For twelve years, I stayed by the Alpha’s side, bearing him twelve pups.

They said his favor for me was unmatched.

My dressing table was piled high with the finest scents and oils, each drop worth a fortune.

If I so much as glanced at something, the next day, silks and jewels would appear before me.

But at twenty-six, when his fated mate ended her rejection, I found my first gray fur. Fine lines crept across my skin, hidden beneath layers of makeup.

He said, “It’s time for you to go. A she-wolf’s youth is fleeting. I’ve found a good match for you—a Beta with few pups. You’re fertile. Once you bear his pups, he’ll give you the title of chosen mate.”

==============================

I left with nothing but a simple wooden box and the clothes on my back.

Xyla Garza, the future Luna of the Blue Pack, sent her Beta to inspect the preparations for the marking ceremony.

The Beta intercepted me in the grand hall.

Her nose twitched as she sniffed the air, her eyes lingering on the box in my hands.

“Every item in the Alpha’s den is accounted for. The Luna’s dowry arrived three days ago. If anything is missing, I’ll have to report it.”

I stayed silent, my voice hoarse from last night. Bellamy had been relentless, as if it were our final night together. I’d passed out and woken to find him still gripping my hips.

He’d whispered, “Nola, I’ve given you everything I could… Tomorrow, take one thing from the den. Something you love. Consider it your parting gift.”

And so I’d chosen this box, the one he’d carved for me years ago.

Now, with Xyla’s Beta glaring at me, he said, “Open it. Let her see.”

The Beta sneered, “Not just the box. Check her body too. Who knows what she might be hiding? Look at her scent—it’s too strong. That’s not natural.”

The Alpha’s aura darkened, memories flickering in his eyes. Yet he nodded. “Do as she says, Nola. Remove your coat. Let her see. We wouldn’t want to tarnish your reputation.”

But what reputation did I have left?

My mother was a healer, once summoned to the Blue Pack’s estate to tend to the Alpha’s mother for three months.

Later, when the Alpha’s mother fell ill again, the Alpha himself came looking for my mother.

But she was already gone, having died in childbirth. I was just ten years old then.

I was timid, stuttering, and trapped under the cruelty of my stepmother. She pressed my frostbitten, cracked hands into a basin of icy water, scrubbing them raw with a rough cloth.

“You little wretch,” she hissed, her voice sharp as claws. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? Ruining my dress, staining my handkerchief with your filth. I’ll scrub your skin off if I have to.”

I bit down on my tongue to stifle my screams, tears streaming silently down my face.

That’s when the Alpha stepped in. His aura flared, the Alpha tone cutting through the air, making my stepmother freeze in place.

He saved me that day, took me from that wretched household, and then… he forgot about me. He left me in a remote territory of the pack, abandoned and unseen.

By the time I was fifteen, the Alpha’s mate, the one he truly loved, had been marked by another for two years. He refused to take a chosen mate, refused to consider anyone else.

Rumors spread through the pack that he was infertile, that he couldn’t produce an heir. The pack elders grew restless, eyeing the Alpha position for their own kin.

The Alpha’s mother, desperate and furious, gathered every eligible young woman from the pack and its surrounding territories.

Hundreds of us stood there, waiting for his choice.

“If you just give us an heir,” his mother pleaded, her voice trembling with frustration, “I’ll leave you alone. You’ll have your freedom.”

The Alpha was drunk that day, his resentment toward his mother boiling over.

“If you hadn’t interfered, if you hadn’t looked down on her family, Xyla would have been my mate by now,” he spat, his voice thick with bitterness.

His mother’s face paled. “Xyla was manipulative, cunning. She would have destroyed this pack. She was never fit to be your Luna!”

Their argument escalated, the tension crackling like a storm about to break.

Finally, his mother pressed a hand to her chest, gasping for air. “If you don’t do this, I’ll follow your father to the grave!”

The Alpha’s jaw tightened, his fists clenched. He looked over the crowd of women, his gaze cold and detached.

I watched him, my heart pounding.

Then, his eyes met mine. For a moment, his expression shifted, something unreadable flickering across his face.

He laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. “Fine, Mother. Have it your way.” He pointed at me. “You. Strip.”

The air around me turned to ice.

“I said strip,” he repeated, his Alpha tone cutting through the silence. “The rest of you, turn around.”

I stood there, exposed and humiliated, my back pressed against the rough bark of a tree.

He glared at me, his eyes filled with disgust. “Women like you are all the same. You’ll do anything for a chance at power. Even if you look a little like her, you’ll never be her.”

Tears streamed down my face, but I bit my lip to keep from sobbing.

The man I had idolized for years, the one who had saved me, was now the one tearing me apart.

Later, I stayed.

On the third night he came to me, he looked at my face, as if seeing me for the first time.

“You don’t have a name,” he said, his tone indifferent.

“I do,” I whispered. “I’m Nola.”

He punished me for my defiance, his touch as harsh as his words.

But I repeated it, over and over, even as my body trembled with pain.

“I’m Nola.”

Nola. The name he had given me the day he saved me. Did he even remember?

Nola, as in “waiting.” Because I believed that if I waited long enough, things would get better.

But now, I wasn’t so sure.