The Alpha Who Engineered My Murder

Chapter Two: Second Breath

My eyes flicked open, flooding with the harsh morning light, and a suffocating gasp tore from my throat. I was breathing. I was warm.

“Lisandra, hurry up! You are going to drift into your eighteenth year late, and the pack gathering starts at dawn!”

I bolted upright, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs as I spun my head around. Confusion crashed over me. Where were the sterile white walls? Where was the agony of the silver?

“Lisandra!”

The sharp, familiar voice echoed again through the hallway, jolting my frozen limbs into motion. I shoved the heavy blankets back and padded across the floorboards. The sight of the pale yellow walls and the framed childhood pictures stopped me dead in my tracks. It was my old bedroom—the sanctuary I hadn't stepped foot in since the cursed day I met Matheus.

A light knock rapped against the wood, and the door clicked open to reveal my mother. Before my brain could process the impossible physics of what was happening, I launched myself off the floor and collided with her, burying my face in the crook of her neck.

“Mom... you’re here,” I sobbed, my tears soaking her blouse. “I’ve missed you so damn much.”

“Lisandra, my sweet girl,” she laughed softly, wrapping her arms around me and patting my back. “We literally spoke an hour ago. I saw you yesterday, dramatic thing.” She gently pulled back, her warm amber eyes—the exact shade of my own—crinkling at the corners. “Happy eighteenth birthday, my love.”

The breath evacuated my lungs. Today. Today was the exact day my life had derailed six years ago. The day I met Matheus.

“Thank you, Mom,” I whispered, leaning my forehead against hers, suddenly acutely aware of how precious this touch was.

“Go get dressed. Hopefully, the Goddess smiles on you today and you find your true mate to start your magnificent new chapter.” She beamed with maternal hope, but at her words, ice water flooded my veins.

Mate. The very word made my stomach heave. I couldn't go through that hell again. Not when I knew the exact blueprint of my s*******r.

“I’d rather just stay right here with you,” I murmured, pressing a fierce kiss to her cheek. “I never want to leave this house. I never want to leave you and Morgan.”

A bitter taste coated my tongue as I thought of Morgan—my mother’s husband, Yara’s father. True, he had genuinely loved my mother, but his weakness had allowed his scheming, venomous daughter to orchestrate our entire annihilation. When Matheus had murdered my mother in cold blood after framing me, Morgan had simply stood by, paralyzed by cowardice, watching the woman he loved destroyed. I understood grief, but I loathed compliance. I despised him for it.

“Oh, darling, you won’t lose us. We’ll be right here cheering you on,” my mother cooed, kissing my forehead.

I grabbed her hands, gripping her fingers with desperate urgency. “Mom... can we just pack a bag? You, me, and Morgan? Leave Yara behind and move back to Dad’s territory? To the Silvermoon pack?”

My father, the Alpha of Silvermoon, had been a deeply flawed man. He had broken my mother’s heart in a drunken betrayal years ago—a manipulated weakness orchestrated by rival pack rivals, though he swore it was a setup. But my mother had never forgiven him, refusing to let the poison fester while our family fractured.

My mother’s face fell instantly, a dark shadow passing over her amber eyes. “No, Lisandra. I can never go back there.”

“I don't want a mate, Mom,” I whispered, my voice trembling with the weight of invisible scars. “I don't want to be betrayed. Not like you were, and certainly not unto death.”

“True mates don't hurt one another, baby,” she tried to reassure me with a sad, fragile smile.

If only you knew, I thought, shivering violently. If only you knew what monsters wear the face of destiny.

“Would you be angry... if I refused him? If I rejected my mate outright?”

My mother paused, staring at me with sudden, piercing intensity. “The Moon Goddess lays out paths, yes, but free will is sacred. If your soul rejects the bond, you have the right to sever it.”

“And if... if he is the Alpha’s son and heir?”

The air between us suddenly grew thin. My mother’s breath hitched. She knew the brutal politics of our hierarchy as well as I did: an Alpha heir needed his fated mate, even if only for a fleeting moment, to anchor his bloodline and unlock his peak dominance. If I rejected Matheus, the pack elders would hunt me down.

“What aren’t you telling me, Lisandra?” She stepped closer, her sharp gaze scanning my face for answers.

I grabbed her arm, frantically dragging her deeper into the bedroom and slamming the door shut against the hallway. “I don't know all the mechanics, but I have a terrifying premonition. If I mate Yara’s wretched boyfriend, I will not survive it. The odds of a high-ranking Alpha matching with someone like me are a death sentence disguised as fate.”

She weighed my frantic words, and I watched the exact moment realization and icy dread settled into her bones. She had always known the dark underbelly of pack politics.

“Okay,” she whispered, her voice hardening with resolve. “If you feel this deeply, you cannot run—fleeing now would look like treason and draw immediate suspicion. You must mask your scent. Completely.”

I threw my hands up in sheer frustration. “How on earth do I do that? That's ancient pack lore!”

“There are truths I buried long ago... things I hoped you would never need to know.” She hesitated, then nodded. “Let me make a few discreet calls. Stay in your room. You are missing the morning rituals today.”

I threw my arms around her neck, burying a sob of pure relief. “Thank you, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you too, my fierce little wolf. I will always protect you.” She kissed my temple and slipped quietly out of the door.

The second she was gone, I sprinted to my vanity, grabbed my phone, and checked the screen.

October 7, 2020.

I had been thrown back precisely six years. Six years to the exact morning I crossed paths with Matheus in the pack clearing. I had a second chance. I had foreknowledge, a clear memory of every knife in the dark, and a burning vengeance in my chest.

Don't worry, my little one, I whispered fiercely, pressing my palm flat against my completely flat, unscarred stomach. This time around, no one lays a finger on you. Momma is taking back the game.

I stripped off my sleep shirt and headed straight for the en-suite bathroom, letting the steaming water blast away the lingering phantom chill of the silver table. I wasn't going to face my executioners looking like a victim.

Ten minutes later, wrapped only in a plush towel, I stepped back into my bedroom to dig through my wardrobe. But before my fingers could brush the fabric, the soft, deliberate squeak of my bedroom door opening caught my ear.

It wasn't my mother’s steady, familiar stride.

Moving in absolute silence, I slipped behind the heavy winter coats hanging in the deep recess of my walk-in closet, peering through the gap in the velvet garments.

Yara stepped into the room, her phone pressed tightly to her ear, a sneer twisting her pretty features.

“I’m telling you, Megan, if that new girl turns out to be Matheus’s true mate, I am going to rip her throat out with my bare teeth,” Yara hissed into the receiver.

The nasally, irritating voice of Megan, Yara’s sycophantic best friend, crackled through the speaker. “You can’t actually mean that, Shan.”

“Of course I do! Matheus is mine. He belongs to the future Luna of this pack!”

“Only because you trap him in your bed every chance you get. Everyone knows he was originally holding out for someone from the core bloodlines.”

“Shut your filthy mouth, Megan!” Yara snarled, her eyes flashing an angry, unfiltered amber in the mirror's reflection. “He is mine.”

“Whatever, drama queen. Hurry up and get down to the square before I leave your pathetic ass behind,” Megan snapped, and the line disconnected with a sharp beep.

Downstairs, a car horn blared. Yara turned on her heel to storm out, but before she could cross the threshold, I stepped smoothly out of the closet.

“What do you think you’re doing snooping around my room, Yara?”

Yara jumped a foot in the air, her face draining of color before morphing into a mask of pure venom. “Lisandra? How long have you—?”

I didn't let her finish. In a blur of motion, I lunged forward, grabbed her wrist, and squeezed with a fraction of my coiled predatory strength.

Crack.

A sickening pop echoed through the bedroom. Yara’s mouth flew open in a high-pitched shriek, but I clamped my free hand ruthlessly over her mouth, stifling the noise against my palm.

“Shh, sweet sister,” I whispered, leaning in close so my breath ghosted over her ear. “Consider yourself lucky I only snapped one metacarpal. Did I hear that correctly? A Beta’s spawn threatening to murder an Alpha’s blood?” I offered a cold, mocking tsk.

Yara stumbled back the second I released her, cradling her dangling, broken finger while tears streamed down her face. She bared her teeth, her wolf clawing desperately at the surface. “I didn't say s**t to you, you psycho b***h!”

“Lie to me again, and I will shatter every single bone in both of your hands, and hold them steady while they heal crooked.” I couldn’t help the manic, razor-sharp grin that spread across my face as I watched her whole body tremble with primal terror. “Now, did you or did you not just threaten my life?”

“Y-yes!” she sobbed out, clutching her broken hand to her chest. “You’re going to steal Matheus from me!”

“Keep him,” I spat with utter revulsion, shoving her hard enough to send her stumbling against my vanity chair. “I wouldn't touch your pathetic, treacherous Alpha if he was gilded in gold and dripping in diamonds. Now, get the hell out of my room before I change my mind and decide to strip the skin off your back.”

Yara scrambled backward, casting one terrified, disbelieving look at me before bolting out the door like a kicked cur.

I let out a slow, stabilizing breath, letting my wolf recede safely back beneath the surface of my consciousness. My reflection in the mirror stared back—eyes sharp, posture ironclad, and entirely untouchable.

Let Matheus look for his fated mate today. Let the pack spin their webs of ambition and betrayal. They could play their little games all they wanted.

This time, the hunter had the map, and I was going to burn their entire kingdom to ash.