My Alpha Chose Her Over Me

The cabin groaned in the wind like something dying.

I pulled the threadbare blanket tighter around my shoulders, but it did nothing against the cold that seeped through the gaps in the wooden walls. Rain dripped steadily through a crack in the roof, plinking into the metal bucket I'd placed in the corner three days ago. The sound had become a metronome marking the hours of my exile.

This wasn't how I'd imagined my life when I'd defied my father and left the Silver Moon Pack. Alpha John had warned me. Begged me, actually, in that gruff way of his that passed for tenderness. "That man will break you, Nora," he'd said, his hand heavy on my shoulder. "He doesn't see you. He only sees what he's lost."

But I'd been so sure. So stupidly, blindly sure that Dariel Bradley was my destiny.

I pushed myself up from the sagging mattress, my bare feet hitting the icy floorboards. The pregnancy test sat on the makeshift nightstand—a wooden crate I'd found behind the Pack House kitchens. I'd stared at those two pink lines for twenty minutes straight, watching them darken as if they might disappear if I blinked.

They hadn't disappeared.

My hand drifted to my stomach, still flat beneath my worn nightgown. A pup. Dariel's pup. The heir to the Dark River Pack.

This changed everything. It had to.

For six months, I'd lived in this cabin like a ghost on the edge of his territory. I cleaned the Pack House floors on my hands and knees for pocket change. I waited for him to visit, sometimes going weeks without seeing him. When he did come, it was always late at night, smelling of whiskey and something darker—desperation, maybe, or regret. He'd take what he needed from my body and leave before dawn, never staying long enough for me to pretend it meant something.

But a pup. A pup was permanent. Undeniable.

He would have to claim me now. He would have to see me.

"This is it," I whispered to the empty room, to the cold and the dripping water and the howling wind. "This is when everything changes."

I moved to the cracked mirror hanging above the basin, studying my reflection in the gray morning light. My dark hair hung limp and tangled. My cheeks looked hollow, the bones too prominent. When had I started looking so... diminished?

I thought of my father's Pack House, with its heated floors and endless hot water. I thought of my old bedroom with its four-poster bed and the closet full of dresses I'd left behind. I'd been an Alpha's daughter once. I'd had status. Respect.

Now I was whatever this was.

But not for long.

I pulled open the wooden chest at the foot of my bed, pawing through the meager collection of clothes I'd managed to bring with me. Most were ruined now—stained from cleaning work or worn thin from too many washes in cold water. My fingers closed around a dress near the bottom, one I'd been saving. It was blue, the color of forget-me-nots, and it had been my mother's before she died.

I held it up to the light. The fabric was soft, well-made, from a time when I'd belonged somewhere. There was a small tear in the hem and a faded stain near the waist, but it was still the nicest thing I owned.

It would have to be enough.

I dressed quickly, my fingers clumsy with cold and anticipation. The dress hung looser than it should have—I'd lost weight living on scraps and pride. I tried to do something with my hair, but without proper products or even a decent brush, the best I could manage was a loose braid that hung over one shoulder.

In the mirror, I looked like a girl playing dress-up in her mother's clothes. A girl pretending to be someone worth noticing.

I pushed the thought away.

"You're carrying his heir," I told my reflection firmly. "You're carrying the future Alpha of this pack. That makes you important. That makes you his."

The walk to the Pack House was three miles through territory I'd once dreamed of calling home. I had no car—pack vehicles were reserved for ranked members, and I had no rank. I wasn't even officially registered as a pack member. I existed in some gray space between belonging and exile, too proud to crawl back to my father, too stubborn to admit I'd made a catastrophic mistake.

The rain started before I'd gone half a mile.

It came down in cold sheets, soaking through my mother's dress within minutes. My shoes—the only pair I had left—sank into the mud with each step, the worn soles offering no protection against the water pooling on the dirt road. By the time the Pack House came into view through the trees, I was shivering so hard my teeth chattered.

But I didn't stop.

I couldn't stop.

Because inside that grand building with its warm lights and solid walls, Dariel was waiting. He just didn't know it yet. He didn't know that everything was about to change. That I was about to give him the one thing Jessica never could.

A future. An heir. A reason to finally choose me.

I climbed the steps to the Pack House entrance, my ruined shoes squelching with each step, leaving muddy prints on the pristine white stone. Through the windows, I could see wolves moving inside—warriors, pack members, people who belonged here in ways I didn't.

Not yet.

But soon.

I raised my hand to knock, then hesitated. My reflection stared back at me from the glass door—bedraggled, desperate, pathetic. An Alpha's daughter reduced to a beggar at the door.

My hand fell to my stomach again, seeking courage in the tiny life growing there.

"For you," I whispered. "I'm doing this for you."

I knocked.