I Faked My Death To Reject My Unfaithful Alpha

No End in Sight

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I never understood why Joelle would love Alpha Roy. Not when he was so coldly ambitious, so wrapped up in power and alliances that I’d always thought he’d never have space in his heart for anyone but the Ironpeak Pack.

Until the night I found him in the old pack training grounds, sitting on a weathered park bench, waiting for me after a routine pack training. The full moon hung low over the pine trees, silver light gilding the broad lines of his shoulders, turning his dark eyes to molten gold when he looked up at me.

I couldn’t look away.

For five years I’d waited. I’d tended to his injuries after border skirmishes with rogues, I’d stood beside him at pack gatherings when he needed a chosen mate by his side, I’d turned down every other offer I’d ever gotten, all because he’d promised we’d have the marking ceremony once he secured his hold on the pack. He never said yes when I pressed him for a date. But he never said no, either. I’d clung to that, stupid as it was.

Then, five years to the day we first met, he came back from the Lycan royal assembly, and he told me the alliance with my family was finalized, and the marking ceremony would be held in a week.

I cried happy tears that night, my hands shaking as I packed away the silk dress I’d bought for the occasion. I’d just stepped out of my dressing room to get a glass of water when I heard their voices through the cracked study door. Low, intimate, the kind of tone I’d never gotten from him.

“Roy, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to mark Mila just to hide me. The old Alpha is dead, you’re Alpha now—you can just claim me as your Luna openly. No one would dare defy you,” Elliana said, her voice soft and breathless. My half-sister. The illegitimate daughter of the former Alpha, the woman who’d never worked a day in her life but still got every scrap of attention I’d ever craved.

Roy’s voice was gentle, the kind of gentle I’d only dreamed of hearing from him. “Elliana, I got into this for you. I left the rogue healing commune for you. If I don’t do this, the pack council will throw you and our unborn cub out of the pack. I won’t let that happen. This is just for show. Once the alliance is locked in, once the cub is born, everything will be fine. I only want you safe, Elliana. Only you.”

His alpha scent washed through the crack in the door, thick with vanilla and the wild jasmine that clung to Elliana’s skin—my wolf whined, the mate bond burning sharp and painful in my chest. I’d spent five years thinking his distant vanilla scent was just his natural signature, never realizing it was mixed with another’s because he’d been holding her close before I walked in.

I froze. The dress I’d clutched to my chest slipped from my fingers, pooling on the carpet like spilled water. The little carved wooden wolf keychain I carried for good luck, the one I’d made him the first year we met, rolled across the floor and stopped right outside the door.

Every year, on my birthday, he’d given me a silver charm inscribed with “Forever Safe.” I’d always thought it was for me. For Mila.

Elliana’s middle name was Elara. Everyone called her Ellie for short. But when they were alone, he called her Ellie, short for Elara. *Ellie. Safe for Ellie*.

Five years of waiting, five years of dreaming. One night, and the whole dream shattered like glass under a wolf’s paw.

The night before the marking ceremony, I left a note on my desk, left my identification and old wallet where the search parties would find them at the edge of Silver Lake. I walked into the cold water until it closed over my head.

I, Mila Richards, Omega of the Ironpeak Pack, reject you, Roy McDonald, Alpha of the Ironpeak Pack, as my mate.

The bond burned like fire as I sank, the cold seeping into my bones.

Roy, we have no future. This was never ours. For me, it’s always been just a waiting game that could never end.

From now on, we are forever apart.