My Alpha Rejected Me So He Could Crown His Mistress

Dawn brought no mercy, only an iron bucket kicked hard against my basement door.

Raven didn’t waste a single minute exercising her new authority. By six in the morning, she had me on my knees in her private suite, scrubbing red wine stains out of the floorboards while she lounged across the silk bedsheets in a velvet robe.

"Scrub harder, Omega," Raven drawled, admiring her fresh French manicure. "And when you're done, take my mink wraps to the washhouse. They need to be hand-washed with lavender water. If you snag the lining, I'll have Tristan take five lashes off your back."

I didn’t answer. I kept my eyes down and my rag moving in steady, even circles.

At noon, they sent me to the warriors' mess hall to clear plates. These were the same men whose severed arteries I had clamped shut with my bare hands, the same soldiers whose shattered ribs I had healed until my own skin turned gray from exhaustion. Now, they wouldn't meet my gaze. Some stared down at their boots; others shoveled food into their mouths, pretending I was invisible.

Tristan's mother, Evelyn, sat at the head of the elders' table, perfumed in sour lavender and clutching her pearl necklace.

"It’s about time things were set right," Evelyn announced loudly, her sharp voice carrying across the silent hall. "A wolfless nobody never belonged beside my son. She was always just charity. At least Raven comes from good breeding."

I picked up an empty soup bowl, my hands completely steady. I didn’t flinch, and I didn’t argue. Instead, I cataloged everything.

I noted the blind spots in the back hallways. I counted the minutes between enforcer patrols—four minutes on the eastern wing, six near the kitchen stairs. I memorized which guards looked uneasy, which ones took bribes, and exactly where the iron-reinforced door to Tristan’s study sat on the second floor. They thought they were humiliating me. In reality, they were giving me the keys to the entire house.

By mid-afternoon, I was assigned to wax the second-floor corridor. The floor was cold beneath my worn knees. I pushed the soapy sponge along the baseboards, moving quietly toward the Alpha's office.

The heavy mahogany door was shut, but the ancient transom window above it was cracked open an inch.

"The extraction logs are finalized, Alpha," Gamma Grant Mercer’s harsh voice drifted out into the hall.

I froze, keeping my sponge flat against the wood.

"Did you account for the autumn distribution?" Tristan asked. His voice was muffled, backed by the rustle of heavy parchment.

"Every drop," Grant replied. "Over seven years, we siphoned nearly ninety liters of pure healer bloodline. Divided between twenty frontline fighters. It's the only reason our northern border held through the winter raids."

My breath caught in my throat. Ninety liters.

"We need to destroy the early records," Tristan muttered, his tone cold and detached. "My father paid a fortune to orchestrate that border skirmish twenty-two years ago. He made sure the infant landed directly in Leland’s lap. If anyone discovers Ironridge deliberately planted a high-blood healer just to farm her, the Lycan Council will hang us from the ridge."

A chill went straight through my spine. My fingers dug into the soapy water until my knuckles went white.

It wasn't just Tristan. It was his father before him. My entire existence in Ironridge hadn't been an accident of fate. It was a calculated harvest, designed before I could even walk. They had placed me here like livestock, waiting for my blood to mature.

I committed every number, every phrase, and every name Grant listed to memory. Then I quietly gathered my bucket and slipped down the stairwell before the study door could click open.

That evening, locked inside my windowless concrete room, I pulled my leather-bound registry from beneath the floorboard.

I lit a stub of a candle and began cross-referencing my notes against the dates Grant had mentioned. The pieces clicked into place with horrifying precision. Every time Tristan had claimed a warrior suffered an "accidental training injury," he had brought the man to my private clinic, begging me to transfer my energy into their veins to save them. It had never been an accident. They were deliberate blood draws.

I opened the back cover and began writing in the tight, numerical cipher I had invented years ago. Name. Date. Estimated volume of stolen vitality. A ledger of theft.

A light tapping sounded against the iron grate near the ceiling.

A tiny scrap of paper fell through the bars and fluttered to my cot. It was from Tessa.

*Nora,* the messy pencil scrawl read. *Your father has been at the front gates since dawn. He's been demanding an audience with Tristan for three days straight. Tristan ordered the perimeter guards to turn him away at gunpoint. Leland won't leave.*

Dread knotted tight in my stomach. Leland knew the truth. He had guarded me for twenty-two years, and now he was walking straight into the jaws of a cornered Alpha.

Before I could process the terror rising in my throat, the heavy iron bolt on my door slid back.

"Up, Omega," a guard barked, kicking the door open. "Luna Raven wants the perimeter refuse hauled past the northern fence. Now."

It was a deliberate trap—the northern fence bordered the rogue wilderness, unprotected by pack wards and dangerous after dark.

I hauled the heavy metal bins out into the biting wind, the jagged gravel cutting through the thin soles of my shoes. The forest smelled of damp pine, rotting leaves, and the sharp, toxic tang of wolfsbane.

A faint, strangled whimper broke through the rustling pines.

I set the bin down and stepped toward the tree line. Trapped in a tangle of rusted, wolfsbane-dipped barbed wire was a large animal.

It was a half-feral wolf-dog hybrid. His thick brindle coat was matted with dried mud and blood, his ribs jutting sharply beneath his skin, and one of his ears was torn in half from an old trap. The barbed wire was cinched deep into his foreleg, black veins pulsing around the poisoned metal.

He saw me and bared his teeth, letting out a weak, rattling snarl.

"Easy," I whispered, sinking to my knees in the dirt. "I'm not going to hurt you."

He growled, but his yellow eyes were cloudy with agony. He couldn't stand.

I reached out bare hands, ignoring the sting of the rusted wire. Deep behind my ribs, that strange silver ember flickered. I didn't have much strength left—Tristan had drained me for years—but I gathered every scrap of warmth in my blood and pressed my palms against the dog's torn shoulder.

A faint, cool light shimmered beneath my skin. The black wolfsbane venom stopped spreading, neutralized by the frost in my veins.

The animal exhaled a long, shuddering breath. His head slumped against my forearm, his aggressive snarl softening into a faint, exhausted whine. Using a sharp stone, I pried the rusted barb from his flesh until he was free.

"You can run now," I murmured, my vision swimming from the exertion. "Go into the woods. It's safer there."

I turned back toward the pack house, dragging the empty bins. But when I reached the rear entrance, soft, rhythmic pads followed right behind me.

The wolf-dog was limping at my heel.

He didn't run. When I walked down into the dark basement quarters, he followed me inside, walked straight to my cot, and dropped his heavy, scarred head across the threshold.

Ten minutes later, Vance walked down the hall, his baton swinging at his hip.

The hybrid sprang up instantly, his lips peeling back over white fangs, a terrifying, chest-deep roar vibrating through the narrow stone corridor.

Vance leaped back, his hand flying to his holster. "What the hell is that mongrel doing down here?!"

"He's guarding my door," I said quietly from the edge of the cot.

Vance stared at the feral beast, then cursed under his breath and backed down the hall, leaving us in peace.

The dog turned around, nudged my knee with his cold nose, and curled tightly across the doorway. For the first time in seven years, I wasn't entirely alone.

I laid my hand on his rough fur. "Milo," I whispered.

Beneath my ribs, the silver ember pulsed again—clearer, colder, and utterly awake.