The Alpha I Was Forced to Marry Hated Me, Until He Fell for Me

"The Northern Ridge Pavilion," Victoria said, handing me a laminated map card with a warm, sisterly smile. "Lucian asked me to make sure you got the coordinates. The elders gather there before the hunt begins."

I took the card from her fingers. "How thoughtful of him to send an errand girl."

Victoria’s painted lips tightened, but she kept her sweet tone intact. "He just wants to see if you can carry yourself like an Alpha's wife in front of the territory's high families. Don't be late, Nora. They judge tardiness harshly."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," I replied.

Twenty minutes later, I stood deep in the evergreen canopy of the Blackwood hunting grounds.

The silence here was wrong. No birds sang in the branches above. A low, guttural snarl vibrated through the brush fifty yards away.

Feral wolves. Unranked rogues kept starved in the preserve's perimeter for target practice.

I pulled out the pack communication radio Lucian’s guards had issued me at the gate. The screen stayed completely dark. When I popped the battery cover, the copper contacts inside were snapped clean off.

"Real subtle, Lucian," I murmured.

I didn't panic. Panic was for people who trusted their husbands.

Instead of pushing toward the danger zone where the beasts paced, I slipped off my thick shearling jacket and shook out the pocket. A tiny blinking red light caught the sun. A magnetic locator beacon—planted by Victoria while she pretended to smooth down my collar back at the lodge.

I smirked, walking over to a heavy fallen branch right at the edge of the predator ditch. I draped the jacket over the wood, jammed the tracker deep into the seam, and backed up twenty paces into the thick brush behind a massive cedar trunk.

Footsteps crunched through dead pine needles ten minutes later.

A tall man in a private scout uniform crept through the brush, hunting rifle lowered. He stared at the GPS unit on his wrist, then locked his eyes on my discarded jacket silhouetted against the dark gully.

"Target located at coordinates," the scout whispered into his throat mic. "She's cornered near the den line."

A snap of twigs broke behind him.

Two heavy figures in black combat gear hit the scout like freight trains.

The man crashed into the dirt with a choked grunt, his rifle skittering into the leaves. A knee drove hard between his shoulder blades, pinning him down before he could draw his sidearm.

"Alpha's escort, secure the intruder!" a voice barked.

Branches parted.

Lucian strode into the clearing, flanked by four pack elders and a half-dozen high-ranking guests dressed in tailored shooting tweeds. His jaw was set like iron, his dark eyes sweeping the clearing with frantic impatience—until his gaze swept past the pinned scout and locked directly onto me.

I sat on a dry boulder beneath the pine, calmly paring a green apple with a pocketknife.

Lucian stopped dead in his tracks.

The elders behind him began murmuring.

"What is the meaning of this?" Elder Thomas muttered, adjusting his spectacles. "Is that a scout from the South Gate?"

"He was following my jacket," I said, slicing off a wedge of fruit and popping it into my mouth. "Though why someone would send an armed tracker after the Alpha’s wife during a formal banquet is beyond me."

Lucian walked over to the pinned man. He wrenched the scout's head up by his hair, squinting at the badge sewn onto the man's vest.

It was Victoria’s family crest.

Lucian’s expression turned violently cold. He let go, wiping his fingers on his coat before stepping straight toward my boulder.

"You knew?" he asked, his voice low enough that only I could hear.

"Of course," I replied, meeting his glare without blinking.

"How?"

"Victoria has the poker face of a toddler," I answered, snapping the pocketknife shut with a sharp click. "You wanted me lost in the woods so you could play the furious husband who had to rescue his incompetent bride. Too bad. You caught her scout instead."

Lucian stared at me, his chest motionless. The contempt in his face had vanished, replaced by an uneasy, rigid stillness.

He had never looked at me with caution before.

"Get up," he said quietly. "We're going back."

"Lead the way, darling," I smiled.

The drive back to Blackwood Manor was dead quiet. Lucian spent the entire ride staring out the tinted glass, his fingers tapping against his knee in a rapid, agitated cadence.

The moment our SUV pulled into the circular driveway, his personal secretary rushed down the front steps, white as a sheet.

"Alpha Lucian," the secretary blurted out before the door even swung fully open. "We have a security breach in the private archives."

Lucian’s head snapped up. "What did you say?"

"The digital locks on the west wing study were bypassed forty minutes ago," the man stammered, following Lucian as he practically leaped from the vehicle. "The logistics ledger for the northern shipping line was accessed. Physical copies are missing from your desk safe."

Lucian froze on the top step.

Slowly, his head turned toward me.

"Check the hallway monitors," Lucian ordered, his voice dropping into a razor-thin tone. "Now."

"We did, sir," the secretary said, holding up a small clear plastic evidence bag. "The camera outside your office was disabled with a frequency scrambler. But we found this dropped on the rug by your desk."

Inside the plastic pouch lay an antique silver hairpin, engraved with the Cross family crest.

Lucian plucked the bag from his assistant's fingers. His eyes flared with a fury twice as deadly as before.

"Clear the floor," Lucian commanded. "Get every guard out of the west wing."

The staff scattered without another word.

Lucian grabbed my wrist, hauling me across the marble foyer and slamming his heavy oak study doors behind us. He threw the evidence bag onto the glass coffee table between us.

"You used the hunting trip as a distraction," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "You let me focus on your little forest stunt so you could raid my safe!"

"Check the timestamps," I said flatly, pulling my wrist from his grasp.

"I don't need to check anything! That pin belonged to your grandmother!"

"I gave that pin to Victoria three days ago," I countered, raising my voice to match his thunder. "Because she begged me for a keepsake after Isabelle ran."

Lucian let out a bitter, mocking snort. "Still pointing fingers at Victoria? First you accuse her of bribing scouts, now you frame her for corporate espionage?"

"I don't frame people, Lucian. I collect receipts."

I reached into the inner lining of my boot, pulled out a small black flash drive, and tossed it against his chest. It bounced off his shirt and landed squarely on his mahogany desk.

Lucian frowned, looking down at the drive, then back to my eyes. "What is this?"

"Plug it in," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "Unless you're scared of seeing what an idiot you've been."

His jaw clenched. He snatched the drive, slammed it into the side of his monitor, and tapped the keyboard with furious force.

A video feed flickered to life on the screen.

It wasn't the main security network. It was a wide-angle lens hidden inside the bronze clock sitting atop his own bookshelf.

On the screen, the study door swung open thirty minutes after we had left for the woods.

A woman slipped into the room wearing gloves and a dark trench coat. She moved straight to the desk, entered the passcode into the floor safe with zero hesitation, and slid the shipping ledgers into an oversized leather tote.

Before turning to leave, she leaned over the desk, pulled a silver hairpin from her pocket, and let it drop onto the plush rug.

Then she turned toward the camera.

The overhead lamp hit her face clearly.

It wasn't me.

It was Victoria.

The room dropped into absolute, suffocating silence.

Lucian stared at the screen, his fingers hovering frozen above the keyboard. The color drained from his jaw, leaving his face pale under the harsh study lights.

"She has had your safe combinations for months," I told him, stepping closer until I could see the sudden fracture in his icy composure. "She has been feeding your trade routes to external buyers while whispering poison in your ear about me. She told you I forced Isabelle out so you would keep all your rage locked onto me while she cleaned out your vaults."

Lucian didn't speak. His eyes remained glued to the looping footage of Victoria's smiling face on the monitor.

For the very first time since the wedding vows were read, doubt cracked across his features.

"Why didn't you stop her?" he whispered, his voice hoarse, almost hollow.

I gave him a slow, merciless smile.

"Because watching you figure out you hated the wrong woman is worth every penny she stole."

Before Lucian could answer, the red landline on his desk shrieked, the emergency siren from the estate’s outer gatehouse blaring through the receiver.