My Alpha Sold Me to His Enemy

The words kept replaying in my mind, each repetition driving the knife deeper.

"Fifty thousand upfront, the rest when you deliver her."

"She's wolfless, Vance. She won't fight back. And no one will miss her."

My cleaning supplies slipped from my burned hands and clattered against the floor.

The conversation inside Cole's office stopped abruptly. Footsteps approached the door. I should have run—every instinct screamed at me to flee—but my legs had turned to stone.

The door swung open fully, and Cole stood there, his expression shifting from surprise to cold calculation in the span of a heartbeat. Behind him, I caught a glimpse of Alpha Vance—older, rough-featured, with eyes that made my skin crawl.

"Serena." Cole's voice was flat. "How long have you been standing there?"

The truth burned in my throat like acid. "Long enough."

Something dangerous flickered across his face. "Then you know this doesn't concern you. Go back to your quarters."

"Doesn't concern me?" The words exploded out of me before I could stop them. Seven years of silence, of obedience, of swallowing every degradation—it all came rushing up at once. "You're selling me like I'm property! To him!"

I pointed at Vance, whose lips curved into a smile that made my stomach turn.

"Selling is such an ugly word," Cole said smoothly. "I prefer to think of it as a mutually beneficial arrangement. The pack needs capital for my ascension ceremony. Vance needs—well, let's just say he has particular tastes. And you—" His eyes raked over me with pure contempt. "You're finally serving a useful purpose."

Rage flooded through me, hot and blinding. "I've given you everything! Seven years of my life, my dignity, my—"

"Your what?" Cole's voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "Your pathetic attempts at strategy? Your delusional belief that you mattered?"

Then his Alpha aura slammed into me.

It hit like a physical wall, crushing down on my shoulders with suffocating weight. My knees buckled. I crashed to the floor, my body betraying me, forcing me into submission even as my mind screamed in defiance.

"Know your place, Omega," Cole growled, his dominance pressing down harder. "You are weak. Wolfless. A burden this pack has carried out of charity for far too long."

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. The Alpha command wrapped around my throat like invisible hands.

"At least this way," he continued, stepping closer until his expensive shoes were inches from my face, "your existence will finally benefit someone. Me."

Vance's rough laugh echoed from the office. "She's got some fight in her. I like that."

The words sent ice through my veins.

Cole crouched down, grabbing my chin and forcing me to meet his eyes. "Vance will be here tomorrow morning to collect you. I suggest you spend tonight accepting your new reality."

He released me and stood, brushing off his hands as if touching me had soiled them. "Take her to the lower dungeon. Make sure she can't run."

Two pack guards materialized from the shadows—I hadn't even noticed them standing there. Their hands clamped around my arms, hauling me upright even as Cole's Alpha aura continued to press down on me.

They dragged me through the packhouse corridors, past the gleaming floors I'd scrubbed, past the elegant rooms where wolves like Lillian lived in luxury. Down the main stairs, then the service stairs, then another flight I'd never known existed.

The air grew colder with each step. Damper. The walls changed from polished wood to rough stone, the lighting from warm chandeliers to bare bulbs that flickered and buzzed.

Finally, we reached the lowest level—a place that felt more like a tomb than part of a functioning packhouse. The guards shoved me into a small cell with stone walls weeping moisture and a floor that was nothing but packed dirt.

The iron door slammed shut with a finality that echoed in my bones. A heavy lock clicked into place.

"Sweet dreams, Omega," one of the guards called out. Their footsteps receded, taking the light with them.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

I stood there in the suffocating blackness, my burned hands throbbing, my body still trembling from Cole's Alpha command. The cold seeped through my thin uniform, settling into my bones.

For seven years, I had sacrificed everything. My training. My dignity. My dreams. I had scrubbed floors until my hands bled. I had endured humiliation and degradation and endless cruelty, all because I believed—stupidly, desperately—that love and loyalty meant something.

That I meant something.

But I was wrong.

I had been nothing but a tool. A resource to be used and discarded. And now, a commodity to be sold to a monster.

Something inside me finally shattered.

Not my spirit. Not my will.

The cage I'd built around myself. The toxic belief that I deserved this suffering. That I was worthless without a wolf, without a mate, without the approval of people who had never valued me at all.

It broke apart, and in its place, something else rose up.

Rage.

Pure, unadulterated, burning rage.

And deep in my chest, where there had been only silence for twenty-three years, something stirred.

Something ancient.

Something powerful.

Something that had been waiting for this exact moment to finally wake up.