The Stolen Mate of the Alpha Heir

On the day I discovered the Alpha heir was my true mate, my mother tried to murder me and even framed me for forging the bond. Exiled and stripped of my identity, I learned the pack's cherished heroine stole far more than my mate—she stole my face, bloodline, and entire life.

Twelve hours earlier, I had thought turning twenty-two would be the first good thing that ever happened to me.

My wolf awakened at dawn.

She rose inside me with a cry, silver-white and furious, filling every hollow place years of hunger and punishment had carved into my body. I dropped the bundle of herbs I was carrying and caught myself against an oak.

Then a scent rolled through the trees: cedar smoke, winter rain, and male heat.

Mate, my wolf breathed.

Rowan Blackthorn stepped onto the path.

The Alpha's twenty-five-year-old son had always seemed made from the darker part of the forest—broad shoulders, black hair, and gray eyes that made warriors straighten without being ordered. He was supposed to marry Seraphine Vale in three weeks. Everyone knew it. Seraphine was the beloved daughter of our pack's dead hero, former Beta Lucian Vale. She and Rowan had grown up together.

I had thought no one would choose me, Elara Hale, the healer's plain daughter with rough hands and old scars.

Rowan went still. His pupils widened until only a thin ring of gray remained. His scent changed, sharpening with desire so suddenly that my knees weakened.

“Elara.” My name sounded torn out of him.

I tried to step back. He crossed the distance first, then stopped himself so abruptly his fists shook.

“Tell me you feel it.”

I could barely breathe. “You're promised to Seraphine.”

His jaw tightened. “That promise was made by our parents when we were children. I love her as a sister. Nothing more.”

The bond pulsed between us, hot and alive. I had spent years learning not to want food, kindness, rest, or rescue. Wanting him was different. It was not a thought. It was my blood reaching for his.

Rowan lifted one hand. “May I?”

No one had ever asked before touching me.

I nodded.

His knuckles brushed my cheek. My wolf surged so hard my back arched. Rowan sucked in a breath. His control slipped for one heartbeat, and he bent until his mouth hovered over mine.

“Mine,” he whispered, then shut his eyes as if the word hurt him. “But only if you choose me.”

That sentence almost destroyed me.

He took me to a hidden hunting cabin rather than the pack house, knowing gossip could ruin me before he spoke to his father. He cooked eggs while I sat wrapped in his cloak. When he noticed the fading bruise around my wrist, the pan handle cracked in his grip.

“Who did that?”

I covered it. “It doesn't matter.”

“It matters to me.”

His voice was low, but his wolf pressed against his skin. Power warmed the small room. I should have been frightened. Instead, my body answered him with a deep, aching pull.

“My mother gets angry,” I admitted. “She says pain makes healers precise.”

Rowan crouched before me. His hands settled on either side of my chair, not touching. “Pain teaches fear. Not precision.”

I stared at his mouth. He noticed.

The first kiss was careful. The second was not.

His palm slid to the back of my neck as my fingers twisted in his shirt. Heat flashed through the bond, showing me fragments of his restraint—the need to drag me against him, the rage at every scar, the raw relief of finding me. His tongue touched mine. A helpless sound escaped me.

Rowan pulled back, breathing hard. “If I keep kissing you, I won't want to stop.”

“I don't want you to.”

His eyes turned wolf-bright. For one dangerous second, I felt exactly how much he wanted me. Then he pressed his forehead to mine.

“You have been given too few choices. I won't take this one.”

He promised to tell Alpha Aldric that evening. Until then, he asked me to stay quiet, because ending a public engagement to the pack's most cherished daughter would cause an uproar.

At sunset, I went home and found my mother grinding foxglove in the clinic. Helena Hale had my brown eyes, narrow chin, and straight dark hair. Looking like her had always seemed proof that whatever was wrong between us must be my fault.

“Mama,” I said, though she had not let me call her that since I was eight. “My wolf woke.”

Her pestle stopped.

I told her everything. I told her Rowan was my mate. I told her he did not love Seraphine. I even told her about the kiss because happiness made me foolish.

Helena locked the clinic door.

“The hero's daughter will not be humiliated by you. She deserves everything.” Helena crossed the room so quickly I did not see the knife until it entered me.

Silver fire exploded beneath my ribs.

I fell against the medicine table. Jars shattered. Helena climbed over me, her face empty, and drove the blade deeper.

“Why?” I sobbed.

“Because I should have killed you in the cradle.”

The bond tore open with my terror.

Rowan arrived like a storm. The door burst from its hinges. He seized Helena by the throat and threw her across the room, then dropped beside me.

His hands shook as he pressed them around the blade. “Stay with me. Elara, look at me.”

Helena laughed from the floor. “Ask her what she did to you.”

Warriors filled the clinic behind Rowan. Alpha Aldric came with them, and Seraphine appeared in a white cloak, beautiful and breathless.

Helena pulled a sealed crystal from her pocket. Inside floated a dark thread of magic.

“My daughter has been stealing restricted herbs for months,” she announced. “She brewed a bond stimulant and used it on Rowan. I found her notes.”

She produced pages covered in my handwriting. They described a false mate ritual. Every ingredient came from supplies I had gathered for her clinic.

“That isn't mine,” I said.

Helena crushed the crystal.

A bitter scent flooded the room. The bond between Rowan and me flickered. His grip loosened.

Seraphine touched his shoulder. “Rowan?”

He stared at me as if I had become a stranger.

I reached through the bond and felt him—shock, fury, and something shielded so tightly I could not understand it.

Alpha Aldric ordered Helena arrested for attacking me and demanded I be held while the false-bond accusation was examined. Rowan stood.

“Put Elara in the lower cells,” he said coldly. “No one speaks to her without my permission.”

The words hit harder than silver.

“Rowan, please.”

His eyes did not soften. “Take her.”

The warriors chained my wrists. As they dragged me through the crowd, pack members called me parasite, whore, traitor. Seraphine remained beside Rowan, wearing the place the bond had promised me.

In the dungeon, the door slammed shut.

Only then did I let myself scream.