My Alpha Chose My Sister

I was twenty-two years old the first time my father looked at me like I was useful.

Not loved. Not wanted. Useful.

Beta Gregory Nelson of the Silverpine Pack sat behind his desk with his hands folded and his expression arranged into something that was supposed to look like concern. The pack house smelled like pine resin and old wood, the same way it always had on the rare occasions I'd been allowed inside it. I stood across from him with my hands at my sides and waited, because that was what I had always done around the man who was technically my father — I waited, and I made myself small, and I tried not to want anything.

"You understand the situation," he said. It wasn't a question.

I understood it. The Ironridge Pack's Alpha, Ian Carter, had been ambushed by rogues eight months ago. The attack had done something to his spine — severed the connection between his wolf and his body, left him unable to shift. For an Alpha, that was a kind of death. The mating alliance between Silverpine and Ironridge had been arranged to stabilize both packs, and the mate selected for Ian had been Melody.

My sister. My adopted sister. The daughter my father actually loved.

Melody had refused.

"She has her reasons," Gregory said, in the tone he used when Melody's reasons were not up for discussion. "The alliance still needs to be honored. Ironridge needs a healer. You have the gift." He paused. "You are my biological daughter. The bloodline is legitimate."

There it was. Twenty-two years of being raised at the pack's edge, of being the daughter he kept at a careful distance, and now the bloodline was legitimate because it was convenient.

"You're asking me to take Melody's place," I said.

"I'm asking you to fulfill your duty to this pack." He leaned forward slightly. "Your mother would have understood that. She believed in what this pack stands for."

My mother had been dead for fifteen years. He had never once mentioned her to me before this moment.

I looked at the window behind his head. Outside, two pack children were chasing each other across the lawn, laughing at something I couldn't hear. I thought about saying no. I turned the word over in my mind, tested its weight, tried to imagine what would happen if I let it out.

I had no pack standing. No rank. No allies inside Silverpine who would back me if Gregory decided I was a problem. I had my healer gift and a small apartment on the pack's outskirts and a lifetime of being told, in a hundred quiet ways, that I was here on borrowed grace.

I didn't say no. I had never been given a framework for saying no to the people who were supposed to be my family.

"Okay," I said.

Gregory nodded once, like I'd confirmed a meeting time. "The ceremony is in four days."

---

The mating ceremony was