No Longer Ours

The physical tether holding their bodies together finally gave way. Dominic’s biological knot softened, slipping free from her heat-swollen walls. The wet, hollow sound of the disconnect echoed in the silent room, marking the end of their forced intimacy. He shifted his heavy weight off her body, the mattress springs groaning under him as he settled onto the tangled sheets beside her. His chest heaved with the lingering exertion of the act, his skin slick with a sheen of sweat.

Saskia lay still against the pillows. She felt the cool draft from the window brushing against her damp skin, a stark contrast to the burning fever of her heat. As the physical bond broke, she mentally braced herself for the grueling stretch ahead. She had four agonizing days of forced proximity left to endure. Four days of suffocating silence and awkward glances. She was acutely aware of the reality of their situation. He was not here because he yearned for her touch. He was only present in this room to fulfill his basic, unavoidable biological duty to a Luna's heat cycle. It was an instinctual requirement, devoid of genuine desire or the profound love that used to anchor their mate bond.

The heavy silence in the room stretched out, pressing down on her chest. It was a thick, unresolved tension that made the air feel stifling. Dominic shifted his naked body, the sheets rustling as he turned toward her. He tentatively reached out, his large, warm hand brushing against her bare shoulder.

"When are you going to forgive me?" he asked. His voice was soft, laced with a misplaced, naive hope. "When are you going to move your belongings back into our suite?"

Saskia turned her head, her pale green eyes locking onto his face. She did not hesitate. She swatted his hand away with a brisk, cold motion, rejecting the hollow comfort of his touch. She pushed herself off the mattress, ignoring the lingering ache in her hips. Standing naked beside the bed, she did not bother to cover herself. She let him see her exposed state, using her vulnerability as a shield of indifference.

"That room belongs to you and Kelsie now," Saskia stated, her tone flat and devoid of warmth. "It is not our suite. We do not have a suite anymore. Kelsie staked her territorial claim on the Alpha suite, and she claimed the Luna suite as well. I believe half her belongings are scattered across both spaces. She staked her claim, and you let her do it."

Dominic sat up quickly, the muscles in his chest and arms tightening as defensiveness washed over his features. He crossed his arms, trying to shield himself from the blunt force of her words. "She is only sleeping in the Alpha suite because you packed up and moved out first," he claimed, his voice rising in volume. "You left."

Saskia shot a sharp, pointed glare directly down at him, slicing through his pathetic excuse. "Why did I move out of it? Tell me that. What did you promise me for a second time, only to break that promise the very next day?"

She took a step closer, towering over his seated form, forcing him to look up at her. "Do you want to argue about the one single boundary I asked you to enforce? A boundary you could not manage to maintain. It was not a difficult task. You literally did not have to do anything except look that younger she-wolf in the eye and tell her 'no' when she wanted to enter our private sanctuary."

Guilt flashed across Dominic’s strong jaw. He looked away, staring at the floorboards, unable to hold her relentless gaze. "She asked for access," he muttered weakly. "I will have her leave if you agree to move back in."

"Why would I do that?" Saskia scoffed, her voice dripping with disdain. "She will just stroll right back in there and fuck you on my sheets whenever she pleases. She did it last time. She has an electronic access card to the room now. You handed her the key. Should she have a key if that was supposedly our private suite? The answer is no. Yet you gave her one, because I refused to hand mine over. You willingly allowed her to disrespect and violate the sanctity of my own personal bed."

"It is not like that, Saskia," Dominic sighed heavily. He ran a hand over his face, desperate to shift the blame away from his own spineless actions. He played the victim, his tone shifting into a whining complaint. "I spend alternating nights sitting alone in our old suite, hoping you will come back to me. One night dedicated to the Luna suite, one night dedicated to the Alpha suite. You are the one who never shows up."

Saskia let out a dry, humorless laugh. She turned her back on him and walked straight toward the bathroom, desperate to wash the scent of his arousal off her skin. "That was not the agreement we made," she called back over her shoulder, dismantling his flimsy argument. "The sacred vow was one night dedicated to Kelsie, and one night dedicated to Saskia. It had nothing to do with sitting alone in a specific physical room. You twisted the words to suit your convenience."

Dominic scrambled off the mattress. His bare feet slapped against the hardwood floor as he foolishly followed her into the bathroom. His cock hung limply against his thighs as he stood in the doorway, whining and refusing to let the argument drop. "I do actually sleep in our suite every other night," he snapped, his frustration boiling over. "It is your own fault for not physically showing up to my bed."

Saskia paused beside the glass shower door. The cool tiles beneath her feet grounded her. She turned around to face him, her eyes scanning his defensive posture. She decided to issue a brutal challenge she knew he could never meet.

"Fine," Saskia said, locking her eyes onto his face. "I will permanently move back into the suite. I will return under one strict condition."

Dominic blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing his features. "What condition?"

"For exactly one month," Saskia started, holding up a single finger. "You keep Kelsie out of that suite. You sleep alone on your alternate nights. And on your designated nights with me, you spend them with me. You do not accept a single mind-link interruption from her. You do not conveniently abandon me in the middle of the night to run down the hall to the second Luna."

A heavy frown formed between Dominic’s brows. Hesitation clouded his blue eyes. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his silence speaking louder than any argument he could muster. He was doing the mental math, realizing the sheer impossibility of ignoring his younger mate's constant demands for attention.

Saskia lifted her hand and pointed her index finger straight at the center of his chest. "You cannot do it," she declared loudly, her voice ringing off the tiled walls. "Look at the expression on your face. You cannot commit to a single month."

She stepped closer, exposing the deepest truth he tried to hide. "You actually prefer to spend your time with her. She is young. She is fresh. She is far more fun than your dutiful first mate. You would rather play house with her than honor the vows you made to me."

The words hit him like a physical blow. He stood frozen in the doorway, his mouth parted slightly, stunned into silence by the raw, unvarnished truth she had just laid bare. He had no defense. He had no excuses left to offer.

Saskia did not wait for him to recover. She broke the eye contact, stepped into the shower enclosure, and twisted the metal faucet.

Hot water blasted from the showerhead, cascading over her shoulders and rushing down her curves. Steam quickly filled the small enclosure, fogging the glass walls. As she stood under the spray, letting the water sluice the slick remnants of Dominic’s release from between her thighs, Saskia let her mind wander.

Despite the harsh words she had just spoken to him, she knew deep down she was not old or withered. She was forty-one years old, but her reflection told a different story. Her body remained tight and firm. Her skin possessed a stunning, youthful porcelain beauty that easily and undeniably rivaled the twenty-year-old girl scheming down the hall.

In fact, the irony of the situation brought a dark smirk to her lips as she reached for the soap. It was Kelsie who was prematurely aging. The young girl was developing dark bags under her eyes. The constant, exhausting effort of plotting to sabotage their three-way mate bond was draining the life out of her. Kelsie lived in a relentless state of toxic anxiety, always looking over her shoulder, always trying to secure her precarious position in the Alpha's bed. She had lied to Dominic’s face from the very beginning, claiming she would accept the three-way bond just to get claimed as the second Luna, all with the singular goal of eclipsing Saskia and pushing her aside. The burden of that constant manipulation was wearing the young girl down.

Saskia, on the other hand, refused to play those petty games. She did not stoop to sabotage. Her conscience remained clear, keeping her stress-free and radiant. She stood beneath the hot spray, analyzing the divided dynamics of their pack. The dichotomy was stark and undeniable. Saskia was the unshakeable stabilizing force. She was the brilliant architect behind their immense financial prosperity, the one keeping the pack running in the black, securing their future. Kelsie was simply the shiny, new, unburdened distraction meant to sate Dominic’s hot-blooded, mid-life desires.

She knew Dominic still loved her on some foundational, instinctual level. The shared history and the mate bond were not easily erased. But his burning, consuming sexual desire? That raw, feral lust? He reserved that for Kelsie now. He looked at the young girl with a predatory heat that had long vanished from his gaze when he looked at Saskia.

A cynical humor bubbled up in her chest. She grabbed the shampoo bottle and squeezed a generous amount into her palm. What if Dominic decided to take a third mate in the future? The thought made her snort out loud over the sound of the rushing water. If he ever brought a third she-wolf into their twisted dynamic, Saskia would gladly grab a bucket of popcorn, sit back on the couch, and enjoy watching the chaos unfold. She would relish seeing Kelsie get a brutal taste of her own toxic medicine, watching the young girl panic as a newer, fresher distraction caught the Alpha's wandering eye.

Outside the fogged glass, Dominic’s large shadow shifted. The staggering weight of her blunt, undeniable honesty had broken his resolve. He could not face the reality she had thrown in his face. He physically retreated from the bathroom doorway, taking a step back into the bedroom.

"I will go to the kitchen and make you something to eat," he murmured softly. His voice lacked its usual Alpha command, sounding hollow and defeated. "I do not want to argue with you anymore."

Saskia listened to the heavy thud of his bare footsteps retreating from the bedroom, heading out into the hallway. She lifted her hands and began massaging the shampoo into her wet scalp, working up a thick lather. As she washed her dark hair, her analytical mind dissected his cowardly exit.

He was running away. He was finally being forced to confront the reality of his own choices. Her words had held a mirror up to his daily actions, showing him exactly how unwanted and discarded he made her feel. The realization was a bitter pill for his Alpha pride to swallow.

But as she rinsed the suds from her hair, Saskia realized what had truly sent him fleeing from the room. It was not raw anger that made the situation so unbearably uncomfortable for the powerful Alpha. She had not yelled. She had not screamed, cried, or thrown a tantrum.

What terrified him was the tone she had used.

It was devastatingly calm. It was emotionless. It was matter-of-fact.

It was the exact same clinical tone she utilized as the pack's chief accountant when laying out a brutal financial truth that could not be argued, manipulated, or denied.