The scent of pine and morning dew should have calmed me, but standing at the edge of Moon Bay territory, all I felt was the sharp ache of regret clawing at my chest. My mother's voice echoed in my head, as clear as if she were standing beside me: *"Helena, promise me you'll never make my mistake. Never love a shapeshifter who's already claimed by another woman. It will destroy you."* I'd promised. God, I'd promised her with tears streaming down both our faces as she lay dying, her wolf too broken to heal the cancer eating away at her human form. She'd loved my father—the Beta of Silver Creek pack—while he was bound to another. She'd been the other woman, the secret shame, the one he visited in darkness but never claimed in daylight. And I'd sworn I'd be smarter. I'd sworn I'd be different. I'd lied. Because here I was, three years deep into loving Dominic Blackthorne, Alpha of Moon Bay pack, and he had a chosen mate. Had one before I ever met him. Celeste Whitmore, daughter of the Eastern Territories Alpha, selected for him when they were both sixteen. A political alliance wrapped in the pretty bow of tradition. "You're early." His voice rolled over me like thunder, and I hated how my body responded—how my wolf perked up, how my skin tingled with awareness, how my heart stuttered in my chest like a lovesick teenager instead of the twenty-six-year-old woman I was. I turned to face Dominic, and the sight of him still stole my breath. Six-foot-four of pure Alpha male, with dark hair that fell just past his collar and eyes the color of aged whiskey. He moved like a predator, all controlled power and lethal grace. Even in jeans and a simple black t-shirt, he commanded attention. "We need to talk," I said, proud that my voice didn't shake. Something flickered across his face—concern, maybe, or dread. He knew. Of course he knew. We'd been dancing around this conversation for months. "Helena—" "She's coming back." I cut him off, unable to bear hearing whatever excuse he was about to offer. "Celeste. She's returning to Moon Bay in two weeks. I heard it from Marcus at the pack meeting last night." Dominic's jaw tightened. "I was going to tell you." "When? The day before she arrives? The day of?" I laughed, but it came out broken. "Or were you just going to let me find out when you announced your mating ceremony?" "It's not like that." "Then what is it like, Dominic? Explain it to me." I stepped closer, and I saw his nostrils flare as he caught my scent. Jasmine and vanilla, he'd once told me. It drove his wolf crazy. "Because from where I'm standing, you've spent three years telling me you love me, that you want me, that I'm your true mate—and yet she's the one with the ring. She's the one with the title. She's the one everyone's waiting for." "The alliance between our packs—" "Fuck the alliance!" The words burst out of me, sharp and vicious. "You're the Alpha. You have the power to choose your own mate. You've had that power this entire time." He moved faster than I could track, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat radiating off his body. His hands cupped my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. "You think I don't know that? You think I haven't spent every goddamn day of the last three years trying to figure out how to choose you without starting a war?" "Then start the war," I whispered. "Fight for us. Fight for me." His thumb traced my cheekbone, and I saw the anguish in his eyes. "Helena, baby, you don't understand what you're asking. The Eastern Territories control the mountain passes. Without their alliance, Moon Bay is vulnerable to the rogues that have been testing our borders. Celeste's father has made it clear—if I reject his daughter, he considers it an act of aggression." "So I'm just supposed to accept being your secret? Your mistress?" The word tasted like poison. "I'm supposed to smile and bow when Celeste takes her place as Luna while you fuck me in the shadows?" "No." His voice was steel. "That's not what I want." "But it's what's going to happen, isn't it?" I pulled away from his touch because if I didn't, I'd break. I'd cave. I'd take whatever scraps of him I could get, just like my mother had. "You're going to mate with her. You're going to give her your mark, your name, your public devotion. And you'll expect me to just... what? Wait around? Be grateful for whatever moments you can steal away?" "I'm trying to find another way—" "There is no other way!" My wolf surged forward, and I felt my eyes flash gold. "There's only the choice, Dominic. Her or me. The alliance or us. And we both know which one you're going to pick." The silence that followed was deafening. He didn't deny it. Didn't argue. Didn't promise me I was wrong. That silence told me everything. "My mother warned me," I said softly, feeling something vital crack inside my chest. "She told me never to love a man who belonged to someone else. She told me it would destroy me. And I looked at her—broken and bitter and dying alone—and I thought I was smarter. I thought our love was different. Special." "It is special. Helena, what we have—" "What we have is a fantasy," I interrupted. "A beautiful, painful fantasy. And in two weeks, reality comes home to claim what's hers." I turned to walk away, but his hand shot out, wrapping around my wrist. The contact sent electricity racing up my arm, and I hated my body for betraying me. "Don't go. Please. Give me time to fix this." I looked back at him, this Alpha who'd captured my heart and shattered it simultaneously. "How much time, Dominic? Another three years? Five? Ten? How long am I supposed to put my life on hold while you figure out how to choose me?" "I will choose you. I swear it." "Words are easy. It's the actions that matter." I gently extracted my wrist from his grip. "When Celeste arrives, you'll have a decision to make. Either you reject her publicly and claim me as your mate, or this—us—is over." "Helena—" "I mean it, Dominic. I won't be the other woman. I won't live my mother's life, loving someone who's too afraid to love me back the way I deserve." Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. "You have two weeks. Choose." I shifted before he could respond, my wolf bursting free in a shower of light and power. As I ran through the forest, away from the man who held my heart in his hands, I wondered if I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life. Or if the mistake had been falling for him in the first place. ---