My Alpha Forced Me to Take My Sister’s Crime

The mud was slick under my boots, sending me sliding toward the precipice. Behind me, the growls of the Rogues grew louder, a chorus of hunger and violence that vibrated in my chest. Below, the river roared, a churning maw of white foam and black water smashing against the jagged rocks.

I was trapped.

“Nowhere left to run, little Luna,” the leader sneered, his human form shifting, bones cracking and reshaping into a massive, grey wolf.

Panic clawed at my throat, but beneath it lay a desperate, foolish hope. Nicholas was my mate. Even now, even after the betrayal, the exile, and the poison coursing through my veins, the bond still existed. A mate could not ignore the cry of a dying soul. It was primal. It was absolute.

I closed my eyes and screamed into the mental void.

*Nicholas! Please! They’re going to kill me! Help me!*

The connection opened for a split second. I didn't feel concern or fear from his end. Instead, I was hit with a wave of heat and the sickeningly sweet scent of vanilla. Through the link, I heard a soft giggle, followed by the low, rumbling purr of my husband.

*“Nick, stop, you’re tickling me,”* Jessica’s voice echoed in my mind, clear as crystal.

*“Shh,”* Nicholas murmured, his voice thick with lust. *“Let me mark what is mine.”*

My plea hit him then. I felt him stiffen. For a heartbeat, I thought he would roar in anger, that he would come for me. Instead, a wall of pure ice slammed down.

*“Get out of my head, Olive,”* he snarled, his mental voice dripping with disgust. *“Do not interrupt me again.”*

**SNAP.**

The link went dead. He didn't just ignore me; he blocked me. He severed the emergency line to his mate to continue courting my sister.

The pain was worse than the wolfsbane burning in my blood. It was a physical blow that buckled my knees. My soul shattered. The last tether keeping me to this life, to the hope that I was worth something, dissolved into mist.

The Rogue leader lunged.

I didn't think. I just reacted. With a scream that tore my throat raw, I forced the shift. My bones broke and realigned, agony spiking through my poisoned body. My wolf was weak, emaciated, her fur dull and patchy, but she was still a wolf.

As the Rogue’s jaws snapped at where my neck had been a second before, I pushed off the muddy bank.

I soared into the empty air.

For a moment, I was weightless, suspended in the grey rain. Then, gravity took hold. The wind rushed past my ears, silencing the Rogues' howls. I hit the water with the force of a car crash.

Cold. crushing, suffocating cold.

The current seized me instantly, dragging me under. I tumbled over rocks, feeling ribs crack, air squeezed from my lungs. Darkness swarmed the edges of my vision. I didn't fight it. Why would I? My mate wanted me dead. My pack wanted me gone.

I let the river take me.

***

Pain was the first thing to return. A dull, throbbing ache that pulsed in time with a slow heartbeat.

I wasn't dead.

I tried to move, but my limbs felt like lead. I was lying on something wet and gritty. Mud. The smell of industrial oil and stale river water filled my nose, mixed with the faint scent of… croissants? It was strange, foreign.

I whimpered, the sound barely audible. I was still in my wolf form, though I felt small, broken.

“*Attendez!* Over here!” A voice shouted. It wasn't the rough growl of a Rogue. It was sharp, authoritative.

Footsteps squelched in the mud. Heavy boots. I cracked one eye open. The world was blurry, grey and muted. A figure loomed over me, dressed in a dark uniform with a crest I didn't recognize—a silver fleur-de-lis entangled with a wolf’s head.

“It is a wolf,” the man said, switching to English with a thick accent. He crouched, his hand hovering over his weapon. “A Rogue. She washed up from the river.”

“Is it alive?” another voice asked.

“Barely. Look at the scarring. And the smell… wolfsbane.” The first man, the Captain, wrinkled his nose. “Protocol says we execute unauthorized border crossers. Especially Rogues.”

He drew his sidearm. The metallic click of the safety being disengaged echoed loudly in the quiet morning.

I closed my eye. *Do it,* I thought. *End it.*

But the shot never came.

A low, vibrating power suddenly washed over the riverbank. It was immense, heavier than any Alpha aura I had ever felt. It tasted like ozone and ancient earth, terrifying yet strangely… warm.

“Stand down, Captain.”

The voice was deep, smooth like velvet wrapped around steel. It commanded instant obedience.

“Your Highness,” the Captain stammered, the sound of boots shuffling and heels clicking together following immediately. “We found a stray. We were just handling the disposal.”

“Disposal?” The deep voice moved closer.

I felt a presence kneel beside me. Unlike Nicholas’s aura, which had always felt like a weight crushing me down, this power felt like a shield. It wrapped around my shivering form, pushing back the cold.

A large, warm hand touched my matted fur.

Electricity—pure, golden sparks—shot through me at the contact. My wolf, who had been comatose since the poison, stirred feebly in the back of my mind.

*Safe,* she whispered. *Mate?*

“Look at her eyes, Ryder,” the man murmured. His voice was laced with a sudden, fierce intensity that made the air crackle. “This is no ordinary Rogue.”

He scooped his arms under me. I was filthy, covered in river slime and blood, yet he lifted me against his chest as if I were made of porcelain.

“Sir? The dungeon?” the Captain asked uncertainly.

“No,” the man growled, the sound vibrating through his chest and into my broken ribs. “Take her to my estate. Prepare the healers. If she dies, Ryder, you answer to me.”

I let my head fall against his shoulder, the scent of cedar and rain filling my lungs, drowning out the memory of vanilla. For the first time in five years, the darkness didn't feel lonely.