The Alpha’s Daughter Stole My Marriage and My Pregnancy

The pack house smelled like roasted venison and pine smoke. I stood alone in the main hall, smoothing the silk of my dress over my stomach. Three days ago, Lena the Healer had gripped my hand across her examination table and smiled. "You're carrying, Luna," she'd said, and the world had tilted into something brighter.

I pressed my palm flat against my abdomen now, feeling nothing but the warmth of my own skin. It didn't matter. I knew. My wolf knew. She'd been purring since the moment Lena spoke the words, a low rumble of satisfaction I hadn't felt in two years of hoping and waiting and bleeding every month like clockwork.

Tonight I would tell Gavin. I'd planned it carefully—after the Harvest Moon Banquet, when the pack had eaten and the ranked wolves had made their toasts and the younger ones had started the bonfire outside. I would lead him to the east balcony, where the moonlight pooled silver on the stone, and I would take his hand and tell him the secret I'd been carrying for three days like a candle flame cupped in my palms.

The front door swung open. Gavin stepped through, and my wolf surged forward with the instinct to go to him, to press close and breathe in the scent of cedar and leather that had been mine since the night he marked me. But I stopped.

He wasn't alone.

A small hand was tucked into his. A child stood beside him—maybe eight years old, dark hair pulled into a braid, eyes sharp and watchful in a way that made my wolf's purr stutter and go quiet. The girl didn't look around the pack house the way a nervous child would. She looked at it the way you look at a map, taking inventory.

Gavin's jaw was tight. He had the expression he wore when he was managing something—when a council meeting had gone badly or a border patrol brought back news he didn't want to hear. He met my eyes, and I saw the control there, the Alpha putting everything in its place before anyone could ask questions.

"Sienna," he said. His voice had that edge of command, the tone that told me this wasn't a conversation. It was an announcement. "This is Rosie."

I looked at the girl. She looked back. Her face was small and pale, her mouth a careful line. She didn't smile. She didn't fidget. She just stood there, still as a stone, and watched me.

"Rosie," I repeated. My voice came out softer than I meant it to. I glanced at Gavin. "Who—"

"Her mother was a rogue named Jenna," Gavin said. He pulled a folded set of papers from his jacket and set them on the entry table. "She died two weeks ago. Rosie has no pack, no family. I've brought her here."

My wolf growled. It was low, guttural, the sound she made when something was wrong in a way I couldn't see yet. I swallowed