My Alpha Replaced Me Until His Rival Claimed Me

On the last day of my contract, Scarlet Simpson came home.

I heard her before I saw her. Heels clicked on marble. Designer luggage rolled across the floor. Then came a sob, loud enough to reach the second floor of the Ironveil pack house.

"Hudson! I'm back. I came back for you."

I stood at the top of the stairs. For five years I had worn her perfume. I had studied her photos and learned how she tilted her head when she laughed. Now the real Scarlet stood in the foyer, crying into the chest of Alpha Hudson Meyer. He was the leader of the Ironveil Pack, and the man I had been paid to pretend I belonged to.

His hands were shaking. In five years, I had never seen them shake.

An hour later, he called me to his office.

He didn't look up from his desk. "Scarlet is my fated mate. She's home now. You'll move out of the Luna quarters tonight."

"Okay."

"You'll show her proper deference in public. You'll step down from every Luna duty, starting now."

Then he finally looked at me, and he waited. I think he wanted tears. He wanted me to grab his sleeve and beg.

My wolf stirred, deep under the suppressants. I pushed her down one last time.

"Has my final wire transfer cleared?" I asked.

His jaw tightened. "That's all you have to say?"

"That's all I need to know."

***

The banquet that night was for Scarlet. Allies from four packs came. There were crystal glasses, white roses, and a string quartet. Outside, rain hammered the windows.

I walked to the Luna's table out of habit. My name card was still there.

Scarlet saw me and smiled, sweet as syrup.

"Oh, no, no." She waved at two Omegas. "Take her setting away. She can eat with the kitchen staff. That's where she belongs, isn't it?"

The hall went still. Then the murmurs started. Forks paused in the air. Someone from the Redwater Pack laughed, short and ugly.

Hudson said nothing. He sipped his champagne.

I took out my phone. There was one new notification from the bank. St. Jude's Youth Shelter, paid in full. The foster home in Brooklyn that raised me would keep its doors open. The kids would keep their beds.

Five years. Done.

I stood up slowly and walked to the head table. Every eye in the room followed me.

"Alpha Meyer," I said, clear enough for the back of the room to hear. "The final payment has cleared. Our contract is complete."

I took the pack-house keycard from my clutch and held it over his glass.

Then I let go.

*Clink.*

It sank through the bubbles and settled at the bottom. Nobody breathed.

Hudson stared at it. "Daniella—"

I closed my eyes and found the mind-link channel. I had kept it open for five years, and he had never used it once. He didn't use it when I was sick, or on my birthday. Not ever.

I shut it.

It felt like setting down something heavy. I'd carried it so long that I had forgotten it had weight.

I turned and walked out. I walked past Scarlet's open mouth and past the Omegas. Behind me I heard a sound I didn't expect. It was a low, confused whine from Hudson's wolf.

I pushed through the big oak doors and into the rain.

It was cold. It soaked my dress in seconds.

I didn't look back.

And somewhere inside me, for the first time in five years, my wolf lifted her head.

***

I wasn't there for what happened next. But wolves gossip. Logan Vance, Hudson's Beta, was the only one in Ironveil who ever treated me like a person. Later, he told me everything.

On the first day, Hudson laughed it off. "She was a contract Omega," he said. "I'll replace her in a week."

That night, he didn't sleep.

On the second night, the migraines came back. I used to keep them away with lavender and valerian tea. I brewed it by hand and left it on his nightstand every evening. He never knew I was treating him, because I never told him and he never asked.

On the fourth night, Logan found him at three in the morning in the empty Luna quarters. He was sitting on my bed with my pillow pressed against his face.

"He was trying to find your scent," Logan told me quietly. "And he couldn't. He kept saying, 'It smells like Scarlet. Why does it only smell like Scarlet?'"

It was because of her perfume. It had always been her perfume. He had never once smelled me.

Hudson told Logan it was just his body adjusting, nothing more. Then he went back to his whiskey.

***

By the end of that week, the news reached Ironveil.

Daniella Hart had crossed into Silverfang territory. Alpha Reese Carter had personally named her his Beta-ranked strategist. He was the most dangerous Alpha in the region, and Ironveil's oldest rival.

And I knew every Ironveil patrol route. I knew every weak point on the eastern border. I knew every private letter Hudson had sent his allies, because I had written half of them.

At the council table, Hudson sneered. "She's no threat. She's nobody."

But Logan reported what Hudson didn't want to hear. The border patrols were nervous. The warriors were whispering. Morale had dropped hard.

And Hudson Meyer, Alpha of Ironveil, still couldn't sleep.