My Alpha Replaced Me Until His Rival Claimed Me

Reese insisted on driving me to Brooklyn himself.

"You have a whole pack to run," I said.

"And you have forty boxes of winter coats." He lifted two at once and slid them into the truck bed. "Get in, strategist."

The drive took three hours. I spent most of it looking out the window. I hadn't been back to St. Jude's since I left Ironveil. For five years, Hudson's rules said I couldn't visit in person. Someone might see the fake Luna walking into a run-down foster home and ask questions. So I sent money. I sent letters. I never came home.

The building looked smaller than I remembered. It was red brick and the paint on the door was peeling. One window on the third floor was still cracked, taped over with cardboard.

My hands were cold on the door handle.

"Hey." Reese's voice was low. "You okay?"

"Fine."

He didn't push. He just picked up the first box and waited for me to go first.

The second I stepped inside, I heard a scream.

"DANI!"

Then there were kids everywhere. A little boy grabbed my leg. Two girls in matching braids hugged my waist. A teenager I barely recognized tried to look cool and failed, grinning wide.

"Is that really you?"

"You smell different!"

"You smell *good*. Like the garden."

I laughed. It came out of me like water out of a broken pipe. I didn't even try to stop it. I knelt on the scuffed floor and let them pile on.

Mrs. Ortiz shuffled in from the kitchen with flour on her apron. She was eighty now, and still the strongest hugger I knew. Old Mr. Bell came down the stairs on his cane and pinched my cheek like I was six.

Then Clara Evans came out of her office.

She was the woman who raised me. Her hair had gone fully gray. She walked up slowly and cupped my face in both her hands. Her palms were warm and dry, just like always.

She looked at me for a long time.

"There you are," she whispered. "You look like yourself again. I haven't seen you in years, baby."

My throat locked up. I couldn't answer. I just nodded into her hands.

Behind me, I heard a thump. The little boy had climbed Reese like a tree. Reese, Alpha of Silverfang, stood perfectly still with a five-year-old hanging off his neck.

"He's very big," the boy announced.

"He is," Clara agreed, eyeing him. Then she looked at me. One eyebrow went up.

"He's my boss," I said quickly.

"Mm-hm."

***

We carried the boxes into the sorting office. It was a tiny room at the back, stuffed with shelves and bags of old clothes. It smelled like cardboard and dust and laundry soap.

Clara sighed as she sat down. "The coats will help. The boiler is another story. And the city sent another letter about the building code." She waved her hand. "Don't worry about it. You've done enough."

I frowned. I *would* worry about it. I always did.

I bent over a box, pulling out jackets and checking sizes. Behind me, Reese was quiet. Too quiet.

"Reese? Can you hand me the tape?"

No answer.

I turned around.

He was standing in front of the old corkboard on the wall. It was covered in drawings, thank-you notes, and photos from thirty years of kids. He was holding one Polaroid in his fingers. It was faded and curled at the edges.

His hands had gone completely still.

I knew that photo. I had forgotten it was there.

It was me at ten years old, knees in the snow, chin up, glaring at the camera like I'd fight it. Beside me sat a small boy wrapped in a thin blue blanket. He was shaking so hard the picture was blurry around him. A stuffed brown bear was tucked under his arm.

Underneath, in Clara's neat handwriting: *Dani & the boy she found. Winter, Brooklyn.*

"Reese?"

He made a sound. It wasn't a word. His shoulders curled forward, like something had hit him in the chest. His eyes flashed gold, then stayed gold.

I felt it before I understood it. His wolf was pushing so hard the air in the room got heavy.

And I remembered.

The alley behind the bakery. The snow coming down sideways. A boy curled behind a dumpster, barefoot, with blood on his wrists where ropes had been. He was too scared to speak. I gave him half my peanut butter sandwich. Then the other half. I gave him Mister Buttons, my only bear, because he wouldn't stop shaking. I walked him six blocks to the police station and never learned his name.

I looked at the Alpha in front of me. Six-foot-four. Black hair. Gold eyes.

No.

It couldn't be.

Reese crossed the room in two steps. He dropped the photo on the table and took my face in his hands. His fingers were shaking. He pressed his forehead against mine.

"It was you," he breathed. His voice cracked. "The alley. The sandwich. The bear." He drew a ragged breath. "It was always you."

Then it hit me.

It wasn't a spark. It was fire. It roared up from somewhere under my ribs and poured through every vein. It was bright and hot and it wasn't stopping. The smell of him filled my head, pine and snow and something older, something I had known in the dark when I was ten.

Inside me, my wolf threw back her head and howled.

And inside him, his wolf howled back.

Together. The same note. Like they had been waiting twenty years to sing it.

My knees went weak. Reese held me up. His thumbs brushed my cheeks, and that was when I realized they were wet.

I was crying.

Five years. I hadn't cried once. Not when Hudson forgot my birthday. Not when Scarlet sent me to the kitchen. Not when I walked into the rain.

Now I couldn't stop.

"I kept him," Reese whispered against my forehead. "The bear. I still have him, Dani."

I clutched the front of his shirt with both fists.

This was supposed to be fake. A deal. Strategy.

But the bond between us was burning so bright I could almost see it. And there was no rule, no contract, no law of any pack that could put that fire out.