My Alpha Watched His Lover Destroy My Mother

The rain starts just after midnight.

I sit on the floor of the servants' quarters with a piece of paper in front of me and a pen I stole from the pack house office. The words won't come at first. How do you apologize to the Moon Goddess for giving up? For being too weak to survive what she asked you to endure?

In the end, I keep it simple.

*I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough.*

I fold the paper once, twice, and leave it on the cot where someone will eventually find it. Maybe they won't. Maybe they'll just burn the room like Marcel burned Mama's bedding, erasing all evidence that we ever existed.

The storm is picking up by the time I slip out the back entrance. Thunder rolls across the sky, low and angry, and the wind tears at my hair as I make my way toward the border. No one stops me. No one even sees me. I've gotten very good at being invisible.

The cliffs are a twenty-minute walk through the forest. I've been here before—once, when Fletcher brought me to see the ocean when we were kids. He told me it was the edge of the world, and I believed him. It felt safer then, with his hand in mine.

Now it just feels like the right place to stop running.

The rain is coming down in sheets by the time I reach the precipice. The ocean crashes against the rocks three hundred feet below, violent and relentless. The wind is so strong I have to brace myself to keep from being pushed backward.

I walk to the edge.

The ground crumbles a little under my feet, sending pebbles tumbling into the darkness. I don't look down. I just close my eyes and feel the rain on my face, the wind pulling at my clothes like it's trying to make the decision for me.

Mama's face flashes behind my eyelids. Her broken body on the pavement. Her empty eyes.

I lean forward.

"Macy!"

The voice cuts through the storm like a whip.

I freeze, my heart lurching in my chest. I know that voice. Know the command buried in it even when he's not using his Alpha power.

Marcel.

I turn my head and see him emerging from the tree line, soaked through, his eyes blazing with fury. Not concern. Not fear for my safety.

Fury.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He's shouting over the wind, striding toward me like I'm a disobedient child who wandered too far from the house. "You abandoned your shift. Do you have any idea—"

"Stay back," I say.

He doesn't listen. Of course he doesn't listen.

"You're coming back to the pack house," he snarls. "Right now. I don't have time for whatever breakdown you're having. The Granite Ridge delegation is still—"

"I said stay back!"

My voice cracks on the words, raw and desperate, but he just keeps coming. Keeps closing the distance between us like my pain is an inconvenience he needs to manage.

I take a step closer to the edge.

His eyes narrow. "Macy. Don't be stupid."

"Stupid?" I laugh, and it sounds unhinged even to my own ears. "You think this is stupid? You think I'm being dramatic?"

"I think you're wasting my time." His jaw clenches. "Get away from that edge. Now."

"No."

Something flickers in his expression. Not sympathy. Calculation. Like he's weighing his options, deciding the most efficient way to handle this situation.

Then his eyes flash gold.

Alpha Command floods the air between us, so thick I can barely breathe.

"I command you to kneel," he says, his voice layered with power that makes my bones ache.

My body betrays me instantly.

My knees buckle, slamming into the muddy ground with enough force to send pain shooting up my thighs. I try to fight it, try to stand, but the Command is absolute. It drags me down and pins me there like I'm nothing more than a puppet.

Marcel stalks toward me, his face twisted with rage.

"You don't get to make this decision," he hisses. "You belong to this pack. You belong to me. And I will not have you—"

He doesn't finish the sentence.

Because something massive slams into him from the side, sending him crashing into the mud with a force that shakes the ground.

I gasp as the Alpha Command shatters, releasing me from its hold.

Marcel scrambles to his feet, snarling, his claws extending. But before he can lunge, a new pressure descends over the clearing—something ancient and crushing and so powerful it makes Marcel's Alpha aura feel like a candle next to the sun.

Lycan Aura.

Marcel's eyes go wide. Then his knees give out and he slams face-first into the dirt, gasping for air like a fish out of water.

I look up.

And there, standing in the rain with his eyes glowing silver and his presence radiating enough power to make the air vibrate, is Fletcher Gibson.