My Alpha Let Me Die in Labor for His First Love

The months blurred together in a haze of bitter observation, each day revealing new layers of betrayal that cut deeper than the last. I watched Brandon transform from grieving widower to devoted lover with sickening ease, his public mourning nothing more than theater while his private life bloomed with stolen happiness.

But it was on a rain-soaked evening in late autumn that I discovered the most horrifying truth of all.

I had followed them to Ashley's penthouse, drawn by the same invisible thread that kept me tethered to their lies. They sat curled together on the Italian leather sofa I'd helped Brandon choose for our anniversary, sharing a bottle of wine that cost more than most pack members made in a month.

"I still can't believe how perfectly everything worked out," Ashley murmured, her fingers tracing lazy circles on Brandon's chest. "It's like the universe conspired to bring us together."

Brandon's hand stilled in her hair. "What do you mean?"

"That night at the hospital," she said, her voice soft with memory. "When I called you about the spotting. I was so scared, but having you there made everything better."

"Of course I came," Brandon replied, but there was something careful in his tone. "You needed me."

Ashley lifted her head to look at him, her blue eyes shimmering in the lamplight. "I know this sounds terrible, but... do you remember when we saw that ambulance on the way there? The one that was racing down the mountain?"

My spectral form went rigid. The temperature in the room seemed to drop, though neither of them noticed.

"Vaguely," Brandon said, but his voice had gone flat.

"I saw it coming up behind us in the mirror," Ashley continued, her tone almost dreamy. "All those flashing lights, that awful siren. And I just... I couldn't bear the thought of you being distracted by someone else's emergency when I needed you so desperately."

The wine glass in Brandon's hand trembled slightly. "Ashley—"

"So I asked you not to let it pass," she whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his jaw. "I told you I was scared, that I needed you to focus only on me. And you did. You chose me over whatever stranger was in that ambulance."

The admission hung in the air like poison. Brandon set down his wine with deliberate care, his movements too controlled, too precise.

"You knew," he said quietly. "You knew it was an ambulance, and you asked me to block it anyway."

Ashley's laugh was light, musical. "I was terrified, Brandon. Pregnant women aren't exactly rational. And it worked out fine, didn't it? We got to the hospital safely, the baby was okay, and we had that beautiful night together."

"Someone could have died," Brandon said, but his voice lacked conviction.

"But they didn't," Ashley replied, though we both knew she was wrong. "Or if they did, it wasn't our fault. We had our own emergency to deal with."

Brandon was quiet for a long moment, and I watched the war play out across his features. Guilt battled with desire, responsibility with selfishness. When Ashley's tears began to fall—those perfectly timed, crystalline drops that had manipulated him from the beginning—the battle was over.

"You're right," he murmured, pulling her close. "We couldn't have known. And you needed me."

"I still need you," she whispered against his neck. "More than ever."

I wanted to scream, to tear the room apart with the force of my rage. They knew. They both knew they had condemned me and my child to death, and they were choosing to live with it. Choosing to build their happiness on the foundation of my grave.

But my fury was nothing compared to what came next.

The months that followed brought a cascade of consequences that even I, in my ghostly omnipresence, hadn't foreseen. Brandon's devotion to Ashley had made him careless with pack finances. Late nights spent in her bed meant early morning meetings missed. Important decisions deferred while he played house with his mistress and her bastard child.

The pack elders began to notice. Whispers followed Brandon through the halls of Vanderbilt Industries. Questions were asked about missing funds, about the Luna's inheritance being funneled into mysterious accounts, about the Alpha's priorities.

It all came crashing down on a Wednesday in December.

I was hovering in Brandon's office when the door burst open without ceremony. Richard Vanderbilt, Brandon's grandfather and the pack's most feared elder, strode in with the bearing of a man who'd built an empire through blood and cunning.

"Explain this," Richard snarled, throwing a manila folder onto Brandon's desk. Financial records spilled across the mahogany surface—bank statements, wire transfers, receipts that painted a picture of systematic embezzlement.

"Grandfather, I can explain—"

"Two million dollars," Richard continued, his voice deadly quiet. "Two million dollars of pack money, funneled through your dead wife's accounts into God knows where. Money meant for pack development, for the hospital expansion, for the scholarship fund Cynthia established."

Brandon's face went white. "It was temporary. I was going to pay it back—"

"With what?" Richard's laugh was sharp as broken glass. "Your salary? Your trust fund that you've already blown through? Or were you planning to steal more?"

"I wasn't stealing," Brandon protested, but his voice cracked like a teenager's. "Ashley needed help. Her medical bills, the baby's expenses—"

"Ashley Morrison," Richard said the name like a curse. "The Delta whore who's been bleeding you dry while you dishonor your mate's memory."

Brandon shot to his feet, his Alpha dominance flaring. "Don't you dare—"

"Sit down," Richard commanded, and the sheer force of his authority sent Brandon crashing back into his chair. "You pathetic excuse for an Alpha. You think I don't know about your little love nest? About the bastard child you're claiming as your heir?"

The folder hit Brandon in the chest, scattering more papers. DNA test results. Paternity reports. Medical records that proved what I'd known all along—James Morrison belonged to Marcus, not Brandon.

"She played you for a fool," Richard continued mercilessly. "And you let her. You betrayed your pack, your family, your dead wife's memory, all for a woman who's been laughing at you behind your back."

Brandon's hands shook as he stared at the evidence of his stupidity. "No. No, she loves me. She chose me—"

"She chose your bank account," Richard corrected. "And now that it's empty, how long do you think her love will last?"

As if summoned by the words, Brandon's phone buzzed. A text from Ashley: "Marcus found out about the apartment. He's coming for me. I need money to disappear. Wire $500K to the account I gave you. Please, Brandon. If you love me, you'll save me."

The phone slipped from Brandon's nerveless fingers. Richard picked it up, read the message, and smiled with cold satisfaction.

"She's already running," he said. "Probably cleaned out whatever accounts you gave her access to. Tell me, grandson, how does it feel to be discarded like garbage?"

Brandon crumpled forward, his head in his hands. The great Alpha, the man who'd killed his mate and child for a fantasy, reduced to a sobbing mess in his grandfather's office.

"You're finished," Richard declared. "The pack council will meet tonight to strip you of your title. The Vanderbilt name will survive, but you won't be part of it."

That night, as Brandon stumbled through the rain-soaked streets—cast out, broken, with nowhere to go—I felt something shift in the fabric of reality itself. My rage, my pain, my desperate need for justice had been building like a storm, and now it crackled through the air around me.

That's when I saw him.

The figure materialized from the shadows like smoke given form—an old man in tattered robes, his eyes ancient and knowing. Power radiated from him in waves, the kind of primal magic that predated packs and territories.

"Cynthia Vanderbilt," he said, and his voice carried the weight of centuries. "Your pain calls to me across the veil."

"Who are you?" I whispered, though I somehow already knew.

"A wanderer. A keeper of old bargains. A granter of impossible wishes." He smiled, revealing teeth like yellowed ivory. "You have suffered a great injustice, child. Your death was not natural, not fated. It was murder, dressed up as accident."

"I know," I said, my voice breaking. "I've watched them celebrate while my child lies cold in the ground."

"And now the one who wronged you suffers as you suffered," the witch doctor continued. "Cast out, betrayed, left to crawl through the gutter like the worm he is. The scales are beginning to balance."

I looked down at Brandon, who was pulling himself along the alley on his hands and knees, his legs too damaged from Marcus's beating to carry him. He looked like a broken animal, pathetic and small.

"It's not enough," I said fiercely. "Him suffering in this timeline doesn't undo what he did to me. Doesn't bring back my child."

The witch doctor nodded slowly. "No. But there is another way. A chance to return, to reclaim what was stolen from you. To ensure justice is served by your own hand."

My spectral heart pounded with sudden hope. "What do you mean?"

"I can send you back," he said simply. "To the moment before the crash. Give you the chance to survive, to live, to make different choices. But the price is steep."

"Name it."

"You will remember everything. Every betrayal, every moment of pain, every truth you've learned in death. You will carry that knowledge like a blade in your heart, and you will use it to cut away the lies that bound you. The mate bond that once seemed sacred—you must sever it yourself. No mercy, no second chances."

I thought of my child, of the life that had been stolen from us both. Of the years I'd wasted loving a man who'd never deserved it. Of the justice that could only come from my own hands.

"I accept," I said without hesitation.

The witch doctor smiled, and the air around us began to shimmer with otherworldly light. "Then go, Cynthia Vanderbilt. Return to the land of the living. Take back what is yours, and show them the true meaning of a Luna's wrath."

The light engulfed me, brilliant and searing, and I felt myself being pulled backward through time and space.

Deep inside, I swore to myself, this time, things would be different.

This time, I would make those who made me suffer pay.