The Secretary He Rejected Is The Alpha King's Daughter

For seven years, I suppressed my Alpha aura and took sickening drugs to pass as a human secretary.

All to win a bet with my father, the Alpha King, that Dante loved me for my soul, not my bloodline.

But tonight, Dante proved me wrong in the most public way possible.

While I sat in a taxi, a Times Square billboard lit up with his face. He wasn't working late as he claimed.

He was holding a waitress named Lola, announcing her as his future Luna because she could "breed strong pups" and I was just a "useful tool."

When I arrived at the office to confront them, Lola didn't just mock me. She slapped my face and smashed my mother's silver locket under her heel.

She laughed, thinking she had destroyed a cheap trinket belonging to a weak human.

"You are prey, Seraphina," she sneered. "And you are trespassing in the wolf's den."

She didn't realize that the locket wasn't protecting me from them. It was protecting them from *me*.

With the seal broken, the air in the room instantly dropped twenty degrees. My eyes shifted from brown to glowing liquid silver.

They thought they were discarding a broken secretary. They had no idea they had just declared war on the Royal Family.

I picked up the phone and dialed the most feared number in the werewolf world.

"Papa," I said, stepping over the shattered silver.

"The masquerade is over. Bring the helicopters."

Chapter 1

Seraphina POV:

The silver locket resting against my sternum wasn't just warm. It was searing, a physical manifestation of the agitation roiling inside my soul. My wolf, usually comatose under the heavy dose of Moonshade Herb packed inside the pendant, was clawing at the walls of her cage.

She knew something I was refusing to admit.

"Look at that," the taxi driver grunted, gesturing with a calloused hand toward the massive digital billboard lighting up Times Square. "Another rich Alpha finding his bitch. Must be nice."

I looked out the window. My stomach dropped so hard I felt bile rise in my throat.

There, five stories tall, was Dante Moretti. He was smiling that charming, crooked smile that had convinced me, a naive eighteen-year-old girl, to leave my father's kingdom seven years ago. But he wasn't smiling at me.

He was holding the waist of a woman in a white silk dress. Lola.

The headline scrolled in neon pink: *Alpha Dante Moretti and Future Luna Lola – The Union of the Century.*

"Finally found a she-wolf who can shift, eh?" the driver chuckled, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. He was a low-level Beta, smelling of stale coffee and mediocrity. He saw me as a human. A fragile, breakable thing. "Better than wasting time with those human girls. They can't handle the knot, if you know what I mean."

I didn't answer. I just stared at the screen.

My phone buzzed in my lap. A text from Dante.

*Meeting ran late, babe. The Elders are riding my ass about the quarterly projections. Don't wait up. Love you.*

The lie was so lazy it felt like he hadn't even tried. He wasn't in a meeting with the Elders. He was broadcasting his betrayal to the entire city of New York.

I closed my eyes. The seven-year clock in my head ticked down to zero.

"You lose, Papa," I whispered to the empty air.

Seven years ago, I made a bet with my father, Don Salvatore Vitiello, the Alpha King of North America. I told him that love transcended the brutal hierarchy of our kind. I told him Dante loved me for my soul, not my bloodline. My father, a man who viewed the world through the lens of power and conquest, gave me seven years.

*If he remains faithful to you as a human,* my father had said, *I will bless the union. But if he betrays you, the Vitiello Pack swallows the Moretti name.*

I picked up my other phone. It was a sleek, black satellite device that I kept hidden in the lining of my purse. I typed a single message to the Shadow Guard.

*Freeze the assets. Cut the Moretti supply lines. We are done here.*

"Stop the car," I told the driver.

"Lady, we're still ten blocks from—"

"Stop the car!"

The command slipped out. It wasn't quite an Alpha Command—my seal prevented that—but the authority in my voice made the Beta driver slam on the brakes instinctively. I threw a wad of cash on the seat and stepped out into the humid New York night.

The Moretti Enterprises tower loomed ahead. It wasn't just a corporate HQ; it was the heart of the Pack's territory in the city.

As I walked through the revolving doors, the smell hit me.

It was the scent of arousal. Thick, musky, and cloying. It was the smell of a Pack in celebration.

The lobby was filled with Pack members. Warriors in suits, Omegas carrying trays of champagne. And in the center of it all, standing on the grand staircase like a queen, was Lola.

She was radiant in a tacky sort of way. Her blonde hair was teased high, and her dress was cut low enough to show the swell of her chest. She was surrounded by a gaggle of sycophants.

"Seraphina!"

The voice was shrill. Bella, Lola's sidekick and a Gamma female with a nasty temper, pointed a manicured finger at me. The music died down. The chatter stopped.

Lola turned. Her eyes, usually a dull hazel, flashed a predatory yellow.

"Well, well," Lola purred, descending the stairs. The sound of her heels clicking on the marble echoed in the silence. "The secretary finally decided to show up. Did you come to clean the toilets? Because that's about all a human is good for in this building."

I stood my ground. My hand went to the burning locket at my throat. "Where is Dante?"

"Dante is preparing for the ceremony," Lola said, stopping a foot away from me. She smelled of cheap vanilla perfume and unwashed dog. "He's busy becoming the Alpha he was meant to be. With a real Luna. Not a placeholder."

"A real Luna?" I repeated, my voice calm despite the rage boiling my blood. "You mean a bottle-blonde hustler who spent the last three years serving watered-down drinks at The Red Moon?"

The crowd gasped. In our world, questioning a high-ranking female's status was an act of war. But I wasn't afraid. I was the daughter of the King. They just didn't know it yet.

"Careful, human," Lola hissed. A low growl vibrated in her chest. "You're in the wolf's den now. We don't have HR departments here to protect you."

I pulled a magnetic key card from my pocket. It wasn't just an employee pass. It was the Master Key I had programmed myself, linked to the building's security grid.

"I don't need protection," I said, stepping forward. "And this isn't your den. I paid for the marble under your feet. I balanced the books that bought that dress."

Lola's lip curled back, revealing slightly elongated canines. She was shifting partially, an intimidation tactic used on weaker wolves.

"You think you own this place because you can use a calculator?" Lola laughed, and the sound was like glass breaking. "Get her out of here. She smells like mediocrity."

Two security guards—Warriors I had personally hired—stepped forward. But they hesitated. They looked from me to Lola, unsure.

"Are you deaf?" Lola screamed. "I am your future Luna! Remove this trash!"

I looked at the guards. "Touch me, and you lose your pensions."

Lola didn't wait for the guards. Her patience snapped. Her claws extended, tearing through her manicured nails.

"I'll do it myself," she snarled.