Reborn As The Alpha’s Ex-Wife

Chapter 3

I step out into the covered portico, shaking the rain from my coat. "Is the private auction floor prepped for tomorrow?"

"Everything has been arranged as requested," the guard replies, opening the heavy glass doors for me. "The Royal Lycan Council has already cleared your invitation."

I step into the hyper-luxurious lobby. Soaring ceilings, gold leaf detailing, and an atmosphere thick with dominant, ancient shifter energy. Standard pack wolves wouldn't dare enter this building without a royal summons.

I walk toward the private elevator reserved for VIP guests. As I wait for the doors to open, I feel a sudden, intense shift in the atmospheric pressure around me.

It isn't the crude, oppressive weight of an Alpha aura like Damon's.

It is something entirely different. Cold, vast, and intoxicating—like the air at the peak of a snowy mountain, laced with the sharp scent of ozone and crushed dark pine.

The air in my lungs burns with a pleasant, electric heat. Deep inside my chest, my awakened Silver-Moon blood stirs, humming in response.

I turn around slowly.

Walking across the private marble hallway, flanked by six imposing Royal guards, is a man who looks as if he were sculpted from shadow and gold.

Broad-shouldered, impossibly tall, wearing a bespoke charcoal suit that accents his lethal, athletic frame. His hair is pitch black, brushed back cleanly, but it is his eyes that stop the room cold.

Luminous, dark-gold eyes that burn with absolute, unchecked sovereignty.

King Alexander.

The undisputed ruler of the Lycan Realm, the terrifying billionaire sovereign whose family has ruled the continent’s shifter nobility for five hundred years—and Damon Vance’s worst nightmare.

As Alexander walks past, his eyes drift away from his aides and snap directly to me.

He stops in his tracks. The six guards behind him immediately halt, freezing in absolute silence.

Alexander’s dark-gold eyes narrow slightly as he looks at me. His gaze sweeps over my face, resting on my eyes, detecting the faint silver luminescence hum beneath my skin that no ordinary human or wolf could ever perceive.

A slow, dangerously handsome smirk curves his lips.

He takes a step toward me, his heavy, suffocating pressure washing over the lobby. The hotel staff immediately drop their heads, bowing low in terror.

I don't bow. I stand my ground, tilting my head up to meet his intense gaze as he stops just two feet away from me.

Alexander leans down slightly, his deep, velvety voice echoing in my mind through a private, high-frequency mental link that bypasses every physical barrier:

“Well, well... I was told the Silver Moon bloodline vanished five centuries ago. Yet here you are, standing in my hotel, buying up an Alpha’s trash.”

I don't flinch. I look him dead in his golden eyes, sending a sharp, crystal-clear message right back into his mind:

“I’m not just buying his trash, Your Majesty. I’m going to use it to burn his whole world to the ground.”

King Alexander’s dark chuckle echoes through the marble hall, a sound pure danger and delight.

“Fascinating,” he whispers softly, his golden eyes flaring with an intense, possessive heat. “Then allow me to offer you a seat at my table tomorrow night, my Queen. Let’s burn it together.”

The electric tension between King Alexander and me lingers in the cold, rain-scented air of the lobby long after the doors of his private elevator close.

I stand alone in the quiet corridor, my pulse thumping against my ribs. The ancient Silver-Moon fire in my chest still hums, warm and alive, answering the residue of his terrifying Lycan aura. Alexander didn't just recognize me—he knew exactly what bloodline I carried before I even said a word.

Five hundred years.

That was how long my bloodline had been dormant. My mother lived and died believing she was a standard human orphan, just as I had in my previous life. But death didn't just end my suffering—it shattered the ancestral seal on my soul.

My private elevator chimed, the doors sliding open to reveal the top-floor Penthouse Suite of the Royal Crown Hotel.

Ignoring him, I step inside. The suite is massive—wraparound glass walls overlooking the city, dark mahogany floors, and a private terminal set up in the corner with six high-resolution screens displaying real-time financial markets.

I shed my rain-soaked coat, pouring myself a glass of iced water before sitting down at the terminal.

My fingers fly across the mechanical keyboard. On the leftmost screen, a red line is plunging downward like a falling stone.

VANCE ENTERPRISES (VNC) - DOWN 18.4% IN AFTER-HOURS TRADING.

On the center screen, my encrypted broker terminal flashes green:

PORT TRANSACTION COMPLETE. VALKYRIE HOLDINGS NOW CONTROLS 60% OF VANCE ENTERPRISES' SECONDARY DEBT BONDS.

A cold, satisfied smile touches my lips. In less than three hours, I have effectively placed a collar around Damon’s neck. He doesn't know it yet, but every shipping container his pack sends across the border now requires my explicit signature to clear customs.

My encrypted phone vibrates on the desk.

I pick it up, tapping the speaker icon. "Report."

"Lady Valkyrie," a sharp, precise female voice answers. It is Evelyn Vance—not Damon's cousin, but his estranged aunt, the disgraced former CFO whom Damon forced out of the family board four years ago. I recruited her anonymously through an overseas proxy three hours ago. "Damon just called an emergency meeting of the pack’s inner finance council. He’s liquidating twenty percent of the pack’s private land reserves to cover the debt buybacks."

"Okay, that’s good," I say softly, swirling the water in my glass. "He’s selling land at a distressed rate. Have our front company, Silver-Crest Acquisitions, buy every acre he puts on the market."

Evelyn lets out a raspy, dark laugh over the line. "You’re stripping him down to the bone, aren't you? He thinks he's dealing with a corporate competitor. He has no idea he's fighting his ex-wife."

"This is because he thinks I’m a helpless human orphan who is currently crying in a cheap motel," I reply, my voice dripping with icy calm. "Let him keep thinking that until tomorrow night."

"The Sovereign Auction at the Royal Crown?"

"Precisely. Damon will attend. He needs the European Logistics Patent being auctioned off tomorrow night to save his company from total bankruptcy. He thinks he can outbid the room using his pack's emergency cash reserves."

"And you?" Evelyn asks, her tone turning eager.

"I’m going to buy the patent right out from under his nose," I say, gazing out at the rain-streaked city skyline. "And then I’m going to make him watch his entire world fall apart in front of the most powerful Alphas on the continent."

I disconnect the call, closing my eyes for a brief moment to let the stillness settle over me.

Across the city, inside the master bedroom of the Vance Estate, the atmosphere is far from still.

Glass shatters against the stone fireplace.

"Find her!" Damon roars, his Alpha voice vibrating through the heavy wooden beams of the room, forcing the two pack guards standing by the door to drop to one knee in physical pain. "I don't care if you have to tear down every hotel in the human sector! Find where Lyra is staying!"

The guards tremble, their heads bowed low. "Alpha... her phone location was wiped the moment she left the building. Her bank cards haven't been swiped once. It's like... it's like she vanished into thin air."