my voice shaking with fury. "I wish I could afford three thousand!" "You think I'm worth that?" "The stipend your husband pays me for pack work, does that even cover two nights?" "I was in a two-hundred-a-night basic single room!" "And to this day, pack finance still hasn't reimbursed me!" I pulled out my phone and projected my booking confirmation onto the main screen. Room number, price, check-in time. Every detail, crystal clear. Everyone could see it. The murmuring stopped cold. Isabella frowned. But Elena immediately went red-eyed, voice trembling. "A regular room doesn't mean you can't go to the luxury suite..." "Nobody said you have to stay in the room you booked." I stared at her. Then I smiled. "You're right." "Nobody said you have to stay in the room you booked." "And most nights, I wasn't actually sleeping in my regular room." The crowd stirred again. "Oh my God, is she actually admitting it?" "Never seen someone this brazen." "Wait, does that mean she really..." I was so mad I almost choked laughing. "Because I spent every night past midnight in the office working on proposals!" "Seven days of Thanksgiving. I booked seven nights. The total amount of actual sleep I got might not even add up to ten hours!" "Pull the Moonshade Inn security footage right now!" "Let everyone see whether I was sleeping around or killing myself for this pack!" By the time I finished, my eyes were burning red. In my last life, nobody wanted to see any of this. All they wanted was to watch me get slapped. Watch the Alpha throw me out personally. Watch the so-called homewrecker get publicly humiliated. This time, I was going to make every last one of them see the truth. Whether I was out there cheating or being worked to death. I spun around and lunged straight at Isabella. I grabbed on to her legs and wailed like the world was ending. "SIS!" Isabella went completely rigid. "What are you doing?!" "You spent Thanksgiving as a grass widow, and I spent Thanksgiving as a slave!" "Your husband wouldn't come home, and my Alpha wouldn't do his job!" "How are we both this unlucky?!" "My overtime pay hasn't been issued, my hotel costs haven't been reimbursed, my proposal got sent back after eight revisions!" "I pulled seven all-nighters in a row, and at the end of it all I get slapped with a homewrecker label!" "That goddamn other woman!" "Right now I could actually kill her!" Isabella froze solid. The hand that had knocked my ears ringing in my last life trembled once, then, incredibly, reached down like it was trying to help me up. "You... just get up first..." "Let's talk about this like normal people..." Elena's face shifted. She jumped in fast. "But Selena..." "You and Alpha Damian were on comms late at night all the time. That can't all be work, right?" That only gave me more to say. I let go of Isabella and got to my feet. "Sure. Let's do this." I opened my phone and blasted the audio through the whole hall. "The whole pack can listen in." "My late-night passion sessions with Alpha Damian." The next second, the recording played. Damian's exhausted, irritated voice filled the entire room. "Selena! It's three in the morning! Why isn't the proposal on my desk yet?" "Selena, why isn't this done? The client says it's not high-end enough!" "Make the title bigger!" "Don't ask me how big! Big enough that you can see it from across the room!" "Stay on top of the supplier! I need them there by nine tomorrow morning, no excuses!" "You young wolves need to stop thinking about rest. Building this territory is what matters!" His entitled, matter-of-fact voice echoed through the hall. I listened to the same sounds that had tortured me through countless nights, and my eyes slowly burned hot. "Listen to this!" "I just want to ask one thing!" "What kind of mistress is up at three a.m. with her Alpha arguing about how big a proposal title should be?" "Even if I was the other woman, at least I'd be getting something out of it, right?" "So what did I get?" "A mountain of work!" "And a big fat label I didn't earn!" Someone in the crowd finally cracked. "Pffft..." A laugh escaped. Then a few more wolves ducked their heads, shoulders shaking. The way they looked at me shifted from suspicion to pure sympathy. Elena was biting her lip so hard it might bleed. Her face was getting uglier by the second. I turned and looked straight at her. "But actually, you." "How do you know exactly how long Damian and I were on comms over Thanksgiving?" Elena's face went white. Right then. DING. The elevator doors opened. Damian was here. Chapter 3 Damian walked in wearing a sharp black suit, silver-grey hair slicked back without a strand out of place. But when he saw Isabella standing in the middle of the hall looking ready to kill, and dozens of phones pointed directly at him, the composure drained right off his face. Everyone in the pack knew. Damian held his Alpha position largely because of Isabella's family backing. Push Isabella too far, and one word from her could knock him off that throne. Damian hurried over, his spine instinctively bending a few degrees. "Sweetheart, what are you doing here?" "You could've given me a heads-up." "It's freezing outside, and you know your health isn't..." SLAP. Isabella smacked the receipt against his chest. "You tell me." Damian glanced down at the receipt. His expression flickered for just a second. But the smile came right back. "Babe, it's a misunderstanding. A huge misunderstanding." "There are pack members everywhere. Let's talk about this at home, yeah?" "Home?" Isabella's eyes went wide. "You spent seven nights of Thanksgiving in a three-thousand-coin luxury suite, and you didn't know how to come home?" The smile on Damian's face died. Then he slowly turned his head and looked at me. That look. I knew it too well. In my last life, he'd looked at me the exact same way. No guilt. No shame. Just cold, quiet calculation. Like he was looking at a chess piece he could sacrifice whenever it suited him. He let out a deep sigh. "Selena." "Some things did happen between us that shouldn't have." "But I've changed. I cut things off with you a long time ago." "You can't just cause a scene like this because I turned you down." "And you definitely can't give my mate the wrong idea." The entire hall went dead quiet. My fingertips trembled. Those three sentences. In my last life, those exact three sentences destroyed me. Elena stood in the crowd, blinked her eyes, and spoke in a deliberately pained voice. "Selena..." "I really had no idea you and the Alpha were..." "Doing something wrong isn't the scary part." "The scary part is not having the guts to own up to it." Damian glanced at me and beckoned with his hand. "Come on." "Let's go to the conference room and sort this out." Isabella's brow knotted tight. "Conference room? For what?" "Right here. Say it right here!" I looked up at her, then blinked twice. Fast. Isabella paused. Something seemed to click. She didn't stop him. The conference room door closed. The next second, every trace of warmth vanished from Damian's face. He sat down in the chair, expression terrifyingly calm. "Selena." "I know you're a hard worker. Dependable." "Admit it now, and I can still leave you a way out." I tilted my head and tapped my phone twice with one finger. "Alpha Damian, I think the seven all-nighters fried my brain." "I'm a little confused. What exactly do you want me to admit?" Damian smiled. "Simple." "When we walk out of here, you cry and apologize to my wife." "Tell her you've been chasing me this whole time." "The hotel was your idea. The luxury suite was your booking. Even the romantic extras were things you brought." "Say you were obsessed with me, got rejected over and over, and finally snapped and caused today's scene out of spite." I laughed. Cold. "So I just take all the blame?" Damian reached over, actually tried to touch the back of my hand. "Think of it as taking a hit for me. I'll remember the favor." I yanked my hand away. He just gave a helpless little smile. "Selena." "Reputation doesn't really matter for a she-wolf with no background like you." "But your parents are still out in the countryside, right?" My fingers clenched tight. "What are you saying?" Damian spread his hands. "Daughter's out here being the other woman. You think they'll ever be able to hold their heads up around the pack again?" "And if you don't play along..." He paused, a meaningful smile curling at his lips. "I can't guarantee what happens next." My head went white. Last life. After I died, my father stood outside the council hall and went grey overnight. My mother clutched my death certificate and cried until she passed out. They couldn't take the grief and the rumors. On the drive back, their minds were somewhere else. A truck ran a light and hit them head on. I died. And they didn't make it either. I clenched my jaw. "And if I don't go along with it?" Damian slowly straightened up. The smile on his face grew wider. "Then don't. Won't matter." "You were just out there screaming about finding the other woman." "But can you actually find her? You don't even know who she is." He stared straight into my eyes, one word at a time. "So if I say it's you, what are you gonna do about it?" In that moment. Seven days of Thanksgiving rage. A lifetime of being destroyed. My parents dying in blood. And the bone-deep disgust I felt for this man across two lifetimes. All of it slammed together inside my skull at once. Two lives of broken pieces finally crashed into each other. And I understood. Everything. Every last thing. It all made sense now. I shot to my feet. "Damian, I'm done!" Damian was still smiling. "Selena, don't push your luck." I spun around, ripped the conference room door open. Dozens of pack members were staring right at me. Every phone still pointing. I charged through the hall, past every camera, straight at Isabella. Then I screamed. "SIS!" "I know who the other woman is!"