The Alpha's Fake Girlfriend

Not Human

The growl still echoed in Seraphina's ears as Alaric's eyes flickered between red and gold, fighting for control. She didn't step back. She'd learned that much already tonight — that stepping back only seemed to make it worse, that whatever was tethering him to himself right now ran straight through the space between them.

"That's not funny, Alaric."

"I'm not laughing." He held her gaze, and for the first time since she'd walked back into his life, she saw something in his face that looked like fear — not for himself, but for her.

Seraphina crossed her arms, half to steady her hands. "I've had blood drawn my whole life. Every checkup, every physical for medical school. Nothing has ever come back abnormal."

"Because nothing was looking for this." Alaric pushed himself up off the floor, steadier now with her hand still half-tangled in his. "Human panels don't test for dormant shifter markers. Ours do. And yours came back positive."

"Dormant." The strange word tasted odd in her mouth. "Meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning somewhere in you there's a wolf that's never woken up." He said it slowly, like he was still working out how to believe it himself. "Sealed. Suppressed. I don't know which. I've never seen a reading like it."

Seraphina laughed, short and disbelieving. "I would know if I had a wolf inside me, Alaric. I'd have felt something. Some pull, some sign, at some point in twenty-five years."

"Would you?" His eyes were steady on hers. "Because my wolf knew you the second you walked into that clinic. He didn't hesitate. He didn't question it. And wolves don't calm for humans, Seraphina. Not like that. Not ever."

Before she could answer, a fist hit the door — three hard knocks, urgent, loud enough that Seraphina flinched.

"Alpha." One of his guards, voice tight through the wood. "Cassian's called an emergency Council line. He's telling them the new Luna's blood panel came back flagged, and he wants it reviewed tonight, before the Summit clock even starts."

Alaric's whole body went rigid. "How does he know about the panel already?"

"Someone in the healer's office. We don't know who yet, Alpha. We're already questioning the staff."

Seraphina's stomach dropped. "If they review it themselves and find what you just told me—"

"They won't find the same thing I found." Alaric was already moving, pulling a shirt over his shoulders, voice clipped and fast. "I ran that test through my personal healer, not the pack system. Cassian's pulling from an old registry — a preliminary scan, incomplete data. It'll show an anomaly, not an answer. But it buys him exactly what he wants: a reason to keep pushing."

"Which is?"

"An excuse to demand a full mate-bond verification in front of the entire Council." He opened the door, then paused, looking back at her with something like an apology. "If that happens before the Summit, before I understand what we're dealing with, they'll test the bond itself. And a fake mate bond does not survive that test, Seraphina. It shows up as exactly what it is. Nothing."

The Council line convened in the great hall within the hour — five elders on video, faces stern and ancient, Cassian standing smug at Alaric's shoulder like a man already counting his inheritance. Firelight flickered across the stone walls, and Seraphina felt every camera on the feed studying her like she was already on trial.

"Alpha Voss found his Luna with remarkable speed," Cassian said smoothly, before Alaric had even finished sitting. "I only ask, for the pack's protection, that we confirm the bond is genuine. A preliminary reading from her intake exam shows irregularities."

One of the elders, a silver-haired woman with tired eyes, studied Seraphina over the video feed. "Irregularities, Cassian, or incomplete data? I'd remind the Council that partial scans have flagged false anomalies before."

"With respect, Elder Maren, I'd rather we err on the side of caution. The pack deserves certainty."

Alaric's hand found Seraphina's under the table, out of sight, gripping hard enough that she understood without a word: steady me.

"The full bond verification requires the Alpha and his mate to complete a moon-lit binding ceremony," Elder Maren said. "That is not a small request, Cassian. It cannot be undone once performed. Are you certain you want to force that on your Alpha during a crisis with his wolf?"

Cassian's confidence flickered, just slightly, a c***k in his composure. "I only want proof."

"Then you shall have thirty days like everyone else, per the Summit terms already agreed upon," Elder Maren said, and something in her voice closed the matter like a door shutting. "If the bond does not hold by the Summit, we will know then. Attempting to force it early, on unstable readings, risks destabilizing the Alpha further. That risk falls on your head, Cassian, not mine."

The feed cut. Cassian's jaw ticked with barely restrained fury before he composed himself and walked out without another word, though not before his eyes landed on Seraphina one last time — long enough to feel like a promise.

Alaric exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for an hour. "Thirty days. She bought us thirty days."

"For now." Seraphina pulled her hand free, only realizing then how hard she'd truly been shaking. "He's not going to stop, Alaric. He's going to keep pulling at threads until one of them unravels the whole story."

"I know."

"And when it does — when he finds out I'm not just a fake Luna but whatever this is—" she gestured vaguely at herself, at the blood panel, at the entire impossible night — "he won't need the Council's permission to move against us. He'll have proof handed to him."

Alaric turned to face her fully, closer than rule one allowed, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to hold his eyes. "Then we don't let him find proof. We figure out what you are before he does. Before the Summit. Before—"

He stopped himself.

"Before what?"

"Before this stops being something I can protect you from."

The words landed heavier than either of them expected. Seraphina stepped back first, putting air between them, because the alternative was standing there and letting the moment become something rule three explicitly forbade. It would have been easy, she realized — dangerously easy — to let herself lean into whatever gravity kept pulling them closer, contract or no contract, rules or no rules.

"I need to see the blood panel myself," she said instead, voice steadier than she felt. "If I'm going to trust that I'm not human, Alaric, I want to see the proof with my own eyes. Tonight. I've spent my whole career trusting data over instinct. I'm not about to stop now, not even for you."

Alaric studied her for a long moment, weighing something behind his expression she couldn't quite read, the firelight throwing shadows across his face that made him look older than twenty-nine. "There's something else you should know before we go down there."

"What?"

"The suppression marker isn't just present. It's old. Decades old, according to the initial reading." His voice had gone careful, measured, like a man testing weight on ice he wasn't sure would hold. "Which means whoever sealed your wolf away didn't do it recently. They did it when you were an infant. Before you could remember. Before anyone could ask you a single question about it."

Seraphina's chest went tight. "My parents never mentioned anything unusual. No rituals, no ceremonies, nothing." Her voice wavered, memories of birthday candles and ordinary suburban afternoons crowding uselessly into her mind, none of it offering any answers now.

"Then either they didn't know," Alaric said quietly, gently, "or they knew exactly what they were hiding, and hid it well enough that even you never suspected a thing."

The thought settled over her like ice water, and for a moment neither of them spoke, the great hall's dying fire the only sound between them. Seraphina wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly aware of how much colder the room felt than it had ten minutes ago, as if the truth itself carried its own chill.

"Follow me," Alaric said finally. "But once you see it, there's no unseeing it. Whatever you are, Seraphina — it's been hidden for twenty-five years. And something out there wanted it to stay that way."

She followed him down into the healer's wing without another word, her pulse loud in her own ears, already dreading whatever waited for her at the bottom of those stairs — and dreading, more than that, how easily she'd started trusting the man who'd broken her heart three years ago to be the one guiding her through it now, when trusting him at all still felt like the most dangerous decision she'd made all night.

At the bottom of the stairwell, the healer's wing waited in silence, its lights humming low, and somewhere beyond that door sat an answer neither of them was ready for.