Alpha's Regret: The Mad King's Precious Breeder

LILLIAN

The scent hits me again-stronger this time, impossibly intoxicating-and my legs give out beneath me. I collapse onto the cold stone floor outside the Alpha's quarters, my wet clothes clinging to my feverish skin. The realization crashes over me like a wave: the Moon Goddess has really chosen Dylan as my mate.

No. No, this can't be real.

I press my trembling hand against the doorframe, trying to steady myself as another wave of heat rolls through my body. My first transformation isn't finished-I can feel my wolf stirring beneath my skin, restless and confused. But that scent... that damned scent keeps pulling me forward, even as every rational part of me screams to run.

Dylan. The boy who made my life hell for seventeen years. The Alpha's son, who never missed a chance to remind me I was less than nothing. A half-blood. A mistake.

And now he's my mate.

I want to laugh. Or cry. Or maybe both. I know I shouldn't be surprised. After overhearing him with Julia the other day, I should have known. Still, some part of me wanted to believe they were lying about it.

Voices drift through the heavy wooden door. I recognize them immediately-Dylan's arrogant drawl, his father's commanding tone. And there, quieter than the others, is my own father's voice. Of course Dylan's here, probably discussing how to punish me further for daring to run, for daring to exist.

I should leave. I should drag myself away from this door and never look back.

But I can't move. The mate bond-fresh and raw and unwanted-roots me to this spot. My wolf whimpers inside me, drawn to him despite everything he's done. Despite everything he is.

The door swings open before I can move.

Light floods the hallway, and I find myself staring up at three pairs of eyes. Dylan stands in the doorway, and the moment his gaze lands on me, his jaw tightens. He exhales slowly through his nose, as if he's been dreading this exact moment and is only annoyed that it came tonight.

Behind him, his father, Harlow, steps forward, nostrils flaring as he sniffs the air. I see the exact moment it hits him, his eyes moving slowly between his son and me.

"The mate bond," Harlow says quietly. Not a question.

Father goes completely still in the corner. I don't look at him.

Dylan doesn't even glance at his father. He just stares down at me with that familiar contempt.

"I, Dylan Blackwood, future Alpha of the Black Stone Pack, reject you, Lillian, as my mate." His voice rings out, formal and irreversible. "I sever our bond before the Moon Goddess and before these witnesses."

The words hit me like a physical blow. Pain explodes through my chest, sharp and hot and all-consuming. The mate bond-barely formed, barely acknowledged-begins to tear apart. It feels like he's ripping out a piece of my soul.

But somewhere beneath the agony, I feel something else: relief.

Because I don't want this either. I don't want to be bound to him. I don't want a mate who looks at me with hatred instead of love.

"I..." My voice comes out broken, barely a whisper. I force myself to meet his eyes. "I accept."

Two words. That's all it takes.

The bond snaps completely. The pain intensifies for one horrible moment-a searing, tearing sensation that steals my breath-and then... nothing. Just emptiness where that pull used to be.

My wolf howls inside me, confused and hurt. The combination of my unfinished transformation and the severed mate bond is too much. The fever spikes higher. The room tilts sideways.

I hear someone call my name-my father, maybe-but it sounds distant, muffled, like I'm underwater.

Then darkness swallows me whole.

***

There is no pain here.

I become aware of that first-the absence of it. No fever. No aching bones. No ringing in my damaged ear. Just stillness, and a light so soft it doesn't hurt to look at.

I'm standing in a space that isn't quite anywhere. The ground beneath my feet feels like moonlight made solid. The air smells like rain on warm earth.

"Lillian."

The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. I turn, and she is there.

I don't know how I know it's her. I just do, the way you know the sun is there even with your eyes closed. She is luminous and ageless, draped in silver that moves like water, her eyes the deep, patient gray of a sky just before dawn. She looks at me the way no one ever has.

Like I matter.

"Am I dead?" I ask. My voice comes out smaller than I intend.

"No, my child." She moves toward me, unhurried. "You are resting. Your body has been through more than it was ready for tonight."

"Then why am I here?"

She stops in front of me. Her expression is unbearably gentle.

"Because I came to find you," she says. "I have been watching what was done to you. The rejection. The injury." Her gaze moves to my left ear. "I came because you are owed something, and I intend to give it to you."

She reaches out and cups my damaged ear in her palm. A warmth moves through that side of my head, slow and deep, like light filling a room.

"The ear that was hurt will now hear what others cannot," she says. "The thoughts people bury behind their faces. The truths they are too proud or too afraid to speak. You will hear all of it."

I stare at her. "You're giving me the ability to read minds."

"I am giving you the ability to hear the truth," she says, and there is quiet gravity to the distinction. "Use it wisely, my child. Not everything you hear will be easy to carry."

She steps back, and the light around her begins to brighten.

"Wait-" I step forward.

She looks at me for a long moment, her expression full of something-sorrow, maybe, or love, or both. And then the light takes her, and takes everything else with it.

I wake up in the Omega's room.

The ceiling is the same water-stained gray it has always been. The blanket is thin. The room smells like cold stone and neglect. Everything exactly as I left it.

I lie there for a moment, staring up at nothing, letting the dream-if it was a dream-settle into me.

Then I become aware of my father sitting in the chair beside the bed. He reaches out toward my hand on the blanket.

I pull it away before he can touch me.

He withdraws without a word.

"Save it," I say. My voice is flat. "Whatever you came to say, save it. Go back to ignoring me, like you always do."

Dad's mouth tightens. When he speaks, his voice is clipped and official.

"The pack laws are clear. A rejected mate is considered an ill omen." He folds his hands in his lap. "You are to be exiled. You have until tomorrow morning to leave the territory."

A short, empty laugh escapes me. Of course. Of course they're exiling me too.

"There's something else." A pause. "Your first transformation-it didn't go smoothly. Your wolf nature has been severely weakened. There is a significant chance you may lose it entirely."

My breath catches. Everything else-the exile, the rejection-I could survive. But my wolf? She's the only part of me I've waited my whole life for. I just found her.

He stands and moves toward the door. And then I hear something else.

A voice-but not from his mouth. From somewhere closer and quieter, like a sound traveling through water.

I'm sorry I forgot your birthday. I should have been there for your transformation.

I go very still.

He didn't say a word. His lips didn't move. But I heard it-clear as anything.

The door closes behind him.

I stare at the ceiling. Is it real? Or am I still half-delirious from the fever? Did I imagine it?

But it felt real. It felt more real than anything else tonight.

And if it is real, what does it change? He thought the words. He didn't say them. He sat beside my bed and watched me flinch from his touch and said nothing. He's done nothing my entire life.

Does he care about me? I don't know. Maybe somewhere underneath all that indifference, something remains. But it has never been enough to matter. He hit me yesterday. He stood in that room while my mate bond was severed in front of witnesses and didn't make a sound.

A thought, however sincere, doesn't undo eighteen years.

DYLAN

I pace my room like a caged animal.

The rejection should have brought relief. I did what I had to do-what any Alpha in my position would have done. She's a half-blood. She could never be a Luna.

So why can't I get her face out of my head?

I keep seeing her the way she looked in that hallway. Pale and fevered, barely able to hold herself upright. The way she said, "I accept." No fighting, no begging. Just those two quiet words, like she'd already made her peace with being discarded.

I stop at the window.

The rejection was a mistake. I know that now. The moment the words left my mouth, I felt something shift the wrong way. My wolf has been snarling at me ever since, furious in a way I've never felt from him before.

And the exile. The pack's decision to cast her out by morning.

I don't agree with it.

The thought settles in me with uncomfortable clarity. I don't want her exiled. I don't want her running off to some other territory, living as a rogue, vulnerable, and alone. And I especially don't want her shipped off to that neighboring pack-to that Alpha with blood already on his hands. Two mates dead. And they want to send her there.

No.

The word rises in me with a force that surprises me.

She is mine. Rejected or not, the bond chose her for me. The idea of another Alpha anywhere near her makes something dark and ugly rise in my chest.

I won't let it happen.

Not out of care. I'm clear-eyed enough to know the difference. This isn't tenderness. It's ownership. She belongs to this pack. She belongs where I can see her, where I control what happens to her. A servant, maybe-the lowest rank, nothing that compromises my position or my bloodline.

But she stays.