My Alpha Fed Me Poison So His Mistress Could Bear His Heir

Serena Voss had not felt this kind of hope in years.

It was fragile, the way hope always was when it had been broken too many times, but it was there all the same a small, quiet warmth unfurling beneath her ribs, as if her wolf were finally daring to believe again.

The council house stood ahead of her, its dark stone walls washed in the pale light of dawn. The pack was only just waking. Patrol wolves crossed the paths in low murmurs, steam curling from their breaths in the cold mountain air. No one paid her much attention anymore not like before, when she had been the radiant Luna who walked beside the Alpha with pride.

Now she was the silent one. The patient one. The woman whose womb had failed too many times to be a miracle anymore.

Serena pressed her fingers against her stomach as she climbed the steps.

Please be real this time.

For weeks her body had felt different. Subtle things the way her appetite shifted, the way the Moon called to her at strange hours, the faint dizziness that bloomed whenever she shifted forms. Her wolf had been restless, humming beneath her skin, refusing to sleep.

Last night, when shed tasted the nightly tonic Rowan insisted she take, her wolf had recoiled.

She hadnt said anything then.

But this morning, something had changed. It wasnt certainty not yet but it was enough that her heart was beating too fast as she reached for the council doors.

She imagined telling him.

Rowan would look at her in disbelief first. Then that slow smile would curve across his mouth, the one he only wore in private. He would take her hands, feel the tremble in them, and say her name the way he used to Serena like it was something precious.

She never made it to the handle.

Erase everything, Rowan said from inside.

Her hand froze mid-air.

The council chamber doors were slightly ajar, light spilling through the narrow gap. Serena leaned closer without meaning to, her breath caught somewhere between curiosity and unease.

I dont care how loyal she was, Rowan continued, his voice stripped of warmth. The scout discovered the treaty drafts. That cant be undone.

Serena felt the first cold tremor slide through her spine.

Scout.

Treaty drafts.

Kellans voice followed, careful, subdued. She didnt even make it back to the den. The body was found near the ravine. But if the council inspects

They wont, Rowan snapped. Burn the trail. List her as a rogue casualty. This pack has lost enough wolves lately that no one will question it.

Serena pressed her palm against the doorframe to steady herself.

The ravine.

Her northern scouts patrolled there. She knew every one of them by scent.

She trusted Luna Serena, Kellan said quietly. Thats why she kept digging. I dont think she meant harm.

There was a brief pause.

Then Rowan spoke again, colder than before.

Thats exactly why she had to die.

The air left Serenas lungs.

Her heart thudded so hard she thought it might give her away, echoing through the stone hall like a drum of war. She imagined the young she-wolf quiet, steady, always bringing reports directly to her lying alone in the ravine while the Alpha ordered her existence erased.

What about the residue she collected? Kellan asked. The moonblood traces. If anyone tests

They wont test, Rowan said. Ive already altered the archive seals. The council will see only what I allow them to see.

Moonblood.

Serena felt faint.

Her moonblood.

The sacred bloodline every Luna carried power that should never be taken without consent.

Taken.

Lyras clan is demanding reassurance, Kellan said. They dont trust that the tonics will hold much longer.

Rowan exhaled slowly, like a man irritated by a minor inconvenience. They will hold. The witch swore they would suppress conception completely. Serenas body will never carry a child as long as she drinks them.

The words struck harder than any blade.

Suppress.

Conception.

Serenas mind reeled, reaching for logic that no longer existed.

The tonics. The nightly silver draughts he made her drink while stroking her hair, murmuring that her womb simply needed time, that her wolf was fragile, that the Moon had not yet chosen them.

They were never meant to heal her.

They were meant to break her.

Lyra is growing impatient, Kellan said.

At the name, something tore loose inside Serenas chest.

Rowan laughed quietly not cruelly, but with weary affection. Tell her to be patient. Once she carries the heir, the Mane clan will secure the eastern territories. Serena will remain useful only as long as she stays childless.

Serena bit down on her knuckle to keep from making a sound.

Serena cant get pregnant, Rowan added flatly. If she does, everything we planned with Lyra falls apart.

The world ended.

Not loudly. Not in flames or thunder.

It ended the way real things do in silence so complete it swallowed every sound, every thought, every memory she had ever cherished.

He never wanted her child.

He never wanted her.

Five years of loss. Five years of bloodstained sheets and whispered apologies. Five years of believing her wolf was broken.

All engineered.

Her hands were shaking so violently she had to clutch the doorframe to remain standing. The warmth beneath her ribs flickered fragile, terrified as if the life she had dared to imagine already knew it was not welcome in this world.

Serena turned away before her knees buckled.

She did not cry as she walked down the council steps.

She did not look back at the chamber where her mate had just buried her future.

She walked into the forest with her heart in ruins and one thought echoing louder than any howl:

The Luna he wanted is dead.

But the woman he made has only just begun.

Rowan left before sunrise.

He kissed Serenas temple like he always did, his lips lingering just long enough to sell the illusion. She stood at the threshold of the den in her pale robe, watching his massive frame stride down the stone steps, cloak snapping softly in the mountain wind.

Dont stay up too late, he said over his shoulder. The summit may last longer than expected.

She smiled at him.

It was the same smile she had perfected over five years soft, obedient, grateful for crumbs of affection. It was the smile of a Luna who had learned that asking questions only led to disappointment.

Travel safely, my Alpha, she said.

Only when the last of the patrol wolves disappeared down the ridge did she finally exhale.

Her body felt hollow, like something vital had been scooped out and left to bleed silently inside her. She waited another ten minutes after the estate fell quiet, listening to the distant howl of shifting guards as they rotated posts.

Then she moved.

Rowans chambers had never truly belonged to her.

The door was smooth beneath her fingertips, cold with old magic, its wards breathing faintly under the carved sigils. She could feel them the way a storm is felt before it breaks a low vibration under the skin, a warning that the threshold was not meant to be crossed without permission.

For years she had passed this door without stopping.

Tonight, she didnt hesitate.

She pressed her palm to the glyph.

Heat pulsed once, sharp and intimate, like the ghost of his heartbeat against her skin. The ward faltered. The lock whispered open.

Serena stood there for a breath too long, listening to her own pulse, before stepping inside.

His archive was hidden beneath the floor a narrow spiral staircase descending into cool darkness. The air smelled of parchment, ink, and old magic. Rows of shelves lined the walls, each holding scrolls bound with pack crests and council seals.

She did not hesitate.

She crossed the room without stopping, drawn to the narrow cabinet beside the desk the one Rowan sealed every night with the same careless confidence he used for everything else. He had never thought to guard the words he muttered in his sleep.

Serena leaned close and whispered them back to the lock.

Something shifted inside the wood. The latch released with a tired breath.

The first scroll was from the eastern border clans.

She recognized the crest immediately but the seal made her frown. It glimmered, just barely, catching the light in a way it shouldnt have. She brushed a thumb across the wax.

Silver dust clung to her skin.

Not elder blood.

Moonblood.

Her hands began to shake as she opened the next treaty.

Then another.

Every treaty. Every alliance forged in the last two years. Each one laced with her stolen power, the sacred bloodline of the Luna imprinted into falsified seals.

She found the ritual logs near the back sketches of circle formations, Lyras name etched repeatedly into the margins, her body positioned at the center of every diagram.

Blood Transfer Phase II: Lyra Mane.

Serenas stomach turned.

The final shelf held leather-bound ledgers. She pulled one free, flipping through the pages until the handwriting changed neat, precise, cruelly clinical.

LUNA SERENA NIGHTLY REGIMEN

Dosage increased: Third Quarter Moon

Conception Inhibition: Stable

Wolf Hormonal Suppression: Effective

Subject remains unaware

Subject.

She dropped the book like it had burned her.

Every missed cycle. Every time her wolf weakened after shifting. Every hollow ache when she knelt beneath the Moon Mother and felt nothing answer.

Not failure.

Sabotage.

Her life had been a laboratory.

She pressed her hand to her mouth as the weight of it crushed her chest not grief, not shock, but something darker.

Betrayal that had calcified into rage.

Rowan had not merely stolen her future.

He had rewritten it.

She left the archive just before dusk, slipping back into the role of the grieving, devoted Luna before the servants noticed her absence. But the woman who reentered the den was not the same one who had stood smiling at dawn.

That night, she did not drink the tonic.

She poured it slowly into the hearth, watching the silver liquid hiss and evaporate like venom exposed to flame.

By midnight, she was already halfway down the mountain.

The witchs den lay beyond pack borders, in a ravine no wolf willingly entered. The air there smelled wrong old ash, bitter roots, forgotten oaths.

The witch did not ask her name.

Severing a mate bond is death, the woman said softly, her blind eyes reflecting the firelight. Not of the body. Of everything you were.

Serena removed her cloak.

Then let me die.

The ritual lasted until dawn.

The witch did not hurry.

She traced the first rune with a blade dulled by centuries, the edge dragging through Serenas skin as if carving her out of the world. The air thickened, old syllables rolling from the witchs mouth sounds no wolf should ever hear, words meant to unmake rather than heal.

When the blade reached Serenas collarbone, the mate mark flared violently.

It did not fade.

It split.

Light tore from the symbol as if something inside her was trying to claw its way free. Silver blood spilled down her chest, hot as molten metal, soaking into the earth while Serena crushed her teeth into her own arm to keep from screaming her name into nothingness.

Her wolf rose in panic, thrashing inside her ribs, ripping at the bond that had defined her existence.

Then it went silent.

Not asleep.

Gone.

Dawn crept across the forest in pale ribbons, touching the clearing like an accusation.

Serena lay in the dirt, shaking, the mark on her skin burned into an unrecognizable scar. No Luna scent clung to her. No mate call echoed in her blood.

The Moon did not recognize her anymore.

The woman who opened her eyes was not Luna Serena Voss.

She was something that should not exist.

Serena had been living off borrowed shadows.

The small mountain town where she hid was the kind humans forgot to put on maps a strip of cracked pavement, two cafs that closed before sunset, and a motel that smelled faintly of old pine cleaner and resignation. No pack territory pressed against it, no Moon-wolves prowled the forests nearby. Even the night felt thinner here, stripped of the wild pulse she had once breathed like oxygen.

She had been there three weeks when the post went viral.

The phone rattled across the cheap motel table like it was trying to escape the room.

Serena came awake with a gasp, hand already reaching for a weapon that wasnt there. It took a second for the fear to fade for her to remember where she was, who she had become. Silence pressed in again, thick and hollow.

Then she saw the alert.

BLACKTHORN BLOOD MOON GALA LIVE NOW

Her thumb hovered over the screen.

She didnt want this.

She touched it anyway.

Light flooded the dark room. The gala unfolded in miniature chandeliers spilling crimson reflections, wolves wrapped in silk and shadow, moving as if the war had never happened. And in the center of it all

Rowan.

His arm was around Lyra Mane, holding her with a familiarity Serena had not felt in years. Lyras gown caught the scarlet light and turned it liquid, clinging to her like she belonged there. They were laughing, heads bent together, careless and unguarded.

The camera drifted closer.

Serena did not look away.

Two fresh bond-marks flared at their throats, glowing red-gold beneath the Blood Moons power.

The room around Serena seemed to vanish.

The Luna pendant at her throat the one she still hadnt found the strength to discard settled against her skin like iron.

Not jewelry.

A restraint.

Like Serena never existed.

She cut the stream and let the darkness close in, sitting motionless until the heater coughed once and died, until the room grew cold enough to hurt. She didnt cry.

She packed.

Rain cloaked her return to Blackthorn the following night, smearing her footsteps into nothing. The witch had taken her scent, but the land still knew her. Every hidden switchback, every fallen log that bridged a creek, every trail that never appeared on council maps her body remembered them all.

The pack hadnt changed.

That was the cruelty of it.

The training ring still bore the scars of a hundred sparring matches. The elder hall sagged on its old stone bones. Her den stood dark at the forests edge, shutters drawn tight, like a house that had chosen blindness.

She came for one thing only.

Her resignation.

The Alphas office door stood slightly open when she reached the council wing. Voices drifted through, low and intimate.

She paused.

Against her better judgment, she leaned closer.

Lyra was perched on Rowans lap, her fingers tracing slow, lazy patterns over his chest. She was laughing softly, breathy and careless in the way of someone who had never known consequence.

I dont want to jinx it, Lyra murmured, but Ive been feeling strange lately. Dizzy. Sensitive to scent. I think I might finally be pregnant.

Rowans answering smile was unguarded.

Serena pulled out her phone.

She didnt argue with herself. There was no time for fear.

Serena lifted her phone and framed the scene with quiet precision Lyras laughter frozen mid-breath, Rowans mouth brushing her ear in a gesture that belonged to no council hall. She pressed record.

One take was enough.

She sent the file from an account that would never lead back to her.

To: Calen Mane.

Lyras fated mate.

Then she placed her resignation on Rowans desk neat, bloodless, impossible to ignore and walked out without closing the door behind her.

Dusk found her at the edge of the old ritual grounds.

Lyras fury arrived before she did, a hot, violent pressure that made the air feel sharp.

You think youre clever? Lyra hissed, her eyes burning. You think this makes you powerful?

Serena faced her slowly, as if she had all the time in the world.

You sent that video to Calen, Lyra spat. Do you have any idea what youve done?

Serena tilted her head.

I told the truth.

Lyra laughed not in humor, but in delight.

Truth? she said. You think you ever earned the truth? Her smile twisted. Rowan never wanted your child. He wanted mine. Your blood is thin, Serena. It always was. You were convenient. Thats all.

Something in Serena slid out of place.

Not shattered.

Unhooked.

You were barren long before the tonics, Lyra continued, voice silky with poison. He just got tired of pretending otherwise. It was humiliating to watch you beg the Moon for something you were never meant to have.

Serena took one step forward.

Lyra didnt notice.

That scout? Lyra went on lightly. Your fault. If you hadnt filled her head with loyalty, she wouldnt have tried to be brave.

Serena raised her hand.

The sound was loud in the quiet glade flesh against flesh, sharp as a gunshot.

Lyra stumbled backward, heel catching on a stone.

She fell into the ritual fire.

The flames answered her aura instantly.

Lyra screamed as power erupted from her skin, scarlet and gold spiraling into the air like a wounded sun.

Serena did not move.

She simply watched the truth burn.

Rowan heard the scream before anyone told him what was wrong.

It tore through the council wing like a blade, raw with magic, sharp enough to make his wolf slam against his ribs. Chairs scraped. Voices broke. By the time he reached the doors, he was already running, lungs burning, the scent of scorched stone and blood pulling him forward.

The ritual grounds were unrecognizable.

Fire crawled over the circle in feral tongues where the brazier had overturned, magic shuddering out of control. At the center of it all, Lyra knelt in the ash, her gown shredded, silver soot streaking her hair and skin as if the flames had tried to claim her and failed.

And a few steps away

Serena.

She wasnt retreating. She wasnt crying.

She was standing there as if she had been carved into the scene.

Rowan didnt remember crossing the space between them. One moment he was staring, the next he was hauling Lyra out of the burning ring, her aura flaring so violently it blistered his arms. He pulled her against his chest, bellowing for healers until his voice shook the trees.

Only then did he look back.

Serena had not moved at all.

Her face was pale, expression unreadable, like she had already stepped outside herself.

What did you do? Rowan roared.

She said nothing.

You jealous, spiteful he spat, advancing on her, Lyras blood smeared across his hands. Youve always been barren, Serena. Broken. Unfit to be Luna. And now you dare to hurt her?

Each word struck like a lash.

Barren.

Broken.

Unfit.

Serena felt them slide into the spaces where her bond had once lived not tearing her open, but hollowing her out until there was nothing left to bleed.

Lyra whimpered in Rowans arms. She did it on purpose, she whispered. Shes always hated me. She cant stand that you chose me.

Rowan didnt look away from Serena. You disgust me, he said quietly.

It was worse than shouting.

Something in Serena loosened.

Not pain.

Freedom.

That night, while the healers chanted over Lyras burned aura and the council convened in frantic whispers, Serena returned to her den for the last time.

She packed nothing.

She only took the pendant Rowan had given her at her first Blood Moon the one engraved with the Luna crest and the cloak her mother had woven for her before the sickness took her voice.

Then she went to the ravine.

The same ravine where her scout had died.

She had chosen it deliberately.

The terrain was unstable, riddled with jagged stone and blind bends where patrol scents tangled uselessly. She cut her palm deeply with a shard of rock and let the blood flow freely, soaking the fabric of her cloak until it was heavy and dark.

Then she shifted.

Her wolf tore free, silver and white, sprinting through the underbrush with calculated desperation. She crashed through brambles, ripped her flank on thorns, and let her scent scatter wildly through the gorge.

When she reached the deepest drop, she tore the cloak from her shoulders and left it tangled on a blood-slicked boulder.

She did not leap.

She slipped sideways into a hidden waterway and let the river carry her down into darkness.

By sunrise, the ravine was swarming.

Search parties howled her name. Scouts traced her shredded trail to the cliffs edge and found only blood, fur, and the Luna pendant lodged between stones.

Shes gone, someone whispered.

Rowan stood at the brink long after the others stepped back, staring into the churning water below.

He felt nothing.

Only inconvenience.

The funeral was held before dusk.

The council chamber was draped in mourning black, incense thick in the air. Lyra sat beside Rowan, her arm wrapped in glowing bandages, her expression carefully stricken.

Luna Serena gave her life in a moment of madness, Rowan declared. Let her death remind us of the dangers of unchecked emotion.

No one questioned him.

By nightfall, emissaries from Lyras clan arrived with condolences and quiet offers of alliance.

And deep in the forest, hidden beneath a strangers scent and a body that no longer answered to a bond, Serena watched the flames of her own pyre from the shadows.

She felt nothing.

Not grief.

Not fear.

Only fire.

If he wanted her gone so badly

He should have made sure she couldnt rise.