Bound By My Ex’s Alpha Father

Iris’s POV I hope today goes as planned because if it doesn’t then I’ll be completely cooked. Not the normal one because there is no room for weakness from the only daughter of the Beta of Gravefang Pack. None whatsoever. I know exactly why my parents they resent me. I was supposed to be a boy. The heir to carry on the Magnus Beta legacy. Instead, I came out wrong as a daughter when they needed a son and they’ve never let me forget it. Today is my eighteenth birthday and Theo and Liora took it upon themselves to throw me a party at the Alpha’s mansion while their parents were away at a council meeting. I stared at the pack members crowded into the lavish space as they grinned and sang the happy birthday song while others took videos and pictures with their phones. I know most of them are only here because the Alpha’s children invited them and refusing the future Alpha and his sister would be social suicide in Gravefang Pack. Everyone wants to be in their good books to survive classism. Theo and Liora have always told me to ignore what the rest of the pack thinks of me. According to them, people just have nothing better to do than make my life miserable simply because I’m their best friend. But I’m not naive enough to believe that’s the only reason. The whispers follow me everywhere that the Beta’s broken daughter, the girl who should have been a boy, the one who still hasn’t shifted at eighteen when most wolves get their first transformation at sixteen. My mother stopped making excuses for me a year ago. My father can barely look at me without his jaw tightening in frustration. But tonight could change everything. Tonight, I could finally get my wolf and prove them wrong. Tonight, I could find my mate. Both Theo and Liora haven’t found their mates yet and a secret part of me has always hoped Theo would be mine. Even though I’ve dreamed of leaving Gravefang Pack behind, I would stay for him. He’s been my anchor since childhood, the one person who’s never made me feel like a disappointment. He understands me in ways no one else does. If Theo is my mate maybe I could finally belong here. “Make a wish, Iris!” Liora’s bright voice cut through my thoughts as she pushed an elaborate three-tiered cake toward me candles flickering. My best friend looked absolutely stunning as always with her perfect blonde hair cascading down her back, blue eyes sparkling with genuine excitement. At six feet one, she towered over me in her designer heels, every inch the model she was building her career to be. She’d just signed with an agency in the city last month. I closed my eyes and wished for the same thing I’d been wishing for since I turned sixteen: Please let me shift. Please let me have a wolf. The pack members clapped politely as I blew out the candles though I caught a few eye rolls and smirks. They didn’t believe anything would happen tonight either. It should have happened two years ago. “Speech! Speech!” Theo called out, slightly slurring his words. I could smell the whiskey on him from here and it wasn’t even nine PM yet. He stumbled forward with a grin, dark eyes glassy amd his black hair deliberately messy in that way that somehow still looked good on him. At six feet one and built like a warrior, he should have been the perfect future Alpha. Instead he spent most nights at bars in Grave City stumbling home with a different girl each week. “To my best friend Iris,” he raised his glass “who’s going to show all these assholes her wolf tonight and prove them all wrong!” Some people laughed while others shifted uncomfortably. I forced a smile and thanked him even though his words felt hollow coming from someone who could barely stand straight. The party continued around me with the music thumping, people dancing and endless drinks flowing. Liora had gone all out transforming the mansion’s main hall into something out of a magazine. But I felt separate from it all watching from behind a glass wall. Then it happened all of a sudden. Pain shot through my body like lightning so sudden and violent that I gasped. My skin felt too tight, my bones aching to reshape themselves. Heat flooded through my veins and my senses exploded that I could hear heartbeats, smell individual scents and see with a clarity that made the room almost too bright. This is it. This is it! “She’s shifting!” someone shouted. The music cut off abruptly. Everyone turned to stare at me as I doubled over, clutching my stomach. The pain intensified and I felt something inside me stirring and waking up, rising to the surface. “Hello, Iris” a feminine voice whispered in my mind and it was so warm and ancient. “I’m Aeris. I’m your -” And then just as suddenly as it began, everything vanished. The pain cut off like a severed cord. The heightened senses dulled back to normal. The presence in my mind disappeared as if she’d never existed at all. I stood there in the sudden silence still completely human gasping for breath. No fur or paws or wolf. Nothing. The disappointment in the room was palpable. I heard someone snicker. Someone else whispered, “I knew it. She really is defective.” My parents stood near the back of the crowd. My mother looked away, her face carefully blank. My father’s expression was pure shame and I watched as he turned and walked out without a word. “Everyone out!” Liora’s voice cracked like a whip. “Party’s over. Get out!” People filed out slowly whispering and laughing. I stood frozen in the center of the emptying room my chest tight with humiliation and confusion. What happened? I’d felt Aeris. My wolf. She’d been right there and then…nothing. “Iris…” Liora approached carefully, reaching for my hand. But I was already moving, grabbing the skirts of my dress and running. I heard Theo call after me but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t face them or face anyone for that matter. I ran through the mansion’s corridors and burst out the back door into the cool night air of the Gravefang estate. My heels sank into the grass as I fled toward the tree line, desperate for darkness and some little solitude. I made it to a cluster of oak trees before my legs gave out. I collapsed against a trunk pulling my knees to my chest and completely ruining my dress and not caring at all. Tears burned hot down my cheeks. I’d been so close. I’d felt my wolf, heard her voice and then she’d just…vanished. “Why?” I whispered to the empty darkness. “What’s wrong with me?” The sound of footsteps on grass made me look up. Through my blurred vision, I saw Theo approaching his earlier drunkenness seemingly burned away by concern. “Iris, hey” he said softly, crouching down in front of me. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out. Maybe you just need more time or -” He stopped mid-sentence, his entire body going rigid. His eyes glazed over, pupils dilating and I watched as something fundamental shifted in his expression. His wolf was talking to him. And based on the way his face drained of color as he stared at me, I knew exactly what his wolf was saying. Mate. My heart leaped. Even without Aeris’s voice in my head to confirm it, I felt a pull toward him ;like an invisible thread connecting us that had always been there but was only now visible. “Theo,” I breathed hope flooding through me despite everything. “You feel it too right? We’re -” “No.” The word was harsh and just final. He stood up abruptly backing away from me like I was diseased. “No, no, no. This can’t be happening.” He ran his hands through his hair looking almost panicked. “Anyone but you, Iris. Anyone.” The hope in my chest shattered into jagged pieces. “What?” My voice came out broken. “You don’t have a wolf, Iris!” He gestured at me wildly. “You just proved it in front of the entire pack! I’m going to be Alpha of Gravefang Pack. I need a strong Luna by my side, someone who can fight, who can lead, who can give me powerful heirs. Not…” he trailed off looking at me with something close to disgust. “Not whatever you are.” “But we’re mates,” I whispered standing on shaking legs. “The bond-” “The bond is a mistake.” His voice turned cold and I barely recognized him. This wasn’t my best friend. This was the future Alpha, calculating and cruel. “I’ve been seeing Marissa from the Silver Fang pack. She’s strong, beautiful, from good bloodlines. She’ll make a perfect Luna. You? You’re a liability I can’t afford.” Each word was a knife between my ribs. “Theo, please-” “I, Theo Gravefang, reject you, Iris Magnus as my mate and future Luna.” The words hung in the air between us. I waited for the pain and the agony that was supposed to come with rejection. But there was nothing, just a hollow emptiness where the brief flicker of our bond had been. Maybe because I didn’t have a wolf to feel it properly. Maybe I was too broken even for rejection to hurt the way it should. Theo turned and walked away without another word, his shoulders tense leaving me alone in the darkness. I stood there for a long moment, my birthday dress dirty and torn, tears drying on my cheeks. Then I made my decision right there and then. I couldn’t stay in Gravefang Pack after this. Not after being humiliated in front of everyone, rejected by my best friend and abandoned by my parents’ expectations. Tomorrow morning I will leave for the human world. And I would never ever look back.