My Alpha’s Legal Mate Was My Lookalike

Viola's POV: As I left the Registry Office, my phone lit up with a photo from Vincent Langley. A bouquet of pink roses and a strawberry cake sat on the passenger seat of his car. Through the window, I could see the stone marker at the entrance to White Pine territory. Vincent: Babe, I canceled tonight's council meeting. I miss you. Do you miss me? He'd asked me that same question the night before, with his arms wrapped around me as we lay in bed. Even with me right there beside him, he hadn't been willing to close his eyes until I'd told him I missed him too. But seeing those words now only made my chest ache. When we were 12, my butterfly kite got caught in an oak tree. Vincent climbed up to retrieve it and broke his right arm when he fell. Yet the first thing he did after hitting the ground was press the kite into my hands. "Vivi, don't cry. I got it." Neither of us had awakened our wolves yet, so his broken bones couldn't heal quickly. He spent two months in a splint, but he still walked the forest path with me every day, afraid the other children would tease me for being timid. On the first full moon after my 18th birthday, I finally shifted into a gray wolf. Vincent shifted into his black wolf form and waited at the edge of the clearing. When I managed to steady myself on my trembling legs, he lowered his head and gently touched his nose to mine. "When you graduate from Belleford, we'll become mates." That night, he placed a ring in my palm. "My father's pack will be your home too." We weren't fated mates. But Vincent insisted it didn't matter whether the Moon Goddess had chosen us for each other. I was the only person he'd ever want. Later, he took over as Alpha after his father, while I went to Belleford to study finance and help review the accounts for my family's company. Even with an ocean between us, he video-called me every day. He wanted to hear about everything, right down to what I'd bought at the supermarket. Then, one night, I came home early and found him kissing another girl in the pack clubhouse. She was wearing one of my dresses. Even her profile looked almost exactly like mine. Vincent chased me into the parking lot and caught my hand. "Daphne," he explained, "is just a rogue with nowhere to go. I missed you too much to sleep. That was why I've given in to temptation and kept someone who looked like you by my side. "You're the mate I chose, Vivi. Surely you can't doubt that." He spent the entire night outside my door. At dawn, he shifted into his black wolf form and lay on the steps, his fur soaked with rain. When I finally opened the door, he didn't try to come inside. He simply rested his chin on my foot. I forgave him. Afterward, Vincent kept Daphne on as his assistant. He told me her mother was seriously ill and that without a job, Daphne couldn't even afford her medication. She had nowhere else to go, and White Pine couldn't just throw her out. And somehow, I believed him again. Our mating ceremony was lavish. Whenever pack members saw me, they bowed their heads and respectfully addressed me as Luna. Yet in all three years since that ceremony, Vincent had never marked my neck. Even wolves who weren't fated mates could form a mate bond by choice. Once their contract was registered and they'd exchanged marks, they would be able to sense each other through the bond. At first, Vincent said he didn't want to hurt me and would rather wait. Later, he blamed the unrest along the border. His pack needed him at all hours, he said, and he wanted our marking to happen on a peaceful night when no one would interrupt us, so he could stay with me afterward. The pack members had no access to the Alliance registry. And because I trusted him, I'd never once thought to check whether our signed contract had actually been filed. For three years, everyone remembered our ceremony. No one knew another woman's name was on the official records. Every time Vincent put off marking me, I'd mistaken his excuses for tenderness. When I returned to White Pine territory, I approached Vincent's study through the side door and heard his second-in-command, Oscar, mention Daphne Ward. "It was just a scrape. Even the doctor said she's fine. Aren't you supposed to be spending today with Vivi?" "Put that cigarette out. She'll start coughing if she smells the smoke." Oscar stubbed it out but wasn't finished. "If you care about Vivi so much, why did you register Daphne as your mate?" My hand froze just inches from the door. After a moment, Vincent finally answered. "Vivi got her ceremony. Everyone gave us their blessing. Daphne had nothing. She didn't even have anywhere she could feel safe." "So you made her your legal mate?" "It's just a name on a registry. Everyone in White Pine knows Vivi is my Luna." "Then would you dare tell her the truth?" Silence stretched between them. Finally, Vincent spoke, "She'll never find out." My phone vibrated again. He was right there on the other side of the door, asking if I was home yet and reminding me that the frosting would melt if I didn't hurry back. That afternoon, I contacted a lawyer with no ties to White Pine and asked her to help me leave the pack. I'd decided to reclaim my mother's surname, Sutton, change my phone number, and revoke Vincent's access to my accounts. "The process will take 14 days," the lawyer explained. "Normally, if you were his mate, you'd have to dissolve the bond first. But in your case, there's no bond to dissolve. He never registered you." I wanted to respond, but my throat had tightened so much I couldn't speak. It took me a long moment to find my voice. "Please take care of everything for me." In the end, I wouldn't even need to file paperwork to dissolve our mate bond. Vincent had never made us legally mates in the first place.