Independence Werewolf Short Stories & Marriage Novels

I had loved my best friend's Alpha heir brother Marcus Steele for ten years. After my first shift, I was thrilled to discover he was actually my mate. Without hesitation, I gave up my position as Alpha heiress of the Crimson Pack and joined the Moonridge Pack. I spent three years doing everything I could think of to win him over. Finally, he agreed to our binding. Just as I was happily preparing to discuss our mating ceremony with him, I overheard his conversation with his Beta. "Alpha, are you really planning to hold a mating ceremony with Aria Blackwood? Serena is still carrying your child..." The man's eyes were dark and unreadable. "That's right. Even though Serena is pregnant with my child, my father has been dissatisfied with me. This time I have no choice but to marry Aria to appease him. After all, she's the Alpha heiress of the most powerful Crimson Pack. If I marry her, father will definitely let me inherit the Alpha position." "Aren't you afraid Aria will find out about Serena and cause trouble for her?" "No way. After all these years, I know exactly what kind of person she is. I'll just sweet-talk her a bit and she'll obediently listen to me. Besides, that's my bloodline. She'll have to accept it." I felt like I'd been struck by lightning. I stumbled outside in a daze, only to be ambushed by enemy rogue wolves. I was poisoned with silver, and because help didn't arrive in time, the silver toxin spread through my bloodstream to my brain. After three days and nights in a coma, I woke up having forgotten all memories of the man I had once loved with all my heart. Ever since I came to the Moonridge Pack, my parents called every month asking me to come home. This time I dialed my father's number and told him: "I don't want to be the Moonridge Pack's Luna anymore. I want to be Crimson's Alpha."

The day Alpha Marcus and I marked each other, his first love, Cecilia, threw herself off a cliff into a ravine overgrown with wolfsbane. The pack searched for three full days and nights before they found her, barely clinging to life. She was once the most spirited she-wolf in our pack, but the fall cost her a leg and the ability to bear pups. I grieved for the beautiful life that had been ruined, and I blamed myself for not seeing how fragile she'd become. Marcus comforted me gently. "Elena, this wasn't your fault. Cecilia made her own choice. You did everything you could. Don't beat yourself up." Later, not long after our pup, Rylan, turned five, a sudden illness tore through him, and he died in my arms. Night after night, Marcus held me, wiping away my tears. "Don't be sad, Elena," he would murmur. "We'll have other children." I had always believed my mate was the most considerate, most protective Alpha in the entire world. Until the day I overheard him speaking with his Beta, Adrin. "Alpha, the dosage of wolfsbane we gave Rylan was perfect—just as you ordered. It looked like a genetic defect. No one will ever suspect." "It's been so long. Don't you think it's time to forgive the Luna?" "What's one pup compared to what Cecilia lost? She lost a leg, her future as a mother. Everything."

On my wedding day, my arranged fiancé abandoned me and chose my sister instead. As I became the laughingstock of every elite guest in attendance, my business partner James Crawford shocked everyone by publicly proposing to me with a passionate declaration of love. After we married, he was incredibly attentive, especially during my pregnancy when he catered to my every need. I thought my suffering had finally ended. Until I overheard his confession to my sister: "I've only ever loved you." James's voice carried a passion I'd never heard him use with me. "Marry her? I was only after her resources, connections, and her talent for making money. She's nothing but a useful cash cow." "Now that she's pregnant, even better." His tone was coldly calculating. "With the baby, she'll be even more dependent on me, more devoted. She'll never leave." Everything I had treasured—our love, our marriage—was all a lie. Learning the truth, I turned and walked away without a word. I was done with this charade. Everything that belonged to me, I would reclaim with my own hands.

To train myself for the role ahead, I hid the truth — that I was the only daughter of an Alpha King. In my first year at the Dark Moon Pack, I fell for Leo, the Alpha's youngest son, the moment I laid eyes on him. Three years of love. The cold, brutal man spoiled me rotten. Yet he never once agreed to a marking ceremony with me. I later found out why — his pack didn't think I was good enough. After all, the Dark Moon Pack was the most powerful in the Northern Territories, and in their eyes, I was just a nameless rogue from some lesser pack. With the whispers about the gap between our ranks growing louder, I decided to tell him the truth about my bloodline. But then Leo started disappearing. Day after day. After his ninety-ninth night away, I saw a photo on his childhood sweetheart's Ins Story — a Christmas tree decked out in sex toys. The caption read: "Leo promised me — on the night of our marking ceremony, we're going to try every single one." Before I could even process it, my phone buzzed again. A DM. From the same woman. "Do you have any idea how much Leo needs me? Every year on your birthday, every anniversary — he waits until you fall asleep, then comes to spend the night with me." "A high-born wolf like me is the only one worthy of being his mate. You're nothing but the third wheel between an Alpha and his Luna." I stared at the words on the screen, my thumb frozen in midair. Should I be furious? Should I fall apart? Nothing. I felt nothing. Just a hollow space where my heart used to be. Fine. This tainted love, this man — I was done with all of it. I closed my eyes and reached out through the mind-link to my father, the Alpha King. "Dad, I agree to come home and take the throne."

When my Alpha mate, Xander, wanted to bring Sadie—the pregnant widow of his best friend—into our home, I let him. I even went before the Pack Elders myself and filed to sever our fated mate bond. I set him free to honor the guilt and devotion he felt for her. I did it all because of my last life. In that life, blinded by jealousy, I had coldly refused his request. That refusal led to tragedy. Sadie left our territory alone, miscarried on the road, and was left barren—never able to bear a cub again. And he blamed me for all of it. So when I was the one dying, bleeding out on the birthing bed and begging him to save me, he showed me the depths of his hatred. He coldly pulled the pack healers from my room, leaving our cub and me to die in a pool of our own blood. I can still hear his icy words. "Sadie lost her cub because of you. Now, you pay the price for your cruelty." So this time, I stepped aside. I let him keep his promise to the woman he cherished, and I gave him the bone-deep hatred for me that he so clearly craved. But I never imagined what would happen when I was finally, truly gone from his life. I never expected that the same Alpha who treated me with such cold cruelty would go mad searching for me. That he would tear the territories apart, only to fall to his knees before me, his eyes bloodshot, begging me to come back.

My Mate, Alpha Ronan, locked me in our penthouse. All for his childhood sweetheart, Jessica. It was her birthday. That was the night fire consumed our home. I clutched my five-month pregnant belly. The pain was too much. I couldn't shift. I desperately called the pack guards. "Help me... I'm locked in. The apartment's on fire—" Silence. Then a cold voice. It was his right-hand man. "Amelia, the Alpha gave an order. Any alarms from the penthouse tonight are just you having a meltdown. Don't waste the pack's resources." The line went dead. I tried the pack's medical team. The operator hesitated. "Luna, I'm sorry. The Alpha has declared the penthouse off-limits. We can't enter without his direct order." Then the call was rerouted. To my Alpha. To Ronan. I heard his ice-cold voice. "She's losing it. My Mate loves to make a scene. Ignore her." Smoke filled the room. I shattered the balcony's glass door and jumped. From the 30th floor. I survived. But the doctor told me the fall and the shock had been too much. I’d gone into labor. My pup, our heir… was gone. And I could never have another. That same night, my Alpha was clasping the Luna's moonstone necklace around another woman's throat. A birthday gift for her.

I'm Alpha Kaelen's fated mate. It took him ninety-nine tries to win me over, and every wolf in the pack knows he loves me more than life itself. But after we were mated, he started breaking his promises. My birthday, our anniversary... he always had an excuse. "Sorry, baby, an important ally is visiting. I have to be there." "Honey, there's trouble on the border. I have to handle it. You'll have to spend your birthday alone." Every time he bailed, he'd give me a ridiculously expensive house to make up for it. So, even though I was disappointed, I still believed he loved me. Until the day he gave me the ninety-ninth house. That's when I got the photo from his ex-girlfriend, Eileen. In the picture, Kaelen was asleep beside her, completely unguarded. "Did he tell you he had pack business last night? The truth is, I told him I wasn't feeling well, and he came running. ;)" So all ninety-nine times before... it was always her. My heart shattered. This time, I was the one to hand over the papers. The one-hundredth property transfer. And tucked inside, I'd added something a little extra: our bond dissolution papers. Kaelen didn't even look. He signed it without a second thought. And in one month, on the night of the full moon, our bond would officially be broken.

I hid my identity as a princess of the royal court and lived a quiet life with my fated mate, Kael Voss. The day I found out I was carrying his pup, he dropped a bombshell. "I'm actually the Alpha of the Thunderpeak pack. "In a week, I'm taking Freya Edris as my mate. She's the daughter of the Frostmoon pack's Alpha." I froze. He went on. "I'll set you up with an estate and a lifetime crystal ore stipend. It'll be more than enough for you and the pup." "So?" My throat tightened. "You want me to be your mistress? You want our pup growing up nameless, shunned by every wolf in the kingdom?" Kael looked away. "You're just a packless Rogue. Only Freya is worthy of standing beside me. She's the one who can help me grow the Thunderpeak pack. "As long as you behave, I can give you and the pup everything. Everything except the title of Luna." My eyes stung. So that was all I meant to him. Our pup, our mate bond, none of it was worth a thing. I lifted my gaze and looked him dead in the eye. "What if I told you I have a greater right to stand beside you than Freya ever will? "I wouldn't just help you grow the Thunderpeak pack. I could make it the most powerful pack in the entire kingdom."

I was eight months pregnant and recovering at Lycian Private Medical Center when my Alpha husband, Julian, suddenly posted a photo of a newborn pup on social media. The poplar tree in the background was unmistakable. It was the same tree outside my hospital room window! The caption read, "Welcome to the world, my heir." My sister, Margaret, had liked the post and commented, "Congratulations!" I was baffled. I was only eight months pregnant. Who had given birth to his child? I called Margaret right away. She was silent for several seconds before saying, "Julian and Nora's affair hasn't been a secret in the pack for quite a while. "She's a pure-blooded Arctic white wolf. You're his mate, but our family comes from a minor branch of the South American gray wolf bloodline. You know what I mean. The pack needs a highborn heir." A laugh escaped me. Ever since I became pregnant, Julian had blocked our bond again and again. He claimed the border was unstable and that he didn't want his emotions to affect me. I had taken his concern as proof of how lucky I was. The truth was that he only feared I would discover his affair. I was done with a mate who had deceived me.