Cry Harder, Alpha: Your Luna Is The Lycan Queen Now! Chapter 01

Cry Harder, Alpha: Your Luna Is The Lycan Queen Now! Chapter 01

NARA’S POV
I had exactly sixty days left to live, and my fated mate just handed my only cure to another woman.
Jasmine is my adopted sister. My parents found her starving at the pack border when we were girls, and they raised her like their own blood.
But for twenty years, she has looked at everything I own and wanted it for herself.
Tonight, she gets the last thing on the list.
She cradles a rare Snow Lily in her lap. It is the only cure for the curse eating my organs, and the last one left in the whole territory.
My fated mate, Aiden, rode two days into the frozen north and dug it out of the ice with his bare hands. The whole pack thought he did it for me. His dying mate.
But Jasmine scratched her knee on a silver branch this morning, so Alpha Aiden gave her my cure.
He once used to be beautiful to me, but with my sister’s scent constantly on his body, he is repulsive!
I make myself cross the floor. My legs barely hold me.
“My Alpha,” I say. “The Lily has to be brewed today. A flower cut this long wilts by nightfall, and my only cure dies with it.”
Aiden stops and looks down at me. His eyes are cold and flat with disgust.
“Are you always this selfish? Can’t you see? Your sister is in agony! What exactly is your problem?”
“I am dying,” I whisper. “That is my problem.”
This is the ninety-ninth time he has chosen her over me. I have counted every single betrayal since our wedding day.
Fate tied us together, and while I never wanted to surrender my pack to a man, I trusted the Moon Goddess to give me a mate worthy of being my Alpha. That was why I said yes.
“You have been dying for two weeks,” he says loud enough for the whole room to hear. “You want the medicine? Cry a little harder! Maybe someone will finally believe you.”
The hall erupts in laughter. Not one wolf covers their mouth. The whispers come after, and they do not bother to keep them low.
“Attention whore. She’ll fake anything for a scrap of pity.”
“If she wants to die so badly, why is she still here? No one in this room would miss her.”
“Five years his mate and never gave him a pup. Even the curse can tell she’s useless.”
“Still swanning around like she’s Luna. Somebody should tell her the seat’s already taken.”
A guard pushes Jasmine’s fur coat into my arms to hold. He turns his back on me before I can speak.
For five years, I have served as Luna, failing to live up to my mother’s legendary reign.
Because I did not inherit her divine wolf, my own people look at me and see nothing but a useless failure.
Jasmine looks up at me, ever the weeping princess. She holds the Lily out with a shaking hand.
“Please don’t fight over me,” she whispers. “Take it if you need it more, sister. Honestly, I will manage a little silver.”
If I reach out and take my cure now, I am the monster. She always knew how to build a trap. Moreover, Aiden will never let me take it.
So I smile. It takes everything I have left.
“Keep it,” I say. “Consider it my charity.”
Aiden slides his hand around her waist and looks at the pack.
“See? She is just being unreasonable again. You are too kind to her, but she has always been narrow-minded. She is only doing this to scheme against her adopted sister. I have never seen a Luna so petty and lacking in basic grace.”
“You are absolutely right,” I say, my voice terrifyingly calm. “I am narrow-minded, and I have no grace left to give.”
His words no longer hurt.
He has looked at me with this exact disgust ever since the night Jasmine threw herself down the estate stairs and sobbed that I pushed her.
Since that day, my mate has viewed me as a vicious witch, swearing to fiercely protect my fragile adopted sister from my existence.
I look past his broad shoulders and meet Jasmine’s secretly triumphant eyes.
“Congratulations, Jasmine,” I say softly. “Truly, you have won.”
With that, I set the coat down on the table, folded. Then I walk to my cold little room.
I shut the door and slide down to the floor. These ungrateful dogs have completely forgotten who has provided for them and their families all this time.
I finally let the scream out into my own hands, where no one will ever hear it.
A soft knock comes low on the door.
The pack doctor is in the hall when I open it. He does not come inside. He looks both ways, then presses a folded paper into my hand.
“There was a grave error in the last diagnosis,” he whispers. “I had to be sure. I am sorry, Luna.”
He is gone before I can speak.
I open the medical report under the lamp. My name is at the top. There is one line at the bottom, underlined twice.
TOTAL CORE FAILURE.
THIRTY DAYS REMAINING.
My heart sinks.
But it is sealed.
I will be dead in 30 days.