After My Alpha Replaced Me With His First Love

The lingering burn of wolfsbane still scratched at the back of my throat, a constant reminder of the tea party two days ago. I had survived only because I vomited the poison up the moment they left me gasping on the grass, followed by a desperate dose of charcoal I kept in my hidden medical kit. But I was weak. My wolf was barely a whisper in my mind, curled into a tight, trembling ball.

Yet, here I was, smoothing down my skirt, clutching a small crystal jar like a lifeline.

Today was the former Luna’s birthday. Dante’s mother, Evelyn Crawford, had always looked at me with cold disdain, her eyes tracking my every mistake. But I knew she suffered from terrible arthritis in the winters. For the past month, I had spent every spare second brewing a salve of crushed willow bark, wintergreen, and rare moon-blooms I’d gathered near the pack borders. It was a masterpiece of herbalism, a soothing balm that could take away her pain when modern medicine failed.

*Maybe,* a foolish, desperate part of me thought, *maybe if I show her I can be useful, if I show her I care, Dante will see me again. Not as a placeholder, but as Dalia.*

I walked into the grand ballroom, keeping my head down. The room glittered with chandeliers and diamonds, the air thick with the scent of expensive perfume and champagne. Paige was there, of course, seated at the high table next to Dante and Evelyn. She wore a dress of shimmering gold, looking every bit the Luna she was born to be.

I approached the high table, my heart hammering against my ribs. The conversation died down as I stepped forward.

"Happy Birthday, Luna Crawford," I said, my voice trembling slightly. I held out the jar. "I know the cold weather hurts your joints. I made this for you. It needs to be applied twice a day, and—"

"You made it?" Evelyn interrupted, her lip curling. "An Omega's home remedy?"

"It works," I promised, stepping closer. "Please, just smell the moon-blooms. It's very soothing."

I twisted the lid open, anticipating the sweet, floral release of the rare flowers.

Instead, a pungent, wet stench blasted into the air.

The smell of rotting garbage, sulfur, and decaying meat filled the space between us instantly. I froze, staring down at the jar. The pearlescent cream I had made was gone. In its place was a dark, sludge-like compost, teeming with something that looked like maggots.

Gasps rippled through the hall. Evelyn recoiled, covering her nose with a silk napkin.

"I... I didn't..." I stammered, looking frantically from the jar to the table.

My eyes locked on Paige. She was sipping her champagne, her eyes dancing with malicious delight over the rim of the glass. Beside her elbow, I saw a faint smudge of silver glitter—the same glitter that was now dusting the rim of the jar in my hands.

*She swapped it.*

"You insolent little wretch!"

The slap came before I could breathe. Evelyn’s hand connected with my cheek, the sound cracking through the silent ballroom like a whip. My head snapped to the side, the jar slipping from my fingers and shattering on the marble floor. The stench intensified.

"You dare?" Evelyn shrieked, standing up. "You bring filth to my table? You try to mock me in front of my pack?"

"No!" I cried, clutching my stinging cheek. "It was swapped! I made a salve, I swear! Paige, she—"

"Enough!"

Dante’s voice was a thunderclap. He rose from his seat, his Alpha aura flooding the room, suffocating and heavy. He didn't look at the jar. He didn't look at the glitter on Paige’s arm. He looked only at me, and his eyes were voids of darkness.

"You have shamed this family for the last time, Dalia."

He rounded the table, grabbing my upper arm in a grip that bruised instantly. He didn't drag me out the back way. He marched me through the center of the ballroom, parading my humiliation past the sneering faces of the pack elders and high-ranking wolves.

"Dante, please, listen to me!" I begged, struggling against his iron hold. "Smell it! You can smell the difference! It’s compost! I wouldn't do that!"

He didn't speak. He shoved me out the double doors and into the cold night air, dragging me across the grounds toward the stone structure that loomed on the hill—the Moon Temple.

It was a sacred place, usually reserved for prayer and reflection. But tonight, the cold stone floor looked like a torture chamber.

Dante threw me inside. I stumbled, scraping my hands against the rough granite.

"Since you cannot learn respect," Dante said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, vibrating Alpha tone, "you will learn submission."

He pointed to the center of the temple floor, directly beneath the open skylight where the moon stared down indifferently.

"**Kneel.**"

The command slammed into my spine. My knees hit the stone with a sickening crack. I gasped, tears springing to my eyes, but the magic of his order locked my muscles in place. I couldn't shift my weight. I couldn't stand.

Dante stood over me, his shadow swallowing me whole.

"**You will not move. You will not eat. And you will not sleep for twenty-four hours.**"

The weight of the command settled over me like a lead blanket. My body went rigid, forced into absolute stillness by the power of his voice. I tried to open my mouth to beg, to scream, but my jaw clamped shut. I was a prisoner in my own skin.

"Reflect on your station, Omega," Dante spat. He turned on his heel and walked away, the heavy wooden doors booming shut behind him.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Minutes turned into hours. The cold from the stone seeped through my thin dress, biting into my bone marrow. My knees began to throb, a dull ache that sharpened into agonizing fire as the circulation was cut off. My weak wolf whimpered, clawing at the back of my mind, desperate to move, to curl up, to run.

But the Alpha command held fast.

I couldn't even shiver. I could only kneel, staring at the closed doors, while tears I couldn't wipe away tracked slowly down my face. The physical pain was excruciating, but it was the silence of the temple that broke me. In the quiet, I realized the truth I had been denying for seven years.

Dante didn't just prefer Paige. He hated me.

And as the moon tracked its slow arc across the sky, witnessing my frozen, silent agony, the love I had held for him began to curdle, turning into something dark and cold, matching the stone beneath my bleeding knees.