The Broken Alpha's Defiant Chosen Mate

Adeline POV:

I was the sickly daughter of Duke Mack, bound by a political marriage to Axel Boyle, the powerful Alpha of the Stormfang Pack.

Then, a prophetic nightmare showed me our bloody future. Axel's pack was ambushed; he returned a crippled man in a wheelchair, carrying the seven coffins of his slaughtered family.

In my vision, my pragmatic father saw Axel as a useless liability and immediately broke our engagement.

"You can't be expected to marry a cripple. You'd be the laughingstock of the entire territory," my wicked stepmother sneered, eager to toss him aside.

They didn't know this ultimate betrayal would turn the broken hero into a vengeful monster. He eventually annihilated our pack and put my father's head on a pike.

Waking up coughing blood, I realized the nightmare was already happening. My father was on his way to the Royal Court to publicly discard him. I was terrified. Why was my family so blind to the slaughter they were inviting?

I couldn't let us die. Dragging my frail body out of bed, I intercepted my father at the city gates.

"I will not be the one to abandon him when he needs support the most."

I declared it in front of the grieving crowds and the cold-eyed Alpha himself. I even spent my entire dowry to buy a legendary herb to save his dying grandmother. This time, I would survive by binding the future villain to me.

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The scream was trapped in my throat, a block of ice choking me.

My eyes flew open. The silk of my sheets was cold, soaked through with sweat. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the sudden, suffocating silence of my bedroom.

I gasped for air, but my lungs wouldn't cooperate. They felt tight, useless.

The image was seared behind my eyes. A blood-red sky. The glint of a steel blade. My father's head, Alistair Mack, tumbling from his shoulders.

That scene from the dream plays in my mind in a loop. My fiancé, Alpha Axel Boyle of the Stormfang Pack, kneeling in a field of bodies. His family. His warriors. His legs were twisted at impossible angles, shattered beyond repair. A howl tore from his throat, not of a man, but of a wolf that had lost everything.

My hand trembled as I reached for the glass of water on my nightstand. My fingers were clumsy, numb. The glass slipped, splashing icy water over my hand and the polished wood. The small shock did nothing to chase away the chillingly real memory of the dream.

It was just a dream.

I mouthed the words, but they offered no comfort. The grief felt too real, a physical weight pressing down on my chest. It was a phantom limb, an ache for a loss that hadn't happened yet.

A familiar wave of weakness washed over me, a symptom of the chronic illness that had plagued me my entire life. It kept my own wolf dormant, a silent passenger in my blood. Any strong emotion, good or bad, sent my body into rebellion.

The heavy oak door to my room burst open.

Rose, my personal maid, stood there, her face as white as my sheets. She hadn't knocked. She always knocked.

My stomach plummeted.

"Miss," she stammered, her voice trembling so hard the word nearly broke apart. "There's... there's an urgent report. From the Royal Court."

My gaze flickered past her, to the window. Below in the courtyard, Pack messengers were running, their movements frantic. The air was thick with a tension I could taste.

Rose fought back a sob, her hands twisting in her apron. "Wolfpine Pass... our armies... they were ambushed."

The breath I was holding escaped in a ragged puff. Wolfpine Pass. The name was a key turning in a lock, connecting the nightmare to the now. It was the same place.

"The Stormfang Pack," Rose whispered, her eyes wide with horror. "They were... almost entirely wiped out."

A low ringing started in my ears. The edges of my vision began to blur. The blood-red sky from my dream bled into the soft morning light of my room.

I grabbed her arm, my grip surprisingly strong. My voice was a dry rasp. "Axel... What about Axel Boyle?"

The pity in Rose's eyes was the final nail. It was an answer before she even spoke, and it stole the air from my lungs for a second time. I felt my heart stutter, a painful, jarring stop-start.

"Alpha Axel... he survived," she said, her words slow and heavy, as if she were laying stones on a grave. "But... but his legs... they're... they're ruined."

The last piece clicked into place.

The world tilted. The ornate patterns on the ceiling swirled into a black vortex.

I wasn't just sick. I was cursed with these visions, these glimpses of a future written in blood. And they always, always came true.

I remembered the rest of the dream now. The part that came after. My father, seeing Axel as a crippled Alpha of a ruined Pack, would break our engagement. This act of political pragmatism would be seen as the ultimate betrayal. It would plant a seed of hatred in Axel that would grow into a rebellion, a war that would end with my father's head on a pike.

No.

I had to stop it.

The thought was a tiny flicker of light in the encroaching darkness. But the betrayal of my own body was faster, more absolute.

A coppery heat surged up my throat. I coughed, a wracking, violent spasm that bent me in half. I pressed my handkerchief to my lips, already knowing what I would find.

When I pulled it away, a single, perfect flower of bright red blood stained the white linen.

Rose screamed. "Doctor! Get Doctor Hayes!"

My vision was tunneling to a pinpoint. The world was fading. But one thought remained, sharp and clear. Stop him.

I clutched at Rose's dress, my fingers digging into the fabric. I used the last of my strength, forcing the words past the blood in my throat.

"Father... cannot... break the engagement..."

Then, the blackness swallowed me whole.