Alpha's Virgin Claim

"That can't be," I whispered, my voice cracking as the words from the other end of the call shredded through my chest like glass. "I'm not lying, Nadia. Ryan and Kaden will be mated in just a few hours. If you doubt me, return to the pack and see for yourself," she insisted, each word falling heavy, deliberate like daggers to my ribs. A breathless laugh escaped me. "You must be mistaken" I tried sounding convincing. "Maybe Ryan’s being mated to someone else entirely. Not Kaden. It’s not possible," I said, clinging to the last shred of hope like it was air. "We spoke just yesterday. Everything was fine. He would’ve told me. He promised—" "I knew you'd be too stubborn to believe it," she cut in. "That’s why I bought you a train ticket back to Bloodmoon Pack. Check your messages. You’ll see I’m not lying." And with that, she hung up before I could object, before I could beg her to take back her words. Mirabel. My best friend. The only person I confided in when life became too much to carry. But this? This couldn't be real. Especially not from her. She must be wrong on this one. Mistaken and confused anything but right. Because there’s no world in which Kaden, my fated mate, would stand at the altar today... for another woman. A woman who isn’t me. I unlocked my phone, hands trembling, and dragged my finger to the messages. There it was. A train ticket booked in my name. Another call flashed across the screen. It was Mirabel again. I answered, barely breathing. “Have you come back to your senses?” I asked coldly, hoping—no, praying she’d say it was all a joke. That the ticket was fake. That she wanted to pull a prank on me, maybe, but nothing more. But then came the scoff. Mirabel had scoffed at others before. At bullies, at the liars and the arrogant wolves who looked down on me back at Bloodmoon Pack but never at me. "Did you actually believe Kaden when he said he'd claim you?" she asked, and before I could even answer, she continued. "There are no omega Lunas in any pack, Nadia. I warned you not to fall for him. I told you his promises would ruin you." Her voice turned colder. "But you wouldn’t listen. And now? Now you’ve gotten exactly what I said you would: heartbreak." My mouth opened, lips trembling with a reply that never came. Before I could find the words to say, she hung up again. She hadn’t called to comfort me. She’d called to break me even more. And that was what made it worse. She knew. She knew how much those words—“no omega Luna”—destroyed me every time I heard them back at Bloodmoon Pack. The same words I’d spent my whole life fighting, words that haunted me even after Kaden approved my transfer to study far away. Now, just three months later, she calls to tell me he’s getting mated tonight? To Ryan, the Beta’s daughter? The girl who used to mock my clothes and spat on the floor asking me to clean it with my lips? Who once told me I smelled like “unclaimed dust”? My fingers tightened around the phone as if holding it too tightly would stop my heart from crumbling. But the pain had already set in. And this time? It wasn’t just the pack’s words breaking me. It was my best friend. And my mate. I don’t know what exactly moved me to pick up my purse a few minutes after from the drawer of the tiny cubicle I called a room. Maybe it was instinct or madness. Or maybe it was the creeping restlessness that had started to build since I got off the phone call. The same restlessness that had made me question where I stood in this world that hated my existence. They all looked down on this place, especially Mirabel. She never hid her disgust each time she came to visit in the past. She'd scoffed at the peeling paint, the creaky bedframe, and the single window that barely let in sunlight. To her, it was a prison. But they didn’t understand what this space meant to me. This room, no matter how small or battered it was had been my first taste of freedom. The one place that belonged to me, where no one barked orders or reminded me I was nothing. For the past three months since I left the Bloodmoon Pack, this cubicle had held my silence, my healing and the broken pieces of who I used to be. I still remember Mirabel's voice, sharp and loud like a cracked bell. She was the only one I truly spoke to apart from Kaden. The rest either whispered behind my back or stared, as if wondering whether I was mute, dumb, or possessed by something too strange for words. “How can the Almighty Alpha heir Kaden’s fated mate be staying in a one-room apartment like this?” I had hushed her that day. She meant well but her mouth was reckless and always too honest and blunt. Her truths cut deeper than lies ever could. Yes, I was Kaden’s mate. The goddess, fate or whatever twisted force ruled over wolfkind had decided that. But being his mate didn’t mean I had to become some ornament living off him. I wasn’t going to be a leech, even if everyone expected me to. Kaden had done enough already for me, more than I ever dreamed. He had challenged tradition. Convinced his father to let me out of the Pack’s gates to attend business school on the outskirts of the city. That had never been done before for an omega, no less who was the pack's property. Because that’s what I am: an omega not by birth, but by punishment. They say wolves are born into their ranks—alpha, beta or omega. With the Alpha being head of the pack while omegas were the weak and servants. But that wasn’t true in my case. Because I was born the daughter of a Beta. Proud and strong. Until my father was accused of treason and executed when I was still a child. They said he conspired with rogues and betrayed the crown. I never learned the truth, only the consequences. My mother, his mate was allowed to live for three years. Just enough time to raise me with trembling hands and tear-filled lullabies before she too, was taken and executed as an accomplice. And I? Their child? I was marked and stripped of title. Reduced and rebranded as an omega. I was raised among the servants—taught to kneel, to obey, to worship the alphas and the royal family as gods on earth. I was told my blood was tainted and that my father’s betrayal lived in my bones. Until six months ago, months after the night I turned eighteen. It was also Ryan’s birthday—the Beta’s daughter. According to ancient tradition, it is on that day that the mate bond reveals itself between the Alpha heir and the chosen daughter of the Beta. But something went wrong that night. Or maybe something finally went right in my life. Because it wasn’t Ryan who fate tethered to Kaden. It was me. Our threads ignited in the moonlight and the pull was undeniable. The bond had crackled between us like lightning, raw and ancient. The pack refused to believe it. They whispered that the mate bond had made a mistake. That the gods would never choose someone like me as the future Luna of their pack. Some said it was because of my bloodline—that my father’s rank still lingered in my veins and confused the bond. Others accused me of sorcery. Of stealing Ryan’s fate with forbidden magic. After all, how could a lowly omega, born of traitors, become the mate of the Alpha’s only heir? But Kaden silenced them all. He stood before the entire pack—before the council, the elders and the howling wolves and vowed to protect me. To claim and fight for me. Whether or not I had a wolf. Whether or not I was wanted. He said he’d choose me again and again. Even on the day of his crowning ceremony. Even if the rest of the Pack called me cursed. Even if the world refused to understand what fate had already sealed.