My Alpha Chose His Mistress

The dress was ivory. Not white — ivory. Apparently there's a difference when you're being mated off to the Alpha of the most powerful pack on the East Coast.

I didn't pick it. I didn't pick the flowers, the venue, or the three hundred wolves filling the Ironveil Pack's ceremonial hall like it was some kind of political concert. My mother picked the dress. My father picked the date. And somewhere in between, they picked my entire future without asking me once.

But I didn't know that yet. Not at the altar.

At the altar, I was just a girl in an ivory dress, standing under a canopy of white roses, waiting for a man I'd met exactly twice.

Zander Morrison. Alpha of the Ironveil Pack. Tall, dark-haired, jaw like it was carved out of granite. The kind of face that made she-wolves lose their composure at pack events. He walked in fifteen minutes late, flanked by his Beta, Marcus Webb, and didn't look at me.

Not once.

He took his place across from me at the altar and stared somewhere past my left shoulder. His jaw was tight. His eyes were flat. He looked like a man signing paperwork at a government office.

I told myself it was nerves. Some Alphas are like that — all authority, no warmth. I told myself a lot of things in those first few minutes. I was good at that.

The officiant began the bonding rites. Old words. Moon Goddess words. The kind of words that are supposed to make your wolf stir and your chest feel warm. My wolf had only just awakened three months ago — late, embarrassingly late for a she-wolf my age — and she was still more instinct than voice. But I could feel her listening. Paying attention.

Then it happened.

A gasp from the crowd. A soft, theatrical sound — the kind that cuts through silence like a knife because it's designed to. I turned my head and saw her.

Ariel Sanchez.

She was standing at the edge of the front row in a red dress that had no business being at someone else's Mate Ceremony. Her hand was pressed to her chest. Her knees buckled. She swayed like a flower in wind, and then she collapsed — slowly, gracefully, like she'd practiced it in a mirror.

Every head in the hall turned.

And Zander moved.

He didn't excuse himself. He didn't glance at me. He stepped off the altar platform and crossed the hall in four long strides, and he was on his knees beside her before anyone else could reach her. His hands were on her face. His voice was low and urgent. "Ariel. Ariel, look at me."

Three hundred wolves watched.

I watched.

The officiant stopped mid-sentence, his mouth still open. Marcus Webb closed his eyes briefly, like a man who had seen this coming and hoped he was wrong.

The silence in that hall was the loudest thing I'd ever heard.

Something inside