The Alpha's Fake Girlfriend

Seraphina Lark hadn't seen Alaric Voss in three years. She still recognized the sound of his footsteps before she saw his face. Heavy. Unhurried. Like the floor owed him something. She looked up from her clipboard and the coffee cup slipped from her hand, shattering on the clinic's tile floor. "Alpha Voss." "Doctor Lark." His voice hadn't changed. Still low, still rough, like gravel wrapped in silk. His eyes had changed, though. Three years ago they'd been gold. Now they were rimmed in red, like something inside him was clawing to get out. "You shouldn't be here." She bent to pick up the broken glass, hands shaking. "Humans work here. If your wolf—" "My wolf is the reason I'm here." Two of his men closed the clinic door behind him and flipped the sign to CLOSED. Seraphina's pulse spiked. "What is this?" Alaric pulled a folder from his coat and set it on the exam table between them. His hand trembled when he let go of it. Alphas didn't tremble. She'd never once, in the two years she loved him, seen his hands shake. "Sit down, Seraphina." "I don't take orders from you anymore." Something flickered behind his eyes — pain, maybe, or the wolf surfacing. He exhaled through his teeth like he was holding a door shut with his shoulder. "Please." She sat. Not because he asked. Because she'd never heard him say *please* in her life. "Three months ago my mate died." His jaw worked. "Rogue attack. Since then my wolf has been... unraveling. The pack healers ran every test. Every ritual. Nothing holds him back anymore." "I'm sorry for your loss. I don't see what this has to do with—" "The healers found a way to slow it. A scent bond. Something in my wolf's memory that calms him." He looked at her then, really looked, and she felt it like a hand closing around her throat. "It's yours." The room tilted. "That's not possible," she said. "I'm human. I have no wolf. You made that very clear the day you rejected me." "I know what I said." His voice cracked on the last word, just barely, just enough that she almost believed the ache in it. "I was wrong. I don't know how. I don't know why. But the healers are certain. Your scent is the only thing keeping me from going feral, Seraphina. And I have thirty days before it stops working at all." "Thirty days until what?" "Until my wolf takes over completely. Until there's nothing left in this body that's still me." He opened the folder and slid it toward her. "The Elder Council gave me an ultimatum. Present a Luna at the Alpha Summit in thirty days, mated and bonded, or I lose the title. The pack goes to my cousin. Ten thousand wolves under a man who'd bleed them dry for profit." Seraphina stared down at the contract. Numbers. Clauses. Her name already typed at the bottom, waiting for a signature. *Two million dollars.* Her stomach dropped. She thought of Elian — six years old, tubes in his arm, the surgeon's voice last week saying *we're running out of time* — and she hated Alaric Voss a little more for making her think of her brother's face in the same breath as this man's money. "You want me to pretend," she said slowly, "to be your mate." "For thirty days. Public appearances. The Summit. Then I sign your divorce papers myself and you never see me again." He said it flat, rehearsed, like he'd practiced the words in a mirror so they wouldn't shake when they left his mouth. "I know what I did to you. I know two million dollars doesn't buy that back. But it's what I have to offer." "And if I say no?" Alaric's hand curled into a fist on the table. When he spoke again, something raw broke through the calm. "Then I die. My wolf finishes what the rejection started three years ago, except this time it takes the whole pack with it. Ten thousand wolves, Seraphina. Women. Children. Pups who haven't shifted yet. All of it, gone, because I couldn't hold on." Silence stretched between them, thick as smoke. She thought about walking out. She thought about every night she'd cried into a pillow at twenty-two because the man in front of her had looked at her in front of the whole pack and said *a weak omega can't be Luna.* She thought about how good it would feel to say *no* and watch it cost him everything. Then she thought about Elian's small hand in hers, and the surgery bill sitting unopened on her kitchen counter because she couldn't bear to look at the number again. "Rules," she said. "If I do this. There have to be rules." Something in Alaric's shoulders loosened, just slightly, like a man realizing the ground beneath him hadn't given way yet. "Name them." "No touching unless it's for the cameras. No kissing unless it's absolutely required. And you will *never* fall in love with me, Alpha Voss, because I already gave you that chance once and you handed it back." His jaw tightened, but he nodded. "Agreed. And I'll add one of my own. Don't fall in love with me either. This ends in thirty days no matter what my wolf wants." "Your wolf doesn't get a vote." "You'd think that." A ghost of something — not quite a smile — crossed his face. "He's been fighting me since the moment you walked into this room. He recognized you before I did." Seraphina's hand hovered over the pen. "Why me? Out of every omega, every she-wolf in the North Pack territory — why does your wolf calm down for a human doctor he rejected three years ago?" Something shifted in Alaric's expression. Guarded. Careful. Like a man stepping around a hole in the floor he didn't want her to see. "The healers don't know," he said. "Neither do I." It was a lie. She could hear it in the half-second pause before he spoke, the way his eyes slid to the window instead of holding hers. She'd learned to read that particular silence a long time ago, back when she used to believe every word out of his mouth. But two million dollars was two million dollars, and Elian didn't have time for her to chase down whatever Alaric Voss was hiding. She picked up the pen. The moment the tip touched paper, Alaric sucked in a sharp breath like he'd been struck. His eyes flashed gold, then red, then gold again, fighting for control. A low sound rumbled out of his chest — not quite a growl, not quite a groan — and the windows of the clinic rattled in their frames. "Alaric?" Seraphina froze, pen still pressed to the page. "What's happening to you—" "Sign it," he ground out, gripping the exam table so hard the metal groaned under his fingers. "Sign it *now*, Seraphina, before—" His eyes went fully red. And for one terrifying second, the man staring back at her wasn't Alaric Voss at all.