My Alpha Forced Me to Take My Sister’s Crime

The Silver Cage wasn't just a prison; it was a tomb designed for the living. The bars were coated in pure silver, singing a song of agony that vibrated against my skin, suppressing my wolf until she was nothing but a faint, whimpering shadow in the back of my mind.

For two weeks, I rotted in the damp darkness. The interrogations were a blur of shouting and accusations, but the silence between them was worse. It gave me time to think. Time to remember the look in Nicholas’s eyes when he commanded me to destroy my own life.

On the fourteenth night, the heavy iron door creaked open. I didn't look up from the dirty straw mattress. I expected the guards with their buckets of cold water. Instead, the clacking of high heels echoed against the stone floor.

“You look terrible, Ollie,” a voice cooed. “Like a rat caught in a trap.”

I lifted my head. Jessica stood on the other side of the silver bars, pristine in a white cashmere coat that cost more than the annual budget for the pack orphanage. She held a small glass vial in her gloved hand, swirling the purple liquid inside.

“What do you want, Jessica?” My voice was a rasp, my throat raw from screaming.

“Just checking on my big sister,” she smiled, a cruel twisting of lips that looked so much like mine. “And to deliver your medicine.”

She uncorked the vial. The acrid scent of wolfsbane hit me instantly, making my stomach heave. Before I could scramble back, she flicked her wrist, splashing the liquid through the bars. It landed on my bare arm, right over a healing cut from the guards.

I screamed.

It felt like acid. Smoke rose from my flesh as the poison ate into the wound, turning the blood black.

“Oops,” Jessica giggled, watching me writhe on the floor. “You were never meant to be Luna, Olive. You’re weak. And now, you’re nothing.”

Inside me, my wolf let out one final, agonized howl before fading into a terrifying silence. The wolfsbane was doing its job. It was severing my connection to her, forcing her into a coma from which she might never wake.

***

The next morning, the guards dragged me out. I couldn't walk; the poison had settled in my joints, making every movement agony. They hauled me into the daylight of the courtyard, throwing me to the gravel at Nicholas’s feet.

He refused to look at me. He stared at the horizon, his jaw set in a hard line. Beta Marcus stood beside him, looking between me and the Alpha with open conflict on his face.

“Alpha,” Marcus said, his voice low. “This… this is too much. She confessed, yes, but to execute a Luna? The pack is uneasy. The omens are bad.”

“She is not Luna,” Nicholas said. His voice was devoid of warmth, stripped of the bond that used to hum between us. “She is a traitor.”

“Then imprisonment,” Marcus argued. “Life in the tower. But exile? In her condition? It’s a death sentence anyway.”

Nicholas finally looked down. For a split second, I saw a flicker of pain in his hazel eyes, a crack in the Alpha mask. He knew I was innocent. He knew he was sending his mate to die to protect the woman who had actually betrayed us.

But the weakness vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“My decision stands,” Nicholas declared, his voice booming across the courtyard so the gathered wolves could hear. “Olive Bennett is stripped of all rank and title. She is hereby exiled from the Blood Moon Pack. If she is found on our lands after sunset, she will be hunted down like any other Rogue.”

He turned his back on me. “Get her out of my sight.”

***

The drive to the border was silent. The guards, men I had once cooked for, men whose children I had held, wouldn't meet my eyes. They stopped the jeep at the edge of the territory, where the dense forest gave way to the jagged cliffs of the Raging River.

“Get out,” the head guard grunted.

I stumbled out of the car, my legs shaking. The rain had started, a cold drizzle that soaked through my tattered dress. I watched the taillights of the jeep fade into the mist, leaving me alone in the grey twilight.

I was a Rogue. Nameless. Packless. Mate-less.

I took a step toward the shelter of the trees, shivering. I needed to find cover before nightfall. But as I reached the tree line, a twig snapped.

I froze. My wolf was dormant, unable to warn me, but my human instincts screamed danger.

Five wolves emerged from the shadows. They weren't patrol wolves. They were mangy, scarred, their eyes yellow with madness. Rogues. But they didn't look surprised to see me. They looked… expectant.

“Well, well,” the largest one sneered, shifting back into human form. He was a hulking man with rotting teeth. “The little Luna. Right on time.”

I backed away, my boots slipping on the wet mud. “I have nothing of value. Take my coat, take whatever you want.”

The man laughed, pulling a jagged knife from his belt. “We don’t want your coat, sweetheart. The pretty blonde one paid us upfront. Said she wanted to make sure you didn't survive the night.”

Jessica.

Adrenaline flooded my system, momentarily dulling the pain of the wolfsbane. I turned and ran.

I sprinted toward the cliffs, my breath tearing at my lungs. Behind me, the sound of paws hitting the earth thundered closer. I could hear their snaps and snarls, the wet sound of jaws anticipating flesh.

I burst through the brush and skidded to a halt.

The world ended here.

Before me was a sheer drop, hundreds of feet down to the churning, white-capped water of the Raging River. Behind me, the Rogues burst from the trees, circling me, cutting off any escape.

I was trapped between a watery grave and a violent death. I looked at the leader, who was licking his lips, and then at the abyss below.

If I was going to die, it would be on my own terms.