The Alpha CEO's Runaway Bride: Marked, Pregnant, and Claimed by His Rival

SCARLETT The moan hit me before my hand even touched the door. I stood frozen in the hallway of my father's mansion, my wedding dress pooling around my white heels. My fingers wrapped around the cold brass handle. My heart slammed so hard against my ribs that it hurt. "Zane," a woman's voice whispered from inside the storage room. "Right there. Don't stop." I knew that voice. I had known it my whole life. Ivy. My little sister. For one second, I told myself I was wrong. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe a maid was inside, fixing the chairs before the ceremony. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Then I heard him groan. Low and rough. The same sound he made every time he kissed my neck and told me he could not wait to make me his wife. My hand pushed the door open before my brain could stop it. The storage room behind the chapel was small, full of folding chairs and rolls of white ribbon. Zane Wilder, my groom, the Alpha and CEO of Wilder Industries, had my sister pinned against the wall. His tux jacket lay on the floor. Ivy's dress, the one she was supposed to wear as my maid of honor in twenty minutes, was pushed up around her waist. They both turned and looked at me at the same time. Ivy's face went white. Zane's face did not change at all. That scared me more than anything. He looked at me the way he would look at a waiter who brought the wrong order, not a man caught with his hands all over his fiancée's sister. "Scarlett," he said. He did not even step back from her. "This is not what it looks like." "Really?" My voice came out flat and calm. That scared me too. "Because it looks exactly like what it looks like." "Scar, please," Ivy said, pulling her dress down. "Let me explain." "Don't call me that," I said. "You lost the right to call me that the second you took off your clothes for him." I should have screamed. I should have thrown a chair at his head. Instead, my hand moved to my stomach, where something small and secret was growing. I had found out three days ago. In my bag, in the car, there was a tiny velvet box. Not a ring. A folded scan photo and a card I had written ten times until it sounded right. I was going to give it to him tonight, after the vows, as a wedding gift. My eyes burned, but I refused to cry in front of either of them. Not here. Not in this dress. I had spent six months planning every detail of this wedding, the flowers, the song, the toast my father would give. None of it mattered now. "How long?" I asked. Zane reached for his shirt off the floor. "Scarlett, you don't understand." "How long, Zane?" Ivy stared at her feet. "Since before you two got engaged," she whispered. The floor seemed to tilt under me. Two years. He had been sleeping with my own sister for two years, while he put a ring on my finger, while our fathers shook hands over this marriage like it was a business deal, while the whole pack already called me their future Luna. "Get out," Zane said. For the first time, his voice turned sharp. Not at Ivy. At me. "Excuse me?" "You heard me. Get out before someone else sees you standing here and ruins the wedding over nothing." Nothing. He called it nothing. I looked at this man. This Alpha. This billionaire the whole world thought was perfect. Something cold moved through my chest, colder than anger, colder than tears. I turned and walked out with my chin up, past white folding chairs, past flower stands, past two hundred guests already taking their seats outside who had no idea their golden couple was already broken before the music even started. My father caught my arm in the hallway, his face tight with panic. "Scarlett, what's wrong? The guests are asking questions." "Ask Zane," I said, pulling my arm free. "Ask him what he was doing in the storage room with Ivy." His grip tightened. "Whatever happened in there, fix your face and walk down that aisle in fifteen minutes. This merger means everything to this family." I looked at him, really looked at him, and understood. Maybe he did not know the details, but he knew enough. And he did not care. I did not stop walking until I reached the parking lot. My veil came off in one rip. I threw it onto the passenger seat and got into my car, my hands shaking so badly it took three tries to get the key into the engine. Rain had started to fall, soft at first, then heavy, drumming on the roof like a warning drum. I pulled out of the long driveway and onto the dark country road. The window on my side was still open, and rain soaked through my dress, but I did not care. I just needed to drive. Away from that house. Away from Ivy's face. Away from the sound of Zane calling our baby nothing. My phone buzzed on the seat beside me. Then again. And again. I glanced down for one second and saw Zane's name flashing on the screen, over and over. When I looked back up, the headlights were not enough warning. A man stood in the middle of the road. He did not move. He did not flinch from the rain or the lights aimed straight at his face. He stood there in a dark suit, tall and still, like he had been waiting for me, like he already knew I was coming. I slammed my foot down on the brake. The tires screamed against the wet road. The car spun. The world turned sideways. Through the blur of rain and glass, I saw his eyes. They were not human eyes. They glowed gold, bright as fire, locked on mine, like he could see straight through the windshield, straight through me, straight into the secret growing inside me. Aria, my wolf, had been silent since the day I was born. The healers called me wolfless. Broken. A disappointment to an Alpha bloodline. I had stopped listening for her years ago. But in that one heartbeat, with his golden eyes burning into mine, something deep in my chest moved for the first time in my life. Then everything went black.