My Alpha Postponed Our Wedding, So I Changed the Groom

"I'm sorry, Miss Whitlock."

The healer didn't need to say the rest. I had felt it go sometime around dawn, a quiet emptying that my wolf noticed before I did.

"How long?" I asked.

"Since about four this morning. We tried."

"I know you did."

She waited for me to cry. I stared at the IV line in my arm instead and counted the drops.

My crystal sat on the tray. Still no calls from Callum. I didn't call him either. What would I say? *You pushed me, and our baby died while you checked on hers?*

He hadn't even turned around.

I picked up the crystal and called someone else.

"Tamsin. I need a favor."

My best friend answered on the first ring, her voice thick with sleep. "Name it."

"Go to the villa. Pack my things. Clothes, my mother's sewing box, the books in the study. Leave everything he bought me."

A pause. "Sloane, are you okay?"

"No," I said. "But I will be."

---

Three days later, I sat across from my wedding planner, Odette Marsh, with a cup of tea going cold between my hands.

"So the date stays," she said slowly.

"The date stays."

"And the groom?"

"Not your concern."

Odette tapped her pen against her clipboard. "Miss Whitlock, Alpha Blackthorn's office called last week to say the event was postponed. Again."

"Did he call you himself?"

"His assistant did."

"Then he never asked what's booked, did he?" I smiled, and it felt stiff on my face. "Seven years, Odette. I picked the flowers, the music, the cake, the vows. He never once asked which venue."

She set the pen down. "What do you want to keep?"

"The moonflowers. White roses. The open-air ceremony on the terrace under the moon." I swallowed. "It isn't a wedding anymore. It's a rebirth rite. Mine."

Odette studied me for a long moment. Then she nodded. "I'll make it beautiful."

---

The gown shop on Lantern Street smelled like steam and starch. The manager, a sharp-eyed woman named Margot Pell, brought out a silver-white dress with a simple neckline and sleeves like mist.

It fit like it had waited for me.

"Oh, that's lovely on you," Margot said, circling me with pins. "Much simpler than the other one, of course."

I caught her gaze in the mirror. "The other one?"

"The custom piece. Alpha Blackthorn ordered it three months ago. Moon-silver diamonds sewn through the whole train." She lowered her voice like she was sharing a sweet secret. "The price could buy a house on the bay. We all assumed it was a surprise for you."

"What size?"

Margot blinked. She flipped through her ledger, and her smile faded.

"That's odd. It's... quite a bit smaller through the waist. Shorter, too."

Vivienne was half a head shorter than me. She had been since we were girls.

"Miss Whitlock, I'm sure it's an error—"

"Cancel it," I said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Every order with his name on it. Cancel all of them."

Her mouth opened, then closed. "Of course."

I looked at myself in the silver dress and didn't let my chin shake.

---

The terrace filled by sunset. Half the North's high-born wolves came, and every one of them knew the groom wasn't coming.

I heard them before I reached the doors.

"Fifth delay. And she's still going through with it?"

"Poor thing doesn't know when to quit."

"Or she thinks he'll show if she shames him enough."

Someone laughed behind a champagne glass.

I walked in anyway. Moonflowers climbed every column, pale and glowing. The smell of white roses filled the hall. Something still ached under my ribs, a small, sour knot.

But I wasn't watching the door for Callum. Not anymore.

The Moon Bell's attendant raised his mallet.

Then the doors banged open.

"Sloane!"

Vivienne swept in with the pup on her hip and a smile bright as a blade. Every head turned.

"Congratulations, big sister," she sang. "I couldn't miss your special day."

"You weren't invited."

"Don't be like that." She leaned in close, cheek almost touching mine, and her voice dropped to silk. "I just wanted you to know something. Callum told me once that when you lost your first baby, he was relieved. He said he finally didn't have to be chained to you. Or a pup."

The hall went soundless in my head.

My hand moved before my mind did.

Red wine splashed across her face. Then my palm cracked against her cheek so hard my fingers stung.

Vivienne went down like she'd been waiting for it. She curled around the pup on the marble floor and screamed.

"She attacked my baby! Somebody help! She tried to hurt him!"

The pup began to wail.

"Vivienne!"

Callum's voice. He shoved through the crowd, coat flying open, eyes locked on her. He dropped beside her for one second. Then he rose and turned to me.

He didn't ask a single question.

His hand swung.

The slap snapped my head sideways. My body was still weak from the hospital, and my knees gave. I stumbled backward into the champagne tower.

Glass exploded around me.

Shards bit into my arm. Warm blood ran down my wrist and soaked into the silver silk, blooming red across the skirt.

Callum looked down at me like I was something stuck to his shoe.

"You'd do anything to force this wedding, wouldn't you? Even hurt a child?" His voice carried to every corner. "It's over, Sloane. There is no wedding. Guards, get her out."

Two guards stepped forward.

I lifted my eyes to the crowd. Elder Fenwick's wife, whose son I'd nursed through fever. The Corwin twins, whose debts I'd quietly paid. One by one, they looked away.

"Pathetic," someone whispered.

I waited for the shame to burn. It didn't come. Something cold settled into its place, smooth and clean.

I almost smiled.

The first guard reached for my bleeding arm.

The doors slammed open again.

A wave of power rolled through the hall. Heavy. Foreign. Every wolf in the room felt it in their spine. Glasses rattled on the tables. The guard froze with his hand an inch from my skin.

A man in a black suit walked in. Tall. Broad. His silver-gray eyes swept the room once and landed on Callum. They stayed there, flat and cold, until Callum's shoulders tensed.

Then he looked at me.

Rhys Ashford crossed the floor in long strides. Glass crunched under his shoes. He shrugged off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders, covering the blood.

He didn't ask what happened. He just slid his arms under me and lifted me off the floor like I weighed nothing.

"I'm late," he murmured against my hair. "But nobody will ever hurt you again. Not while I'm breathing."

My fingers closed around his shirt. They were shaking.

Rhys turned to face the hall. His voice wasn't loud. It didn't have to be.

"Seven years ago, the Ashford family was driven from the North. My promise to Sloane Whitlock, sealed under the Moon Goddess, was broken by force." His eyes burned silver. "Tonight, I'm here to keep it."

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

Callum took a step forward. "Sloane. Get down. Now."

Rhys didn't stop walking.

I looked back over Rhys's shoulder at the man I'd given seven years to. His hand hung at his side, the silver scar catching the moonlight.

For the first time, his face looked lost.

"Sloane," he said again, quieter.

Then the Moon Bell rang.

Nobody had struck it.