My Cards Declined, My Alpha Mate's Crown Denied

My Mate, Alpha Cain, froze all my assets. Right when I was about to have our first pup. The voice on the phone belonged to his new assistant. A smug Beta she-wolf named Jasmine. She sneered. “Every penny you spend goes through me now. Cain bled for this pack. He won’t waste his money on a weak wolf who can’t even hold a shift.” That same day, the contractions started. They rushed me to the pack hospital. Every single one of my cards was declined. But that wasn’t enough. She kicked my parents out of the "Moonlight Sanctuary," the new healing center I’d built for them. Threw them into a basic room. Her reason? “Two old-timers don’t deserve the Alpha’s resources.” I laughed. She had no idea. Those "old-timers"? They're the Alpha King and Luna of the Crestfall bloodline. The rulers of all the Northern packs. She had no idea Cain’s pack, his mines, his Alpha title—everything he has—was a gift from the Crestfalls. My parents were about to step down. To give me the entire North. And to Cain. Too bad. Cain let his mistress humiliate the only true royalty he would ever touch. Three days later, Cain threw a huge party. A welcome party for the powerful benefactor backing his Northern territory. In front of all his guests, his Beta dialed the benefactor’s number. A second later, my phone rang. Chapter 1 I had just paid the full year’s fee for my parents at the Moonlight Sanctuary. Then I walked into the best pup supply store in the city. A soft baby blanket was embroidered with silver thread. A traditional pattern, for blessing a newborn wolf. I traced the pattern, wondering if Cain would be like other fathers. If he would whisper his bloodline’s oath to the moonlight on the day our pup was born. I handed the black and gold card to the clerk. The machine beeped twice. A harsh, rejecting sound. “Sorry, ma’am. This card was declined.” I frowned. Before I could try again, my phone vibrated in my pocket. The caller ID: Jasmine. I answered. Her sharp voice exploded in my ear. “Aurora, I’ve suspended your cards.” Her tone was dripping with glee. “Do you have any idea how hard Cain has worked these last six months? Fighting to secure this pack’s foothold in the North, fighting for the mines? And you? You just buy useless things all day.” “From now on, every dollar you spend needs my approval. Your monthly limit is one thousand dollars.” She paused, her voice laced with undisguised contempt. “$399 for a blanket? Who do you think you are? A weakling who can’t even hold a shift for three minutes has no right to waste the Alpha’s hard-earned money.” Can’t even hold a shift. The words stabbed at me. I knew what she was talking about. She called me a weakling who couldn't shift. She didn't know that if I let my true wolf out—the ancient Silver Lycan—the sheer size and aura of my beast would force her to her knees in seconds. I didn't fail to shift. I chose not to crush them. Three years ago, I let her see a moment of “weakness.” I let everyone think I was a broken wolf, a late-bloomer who struggled with a basic shift. It was part of my disguise. She didn't know. It was my most perfect lie for the last three years. A low laugh escaped my lips. A talk show was playing on the store’s TV. “...Twenty years ago, the Crestfall family withdrew from public life. Since then, no one has seen the Alpha King Rowan or his mate, Rhea, in public...” The clerk glanced at the screen as she wrapped my things. “I heard those old families didn’t lose power at all,” she said, smiling. “They have the pure blood of the ancient Moon Goddess. They protect the sacred borders from the shadows. Even the most arrogant Alpha in the North begs for their blessing to rule… Seriously, you look a little like that Luna Rhea. Are you the Alpha King’s daughter? So how could your card get declined? Haha.” I didn’t answer. I just pulled another card from my wallet. Solid black. No bank logo. Just a tiny, silver wolf’s head. “This one.” The moment the transaction went through, a tearing pain ripped through my mate bond with Cain. It felt like something was trying to sever our very souls. Then, the agony shot downwards. It exploded in my abdomen without warning. I doubled over, my knuckles white as I gripped the counter. Cold sweat soaked my back. “Ma’am?!” The clerk’s voice was panicked. Ten minutes later, I was in a delivery room at the city’s top pack hospital. The nurse held my cards, swiping them one by one. Red text flashed on the screen, again and again. She looked up, embarrassed. “Ma’am, I’m so sorry. All accounts linked to your mate are frozen.” Frozen. I stared at the ceiling. Pain hit me in waves. But the tearing of my mate bond was worse. It was an empty, suffocating void. I gritted my teeth and dialed his number. It rang three times. Jasmine answered. “What is it now, Aurora?” Her voice was full of impatience. “Cain’s in a meeting. He’s deciding the pack’s next territorial expansion. He doesn’t have time for your petty problems.” “I’m at the hospital,” I said, word by word. “The baby’s coming. I need to pay for the VIP suite.” A cold, dismissive laugh came from the other end. “Giving birth? What’s the big deal? You can have a baby in a regular room. The VIP suite is eight thousand dollars a night. You think the Alpha’s money is for a ‘weakling’ like you to squander?” Her voice rose, filled with unconcealed triumph. “I’ll have someone cover the basic fees later. Don’t push it.” The line went dead. The dial tone buzzed in my ear. I stared at the dark screen. Something inside me went completely cold. Three years ago, I welcomed her into our home. Now, she was sitting by Cain’s side, deciding if the pup in my womb—a pup with the blood of the Moon Goddess—deserved a decent delivery room. I closed my eyes. The pain was still a storm inside me, but my breathing steadied. I dialed another number. A number only a handful of people knew. It belonged to the man who had served as my father’s Head of Security for fifty years. “Silas. My accounts are frozen.” The silence on the other end lasted less than a second. “I’ll be there in five.” His voice was flat, but it held enough power to level a city. Chapter 2 The doctor’s voice pulled me from the pain. “False labor,” she said, putting down the monitor. Her tone was relieved. “It’s way too early for labor. You’re only entering your third trimester. You might just be under too much stress.” Stress. The word almost made me laugh. After the nurse left, I lay alone in the bed, staring at a tiny crack in the ceiling. My thoughts drifted back. Three years ago. I was twenty-one. I first saw Cain at a resource summit between packs. He was in a corner, wearing an ill-fitting suit, nervously clutching a glass. A young wolf lost in a den of lions. That awkwardness. That desperate need to be seen. It softened my heart. I didn’t tell him who I was. I used my family’s scent-masking herbs. It perfectly hid my Alpha aura. I became just another ordinary she-wolf. I didn't want a marriage forged by bloodlines. I wanted a pure love, free of power and fear. “I’ll always be with you, no matter who we are.” The night we mated, Cain pressed me beneath him, his ragged breaths hot against my ear. He held me with something close to reverence, swearing his oath to me. I believed him then. I even believed him when, by accident, I let a flicker of my power show. The old wolves in his small pack shunned me, and he stood up. He took my hand in front of everyone. “She is my Mate. No one will treat her this way.” I thought it was real. My father had warned me. “Cain’s hunger for status is a sickness,” he’d said in his study, his voice unusually grave. “That sickness will devour his loyalty one day.” I didn’t listen. I told him Cain would change. I told him I would help him grow stronger. I used my family’s syndicate, the Silver Moon Alliance—the largest werewolf trade network in the North. I funded him anonymously. Paved his way. All the doors that had been slammed in the face of a no-name Alpha suddenly swung open. For three years, Cain thought he was a genius. He never knew that every territorial contract he signed, every mining deal he closed, had the Crestfall name standing behind it. He thought he was climbing a mountain. He never knew he was just walking on the path I built for him. Six months ago, everything started to change. Cain brought home a battered Beta she-wolf. Her name was Jasmine, he said. She’d escaped an abusive Alpha in her old pack and had nowhere to go. I saw her cowering in the doorway, her eyes flashing with terror. A terror that reminded me of my own anxiety when I first hid my identity. My heart softened again. I secretly arranged a place for her to live. I found the best healers for her injuries. When Cain was about to banish her for overstepping her patrol boundaries, I stood in his way. “Give her another chance. She’s been through enough.” Cain looked at me and smiled. “You’re always so kind.” Thinking back now, what was hidden in that smile? Gratitude? Or mockery? I closed my eyes. The broken pieces started to fit together. Every time Jasmine “happened” to be in Cain’s office for a meeting. Every time she “unintentionally” stayed late into the night. Every time she spoke of Cain’s hard work in front of me, her voice full of just the right amount of concern. Cain’s attitude toward me in the last six months had slowly shifted. From passionate to dismissive. He kept testing my boundaries. And when he mentioned Jasmine, his eyes held a softness I once knew. A softness that was no longer for me. And I thought I was helping a poor victim. I thought I was nurturing a clumsy but loyal lover. Now, it was all sickeningly clear. From the moment Jasmine walked into our home, it was a trap. A trap designed just for me. Chapter 3 Silas walked to my bedside. No small talk. He pulled a card from his suit jacket. Solid black, with a tiny silver wolf’s head on the edge. He handed it to the nurse with a sharp, clean motion. “All expenses on this,” he said. “And book the entire top floor. For security.” The nurse stared at the card for a second, then hurried out. Silas turned to me and handed me a tablet. “Princess, all your personal belongings from the villa have been moved. As for what you wanted to look into, it’s all here.” I took the tablet. My finger swiped across the screen. Luxury resorts in human territory. Private hunting grounds reserved for top predators. Transaction records for illegal silver and wolfsbane on the black market. Along with the photos were endless bank statements. “Over the last six months, Mr. Cain misappropriated over four million dollars under the guise of pack expansion,” Silas’s cold voice echoed in the quiet room. “It was all spent on private vacations and luxury goods for him and Jasmine.” Four million dollars. All of it was money I had funneled to him through the Silver Moon Alliance, to help him stabilize his pack. He took my money to spoil his mistress. I kept scrolling. My finger froze. A photo. In the picture, Cain and Jasmine were pressed against a floor-to-ceiling window. “Taken an hour ago,” Silas said softly. An hour ago… right when I had collapsed in pain at the store. I stared at the screen, my stomach churning. My nails dug into the edge of the tablet. No wonder my mate bond had felt like it was being ripped apart. They were having sex. In broad daylight. So eager. “It started six months ago,” Silas continued, his tone clinical. “The timeline matches perfectly with when you took her in.” I stared at the photo, unable to speak. “I’ve already moved all of your personal items from the villa,” Silas went on. “Including family documents and heirlooms. Also—” He paused. “This afternoon, Jasmine sent a downgrade notice to the Moonlight Sanctuary, citing ‘pack resource allocation.’ She wanted to move the Alpha and Luna from the high suite to a standard room. I used family authority to reject it.” The Moonlight Sanctuary. Where my parents were resting. The place I had spent three months personally overseeing its construction. It was meant for them to enjoy their final honor as Alpha King and Luna after they stepped down. “They were planning,” my voice was tight, “to name Cain the next Alpha King after the pup was born.” Silas said nothing. He just watched me. It would have been the first time in his life my father had ever considered sharing power with an outsider. And that outsider was busy treating my home, my parents, as inconvenient burdens in his and his lover’s eyes. A soft beep came from Silas’s earpiece. He listened for a moment, his face darkening. “Jasmine took a few wolves to the Moonlight Sanctuary,” he said. “She’s telling people she’s going to throw ‘two old freeloaders who won’t leave’ into the lower-caste communal barracks.” Something inside my head snapped. Something I had suppressed for six long months finally exploded. “She dares.” I sat up. My blood felt like it was on fire. My Alpha aura exploded. The pure, terrifying pressure of a Royal bloodline crushed the room. The lights in the room flickered violently. Silas took a half-step back, lowered his eyes, and bowed his head in submission. “Rest assured, Princess. The security team moved the Alpha King and Luna to the family’s private estate thirty minutes ago. They are safe.” I clenched the bedsheets, my chest heaving. I took out my phone and dialed a number I had for years but rarely used. The video call connected. My father’s face appeared on the screen. He sat in a large leather chair, a panoramic window of the private estate behind him. His expression was terrifyingly calm, as if nothing had happened. “Aurora.” His voice was as steady as ever. “I heard.” “Dad…” “Don’t apologize,” he cut me off. “This is not your fault.” I gripped the phone tighter. “What do I do?” “Use the absolute law of the wolves,” my father said, his gaze piercing through the screen, filled with the coldness of the King of the North. “Make them pay for their foolishness. And don’t dirty our hands.” I stared at the screen and slowly nodded. The moment I hung up, my eyes had gone completely cold. I wanted to give Cain a home. I had willingly hidden my fangs, played the part of a weak Mate, just to satisfy his pathetic ego. If they had only stolen my money, maybe I would have just made them disappear from my life with nothing. But they dared to lay their filthy hands on my parents and my unborn pup. They had crossed the unforgivable line of the Crestfall family. From this moment on, mercy was over. Chapter 4 The next morning, a call from Silas woke me from a short rest. “Cain and Jasmine,” his voice held a rare chill, “purged all the core members you originally recommended last night. The mine dispatcher, the head of territorial defense, and the three most elite patrol leaders.” I sat up, straightening the robe over my hospital gown. “Triple their pack severance. From my personal account,” I said. “Tell them I will personally ask them to return in two weeks.” “Understood.” I hung up and turned to Silas. “Drive me to the pack headquarters.” He didn’t ask why. He just nodded. As we pulled up to the main building, I could feel a strange, gleeful buzz in the lobby. Silas helped me into the elevator. When we reached the top-floor council hall, a pack assembly was already underway. My spending records from the past six months were on the projector screen. A custom jacket. A pair of limited-edition heels. The annual fee for my parents’ healing center. Every single charge was magnified and highlighted in red. “Look at these numbers,” Jasmine stood at the podium, her voice shrill. “The pack barely survived its founding period. Cain fights for sixteen hours a day to secure the border mines, and his Mate is out there spending like a parasite!” There were whispers from the crowd. Some looked down, silent. I stood in the doorway, quietly watching the show. Jasmine’s cousin—I remembered her name was Nina, a low-ranking she-wolf who used to work the front desk—marched over to me. Her face was a mask of contempt. “Aurora,” she raised her voice so everyone could hear. “Do you think you can just be a freeloader your whole life by sleeping next to Cain? You can’t even shift properly. How dare you waste his money?” She slapped a piece of paper into my hand. A Notice of Exile. Handed to a pregnant Luna. By a low-level receptionist. In front of the entire pack. Silas’s body tensed. He took a half-step forward, a dangerous growl rumbling in his throat. I raised a hand, gently stopping him. Not yet. It wasn’t my turn to speak. The elevator doors opened. Cain and Jasmine walked out side-by-side. They were standing too close for an Alpha and his Beta. The air still smelled of their mingled scents. Seeing me, a look of rehearsed difficulty crossed Cain’s face. Like he was an actor in a play he’d already practiced. “Aurora,” he sighed, his voice full of a weary, “I-have-no-choice” tone. “What are you doing here again? Aren’t things chaotic enough?” I said nothing. “Do you know,” he continued, raising his voice for the audience, “how much financial pressure our territory defense has been under? And you’re still throwing money at your parents’ so-called ‘healing center’ every month. The cost of that place for one year could fund our entire patrol team!” Jasmine immediately stepped forward, gently patting Cain’s arm. Her voice was sickeningly sweet. “Cain, don’t get upset. Aurora was just trying to help her family. She just… went about it the wrong way.” She turned to me, her eyes filled with fake pity. “I’m doing this for your own good, Aurora. In your condition, you shouldn’t be worrying about these things. You need to focus on the baby.” For your own good. From her mouth, those were the most ironic words I’d heard in three years. Cain frowned, his tone suddenly harsh. “Go home. Now,” he ordered. “The representative from the Silver Moon Alliance is about to arrive for an inspection. If they see this mess, they could pull funding and take back the mining rights. Do you know what that means? Hundreds of wolves in this pack will be finished!” The Silver Moon Alliance. The real power behind his entire life was standing right in front of him. And he was ruthlessly trying to kick her out. I just stared at him. Silent. Cain turned to Jasmine, his voice regaining what he thought was a leader’s confidence. “Call the Alliance. Confirm what time the representative is arriving. We can’t have any screw-ups.” Jasmine pulled out her phone, a triumphant smile on her face. In front of everyone, she dialed the number. In my pocket, my phone started to vibrate silently.