My Alpha Planned Pups with Her in Our Bedroom

The flight cancellation board at the airport flickered with a depressing shade of red—'CANCELLED DUE TO ROGUE ACTIVITY.'

I sighed, adjusting the strap of my laptop bag on my shoulder. The European Lycan Council meeting would have to wait. As a Beta, and one of the most sought-after architects on the continent, I was used to plans changing. But this time, the disruption felt like a gift from the Moon Goddess herself.

It meant I could go home early.

I drove my sleek black SUV toward the Silver River Pack lands, a small smile playing on my lips. My mate, Alpha Tate Snyder, didn't know I was coming. We had been pouring everything into the new Pack House extension. It was my design, my funding, and—most importantly—our future home. I imagined Tate’s face lighting up when I walked in a day early, maybe catching him reviewing the blueprints for the solar roofing I’d insisted on.

I parked the car a half-mile down the road to keep the surprise intact and shifted my approach, walking through the dense treeline. The air was crisp, smelling of pine and damp earth. It was a good day to be home.

But as I neared the construction site of the East Wing—the wing specifically designed to be the Alpha and Luna’s private quarters—my smile faltered.

Something was wrong.

From the outside, the structure looked fine. My clean, modern lines were there. But piled near the entrance were stacks of materials that definitely weren’t on my manifest. I saw rolls of velvet. Crates of what looked like faux-gold trim. And the smell… instead of the clean scent of treated cedar and fresh concrete, the air reeked of cheap perfume and something musky.

I stepped through the open framing of the side entrance, my boots silent on the subfloor. My heart gave a strange, uneven thud.

"What in the name of the Goddess…" I whispered.

The main hallway, which I had designed to be an airy, minimalist gallery with floor-to-ceiling windows to let in the moonlight, was unrecognizable. The walls, which were supposed to be a calming slate grey, had been slapped with a coat of aggressive, garish crimson paint. It looked less like a home and more like the inside of a cheap heart.

I reached out and touched a roll of carpet leaning against the wall. It wasn't the high-traffic, sustainable wool blend I had ordered from Italy. It was synthetic shag. Deep, tacky red shag.

My stomach churned. Tate knew my style. He knew I hated clutter, hated excess. Why would he approve this? I had signed the checks for the marble and the glass. Where were they?

I moved deeper into the house, my Beta instincts flaring. The silence of the construction site was heavy. It was late afternoon, and the crew should have been wrapping up, yet the place was empty. Empty, except for voices drifting from the master suite at the end of the hall.

The double doors to the master bedroom were closed, but the intercom panel on the wall next to me was lit up. The little green light blinked rhythmically. Someone had left the internal comms open on the 'All House' setting.

I froze as a high-pitched, breathy giggle crackled through the speaker.

"Oh, Tate, stop it! The paint isn't even dry yet!" a woman’s voice squealed. It wasn't a voice I recognized from the pack leadership. It sounded young, needy.

Then, I heard him. My mate.

"Let it dry," Tate’s voice came through, low and thick with a tone I rarely heard directed at me. It was his Alpha command voice, but twisted into something lustful. "I don't care about the paint. I care about breaking this room in properly."

I felt the blood drain from my face. I stood paralyzed in the hallway, staring at the speaker as if it were a venomous snake.

"But what about her?" the woman asked, her voice dropping to a mock whisper that the microphone picked up perfectly. "What if the 'Architect' comes back and sees we turned her boring grey box into a proper love nest?"

I gripped the doorframe so hard my knuckles turned white. The Architect. That’s what they called me.

"Eileen?" Tate scoffed, the sound like a physical slap. "She's in Europe boring the Council to death with talk of zoning laws. She won't be back for days. Besides, she doesn't understand what a real Alpha needs."

"And what does a real Alpha need?" the woman purred.

"A place to breed," Tate growled. "Not a museum. I’m turning this suite into a den for us, Maddison. For marking you. For raising our pups."

The world tilted on its axis. Pups.

I looked around the hallway again. The red paint suddenly looked like blood. The cheap velvet, the tacky gold—it wasn't just bad taste. It was a replacement. He was erasing me. He was taking my money, my design, my territory, and building a shrine to his infidelity.

"Our pups," the woman—Maddison—cooed. "I like the sound of that. Much better than her cold, empty designs. She’s so… stiff."

"She's useful," Tate corrected her, and that single word hurt more than the cheating. "Her bank account built this roof over our heads, sweetheart. Let her have her drawings. You get the Alpha."

A cold, icy calm settled over me. It was the same feeling I got right before a difficult negotiation, or when a structural beam snapped on a site. Panic was for Omegas. Rage was for Alphas. I was a Beta. I was the one who fixed things, or in this case, the one who condemned them.

I didn't storm in. I didn't scream. I simply reached into my bag and pulled out my phone, hitting the record button on the voice memo app to capture the intercom feed. Evidence first. Emotion later.

"Just wait until I get that chandelier up," Maddison giggled through the speaker. "The iron one with the shackles."

"Whatever you want," Tate groaned. "It's all yours."

I stopped the recording and slipped the phone back into my pocket. My hands weren't shaking anymore. I looked at the red walls one last time. They thought they were building a love nest on my dime.

I straightened my blazer, smoothed my hair, and stepped toward the door. They were about to find out that when you mess with the architect, the whole house comes down.