My Alpha’s Scent Was My Dead Mate’s

The rain came down in sheets, turning the alley into a river of mud and refuse. I pressed my back against the cold brick wall, watching the three mid-ranking wolves circle closer. Delta warriors, probably. The kind who needed someone beneath them to remember they weren't at the bottom.

"Still wearing black, Omega?" The tallest one—I didn't know his name, didn't care to—tilted his head with mock sympathy. "Francis has been dead for what, two years now? Three?"

"Two years, four months," another one supplied helpfully. "Pathetic, really. Mourning a mate who probably would've rejected you anyway once he came to his senses."

I said nothing. I'd learned that silence was armor. Words were just openings they could wedge wider.

The tall one took another step forward. "You know what I heard? I heard he was already looking at other she-wolves before he died. Luna candidates. Wolves with actual—"

The massive shape that exploded from the shadows cut his sentence in half.

I didn't process what I was seeing at first—just size, speed, violence. A rogue wolf, easily two meters in length, slammed into the tall Delta with enough force to send him sprawling into the alley's far wall. The other two scattered like leaves, their bravado evaporating into the rain-soaked night. They didn't even look back.

The rogue stood there for a moment, sides heaving, and then his legs gave out. He collapsed onto the muddy ground with a sound that was half-growl, half-whimper.

I should have run. Every instinct I'd been taught said run, call for the pack, let someone higher-ranked handle the rogue threat. But I didn't run.

Because when the wind shifted, I caught his scent.

Cedar. Rain-soaked earth. The warm, magnetic pull of something I'd spent two years, four months trying to forget.

Francis.

No. Not Francis. Francis was dead. I'd seen his body. I'd pressed my palm to his chest and felt nothing, no heartbeat, no warmth, nothing.

But this scent—

I moved before I could stop myself, dropping to my knees in the mud beside the rogue. Up close, I could see the extent of his injuries: deep gashes across his ribs, a badly torn shoulder, blood matting his dark fur. His breathing was shallow and irregular.

His eyes cracked open—amber, not Francis's green—and found mine. There was no recognition in them. No awareness beyond pain and exhaustion.

"You're an idiot," I whispered to him, to myself, to the ghost I couldn't let go of. "And I'm a bigger one."

It took me forty minutes to drag him to my quarters. The Omega cabin sat at the edge of pack territory, isolated enough that no one would notice if I was quiet. I was always quiet.

Sera Holt arrived within the hour. I'd sent her a single text—*need help, urgent, no questions*—and she'd come. That was Sera. Mid-ranking healer with more sense than ambition, and the closest thing I had to a friend in this pack.

She took one look at the unconscious