After My Alpha Rejected Our Daughter for His Mistress

The open-air market in the center of Ironveil was busy on Tuesday mornings. Pack members milled between wooden stalls of fresh berries, dried herbs, and venison. I kept my hood up, buying a small carton of blackberries that Paislee loved.

A shadow fell across the fruit stand. The sickly sweet smell of lavender and expensive lotion hit my nose before she even spoke.

"Good morning, Ariana," Luella said.

She wore a soft cream trench coat, her blonde hair catching the autumn sun. She had a woven basket over her arm, looking every bit the future Luna running domestic errands. Her smile was bright and generous, perfectly tailored for anyone watching from the nearby stalls.

"Good morning," I replied, handing two dollar bills to the vendor.

Luella stepped closer, tilting her head with practiced sympathy. "I saw you at the river the other day. It must be so hard for you, watching the wolves run. Being out there, outside the circle. It’s unnatural, really, for a wolfless woman to attach herself to a high-ranking Alpha. People talk. They think you're using him for status."

I tucked the fruit into my canvas bag. I didn't look away from her.

"Sebastian is a very generous man," she continued, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. "He feels sorry for strays. But a real pack needs order. An Alpha needs an heir of pure blood to carry the line. A future. Temporary arrangements only cause confusion, especially for a little girl."

She paused, waiting for me to shrink back, to blush or stammer.

I took one slow step forward.

I closed the distance until my mouth was barely an inch from her ear. The warmth of my breath made the delicate hairs on her neck stand up.

"You should be more careful," I said, my voice so flat and low it sounded like a door locking, "about which enemies you choose to make."

Luella froze.

Her smile dropped like shattered glass. For a split second, her eyes blew wide with pure, feral panic. The color drained from her cheeks so fast she looked ill. For that one heartbeat, she didn't see an Omega. She saw something that terrified her down to her marrow.

Then she caught herself. She forced a breath, smoothed her lapels, and stepped back with a tight, brittle laugh.

"Have a lovely day, Miss Alvarez," she said stiffly, turning on her heel.

I watched her walk toward her car. Her phone was already pressed to her ear. She was rattled. That afternoon, I knew, she would start digging into where Ariana Alvarez had come from.

Let her dig. The paper trail was buried seven years deep under ash and wolfsbane.

***

The following morning, Paislee was awake before the sun.

It was the Come of Age preparation ceremony at the pack school. She had been rehearsing the pledge for four days straight, whispering the words in front of the bathroom mirror. She wore her best navy dress, her white socks pulled straight, her brown curls brushed until they shone.

Sebastian had looked her in the eye at breakfast yesterday and promised he would be there.

At eight sharp, I went downstairs to the garage to wait with her. The big black SUV was gone.

Theron, the Beta, was standing near the tool bench with a tablet. He looked up, his expression awkward and tight.

"Where is Sebastian?" I asked.

Theron cleared his throat. "Luella had an emergency. A severe wolfsbane reaction. Chest pain, trouble breathing. The Alpha had to drive her to the clinic in the next town to see a specialist."

He didn't leave a note. He didn't even come upstairs to look at his daughter's dress.

I drove my beat-up sedan to the school.

Paislee was waiting near the glass double doors of the auditorium, clutching Mud by his one good ear. Her little shoes were polished. Every time the door opened, her head snapped up, her grey eyes scanning over the heads of the crowd, searching for broad shoulders and dark hair.

I walked up and knelt in front of her.

"Hey, baby," I said softly, smoothing down her collar.

She looked past my shoulder, out into the empty parking lot. Her small chin trembled once, barely visible, then went rigid.

"He had pack business, didn't he?" she asked. Her voice was quiet.

"Yes," I said. "He was called away."

Paislee nodded once. A slow, careful nod. She didn't cry. She didn't stomp her feet. That broke my heart worse than any tantrum ever could. She had already learned how to expect nothing.

Inside the auditorium, the pack families sat together in loud, boisterous rows. Paislee took her seat on the wooden bench with the other six-year-olds.

Two boys in the row ahead turned around. They were Delta pups, sturdy and arrogant, their pack jackets already bearing the Ironveil crest.

"Who's your dad?" one sneered in a loud whisper. "Where is he?"

"She doesn't have one," the other snickered, loud enough for three rows to hear. "She’s the fatherless Omega girl. Her mom doesn't even have a wolf. They're just playing house."

A few parents chuckled softly. Nobody stopped them.

Paislee sat completely upright. She looked straight ahead at the podium. Her tiny hands gripped Mud so tightly that the rabbit's cotton stuffing strained against the seams. She didn't make a sound. She didn't give them a single tear.

***

The break didn't happen until midnight.

A sharp, ragged gasp woke me from a dead sleep.

I threw off the covers and crossed the room. Paislee was curled in a tight ball in the center of the bed, shaking so violently the headboard rattled against the wall. Her mouth was open, fighting for air, but only thin, wheezing chirps came out.

"Paislee!"

I hauled her into my arms, pulling her small, shivering body against my chest. Her skin was freezing and drenched in cold sweat. Her eyes were wide, glassy, and unseeing, rolling back toward the dark ceiling.

"I can't... Mama, I can't," she gasped, clawing at her own throat. "It's too heavy. I can't breathe."

"Look at me, baby. Look at Mama." I caught her small hands, pressing them flat against my sternum. "Breathe with me. In. Out. In. Out."

She couldn't. Her little chest heaved in terrifying, uneven spasms. It was a panic attack, raw and violent, the accumulated poison of a week of quiet cruelty finally tearing through her small frame.

"You're safe," I whispered into her damp hair, rocking her back and forth on the floor. "I’ve got you. Nobody touches you. Mama is right here."

I held her in the dark for two hours.

I rocked her until the trembling slowed to faint shivers, until her fingernails stopped digging into my forearms, until her ragged gasps finally smoothed out into the soft, exhausted rhythm of sleep.

I laid her back on the mattress, pulled the quilt to her chin, and tucked Mud beneath her arm.

Then I stood up and walked to the window.

The pack house grounds were pitch black, quiet and dead. Somewhere in the east wing, Sebastian was probably asleep, completely untroubled, resting after his exhausting day of catering to Luella's imaginary illness.

In my chest, behind the cold silver brand, Selene let out a low, venomous growl.

This time, I didn't reach for the balm.

I stood in the dark and felt the last thread of hope snap. The fantasy of a father, the faint, foolish wish that some part of the boy I loved seven years ago still lived inside that Alpha—it was dead. Cut away cleanly, like rotting tissue.

I began doing the math.

Two more blood extractions. That would clear the necrotic toxin from his system enough to satisfy the legal contract and protect me from Ironveil's bounty hunters. Forty-eight hours between sessions. Four days total.

I had twelve thousand dollars in cash stashed inside the spare tire of my sedan. I had forged IDs in the bottom of my bag. There was a bus station thirty miles north, just beyond the Blackridge mountain pass where Ironveil jurisdiction ended.

Four days.

I looked back at Paislee's sleeping face in the pale moonlight.

I would give him the blood he needed to live. And then I was going to disappear so completely that he would spend the rest of his miserable life screaming into an empty grave.